“The moon?”
”It was something we did…” She smiled through her tears, remembering her chubby little girl finger, pointing at the glass. “At night, he would show me the moon out my window before he put me to bed… so whenever I was hurt, he’d try to distract me, tell me to remember the moon… think about the moon…”
Zach nodded, just holding her.
“I think I got to the point where I became the moon,” she whispered, closing her eyes. She could see it, tucked neatly into one square pane of glass. “I went to the moon whenever he touched me, Zach. I went away. Whenever anyone touches me, that’s where I go. And tonight… I went there, too. I felt like I swallowed the moon tonight, and it burned…”
“Oh baby…” He gave a deep, shaky sigh, swallowing hard. “Can I ask… what about your mother?”
“I tried… once.” Lindsey shook her head. “She wouldn’t listen. She didn’t want to know.” Her lip trembled and she pulled the comforter tighter around her. “She always loved him more than she ever loved me.”
“Oh no…” His denial didn’t make it not true, and she blinked back more tears.
“And after that… I just wanted someone to pick me up and tell me it was going to be okay, you know?” She felt him nodding. “But there was never… anyone. And it felt like… like I just kept falling down… over and over… and there was no one there…”
“To catch you?”
She nodded her assent, her throat closed tight.
“I promise you…” Zach’s voice was hard, but his hands, cupping her face, were tender. “No one is ever going to hurt you again. And I will always, always be there to catch you, Lindsey.”
She wanted to deny his words, to tell him she didn’t need him-she didn’t need anyone-but that part of her was far away now. He’d managed to find a way into the biggest, most secret part of herself, and she couldn’t push him away anymore.
“I don’t care how hard or how far you fall,” he murmured, kissing her wet eyelids, her cheeks, her lips. “I promise I will be there to catch you.”
“I’m sorry,” she choked, wrapping her arms around his neck, pressing against him. “I’m so sorry. I love you so much, and I am so, so…” His kiss stopped her, his mouth hard, too hard, and she cried out. He stopped, panting, and she felt the anger in him. “No, I’m the one who’s sorry.” He sighed, his fingers moving over her sore, tender lips. “I’m sorry all of that happened to you. I’m sorry you think it was your fault, that you deserved…” He shook his head, swallowing the words. “Lindsey, if I could take it back… if I could get my hands on him in a dark alley somewhere…”
“It doesn’t matter,” she murmured, throwing a leg over his and snuggling in closer. “None of it matters anymore. I have you now… I have someone, a place to be, to feel safe.”
“Oh damnit…” His arms tightened again. “This is so not the right time to tell you this…”
Her head came up sharply, her heart thudding. “Tell me what?”
“…I’m leaving.” He winced when she gasped, sounding as if she’d been punched. “I’m being deployed to Iraq.”
“Again?” She frowned, feeling indignant. Just how much time could one man serve for his country, she thought selfishly.
He sighed. “I go when they tell me to go, baby.”
“I don’t want you to go.” She pouted, trying to imagine her life without him, and found it more than a little difficult.
“And I don’t want to go.” He leaned back on his pillow, throwing an arm over his head, and stared up at the ceiling.
She approached him cautiously. “You can’t get out of it?”
“You can’t tell the U.S. Navy no, sweetheart.” The flash of his smile gleamed in the dark. “But here’s the thing…” He sat up on his elbow, earnest now. “I want you to stay here. Stay here and wait for me.”
“Wait?” The word felt weighted in her mouth.
“You’re graduating in a few weeks. I’ll probably be gone through the summer, no more…”
The whole summer? She sighed. “When are you going?”
“June twenty-sixth.”
“So soon?” She heard the whine in her voice and tried to curb it. That was only a few weeks after graduation.
“I’m sorry.” He leaned back again, this time throwing his arm over his eyes. “It’s terrible timing.”
They were quiet for a while. Lindsey watched him, his chest rising and falling, and wondered what he was thinking. “I don’t want to stay here without you,” she said finally. ”This is… this is your home, not mine. I don’t belong here.”
“Yes you do,” he insisted, up on his elbow again. His eyes flashed in the dimness. “Want me to prove it? We’ll go the justice of the peace tomorrow.” She laughed, incredulous. “Was that a proposal?”
“Yeah,” he said, serious, reaching out for her hand. His swallowed hers as he squeezed and then pressed her palm to his lips. “Yeah, it was. Lindsey, will you marry me?”
Her heart soared, but she tried to make light of it, still. She snorted and gave him a shove. “A shotgun wedding?”
She heard him grinning. “Well, for it to be a real shotgun wedding, you’d have to be pregnant… not that I’d object.” His hand moved over the smooth, flat expanse of her belly, but she pushed him away, sitting up and swinging her legs over the side of the bed.
“Where are you going?” His hand moved to encircle her wrist.
“I don’t know,” she whispered, closing her eyes. “Zach…I can’t get pregnant. Not anymore.”
He sat up then, too, moving in behind her. She leaned her head back against his chest and told him her last, biggest secret. “He made me get an abortion after that first time.” She felt him stiffen, but she went on anyway, needing to tell someone, needing to tell him. “And then, you know, he got me the pill. But I stopped taking them.” She laughed in the dark, remembering how angry, how defiant, how ridiculously naive she had been. “I thought maybe, if I had a baby, my mom would have to…”
“Oh Jesus.” He rested his forehead against her hair.
“But it’s never happened.” She shrugged. She had stopped worrying about it a long time ago. What kind of mother would she ever be, after all, she reasoned. “All this time…I’ve never gotten pregnant. And I haven’t exactly been careful.”
“Oh, baby I’m so sorry…” He wrapped his arms around her waist, pulling her into his lap, her back against his chest, rocking her. “It doesn’t matter. I love you. You. Do you get that?”
She nodded. She did get it-for the first time, maybe ever. Turning in his arms, she straddled him, up on her knees, to give him a long, tender kiss. She felt him smile against her lips.
“Well the good news is the hospital says I’m clean,” she whispered into his ear.
“Not even one STD. You know what that means?”
He chuckled. “Is that a yes?”
“Oh yes,” she agreed, wiggling in his lap.
“Not that.” He laughed, pulling her back into bed, covering them both. “That can wait.”
“To what, then?” she teased. “Your romantic proposal?”
“What else?” He snorted.
She hesitated, biting her lip. “It’s a definite maybe.”
“Well then you better sleep on it some more.” He squeezed his arm around her shoulder as she snuggled up and rested her head on his chest. “My alarm’s going to go off in another hour so I can check on you.”
She groaned, rolling her eyes before closing them and drifting almost immediately into the soundest sleep she could ever remember.