She didn’t comment on my rudeness and laid some brochures out on the table between us. I ignored those, too.

“One other point before you go, Seb,” she said, back in her officer voice. “I’ve been asked to point out that Miss Venzi has been requested not to report on anything she has seen or heard while in this facility. And I will remind you that your work with Military Intelligence remains classified. You will not speak of it … ever. You understand me?”

I nodded curtly. I didn’t need to be reminded of my duty.

At the end of the session, an orderly wheeled me outside and left me under a tree. I needed to be alone to think, but Caro found me.

“Hi.”

I couldn’t even look at her, let alone reply. I was so fucking angry that she’d talked to the shrink.

“How’d it go?” she persisted, sitting on the bench beside me and resting her hand on my arm.

I shrugged it away from her, trying to ignore the flash of hurt that I saw too often in her beautiful brown eyes.

She lifted her hand away. I thought she’d get up and leave, but she didn’t.

“I just saw Dr. Banner,” she began carefully. “She said you left these information brochures behind.”

“Toss them in the trash,” I snapped.

“Excuse me?”

“Are you fucking deaf? I said toss them! I don’t fucking want them.”

Caro took a deep breath.

“I’ve read through them, and although you won’t qualify for a medical pension because you haven’t done your 20 years, you’ll still receive between a third and half of your current salary … as a disabled veteran.”

My temper shattered.

“I won’t take it,” I shouted.

“What? Why not?”

“I just won’t.”

“Sebastian, you deserve that,” she whispered, her voice cracking as she said my name. “After everything you’ve been through…”

“I’m not fucking taking it, Caro. I’m 27. I don’t want fucking disability pay!”

“Okay, tesoro. That’s your choice.”

I wanted her to fight me. I wanted her tell me I was an asshole. I wanted her to leave and walk away because I wasn’t anything now; I wasn’t the man she should marry. I wasn’t a man.

“You could take college courses through the GI Bill,” she said softly.

I growled under my breath and she was silent for nearly a minute.

“You did well today, Sebastian”, she said, her voice strained. “The physical therapist says you’re making good progress. He says you’ll be able to use crutches more often and for greater distances. Maybe in a few months, with the help of a walking stick…”

I grunted again, noncommittal.

She sighed, then took a deep breath.

“I’ve been thinking I should go back to Long Beach. Just to make sure everything is okay at home. I want to try and start working a bit more…”

I’d expected this. I’d been waiting for her to say she didn’t want to be with me anymore, but now it had happened, I felt like she’d ripped my still-beating heart out of my chest and stamped it into the mud.

“You’re leaving me.”

It was a statement, not a question.

She gasped, and her expression was broken. For the first time, she looked her age: I could see gray hairs at her temples, and the lines around her eyes had deepened over the last two months.

“No, tesoro!” she choked out. “Why would you say that? No, never!”

“Don’t fucking lie to me, Caro,” I shouted. “You’ve made it pretty fucking obvious you don’t want to be here. Just fucking go!”

And I turned away from her.

I think she was trying to speak, but the words weren’t making it past her lips. I clicked the brakes off of the chair and started to move away, ignoring the firey pain shooting through my left shoulder.

“Please, Sebastian,” she begged, reaching out to touch my arm. “That’s not what I’m saying: I just wanted to … try and get some … some normalcy. I’d visit on weekends.”

I shrugged her off.

“Don’t fucking drag it out, Caro,” I asserted, my voice cold and bitter. “I’m not completely fucking dumb.”

She stood suddenly and the movement made me look up.

“Damn you, Sebastian!” she screamed. “I’m not leaving you! You’ll never get rid of me, so you can just stop trying. Right now.”

I wanted to believe her, but I couldn’t.

“Whatever,” I said.

Seven days later, the Physical Evaluation Board Liaison Officer told me that the PEB would, ‘authorize my disability separation, with disability benefits, as I had been found unfit and my condition was incompatible with continued military service’.

I was no longer in the Corps.

The flight from DC to JFK was short—60 minutes, tops.

There was a moment at Dulles airport when I seriously thought about getting on the first flight to California. Part of me wanted to, but I couldn’t do it. I couldn’t land myself on Ches, but I didn’t want to be with Caro either. Not like this. Not when everything between us was so unequal.

I had nothing to offer her and she had no future with me. And I couldn’t help thinking she was only with me now out of loyalty; I was dreading the day when I saw hatred in her eyes. I’d seen every other emotion: frustration, annoyance, anger, fear, love as well, I think. But I also saw pity. That was the worst.

She’d arranged a taxi to drive us from the airport to her place on Long Beach. But she’d also requested a wheelchair to take me through the airport. No way. No fucking way was I going to be wheeled around anymore. I didn’t care how much agony I was in; I was fucking walking out of there.

She argued. I argued back.

“I’m not fucking using it, Caro, so just drop it,” I snarled.

She dropped it, and then watched me move through the terminal building on two crutches at a slow crawl. My left shoulder was burning with the effort and sweat was running down my back by the time we got to the taxi.

The driver talked the whole way, but I ignored him. I figured Caro was polite enough for both of us, so I just stared out the window, so lost in my thoughts that I was surprised when I saw the ocean in the distance, deep blue in the late evening sun. I felt a flicker of something that might have been hope, but it was soon extinguished by the darkness that filled me.

When we arrived at Caro’s bungalow, the driver collected our bags from the trunk and tossed them onto the porch. The thought of putting weight on those crutches again made me nauseous, but I grit my teeth and struggled out of the car. I’d been a fucking Marine. Yeah, so? Now I was nothing.

The driver was staring at me.

“Dude, what happened to your leg?”

“Bomb.”

“Say what?”

“Bomb: got blown up.”

“Cool!”

I didn’t even bother to reply to the asshole. I started to get some money out of my wallet, but Caro was quicker and had paid the driver before I’d even gotten my hand in my pocket. I was too pathetic even to pay for a fucking taxi.

I forced my body to carry on, and made my way into Caro’s living room. I was so exhausted, I couldn’t take much in. It was small, but it looked homey. Her home. This was just a pit stop for me. I was still in transit, and the sooner I got used to that idea, the better.

“Do you want to lie down, tesoro?” Caro asked quietly.

I opened my eyes, and she looked at me with so much compassion. I hated it.

“I’ll stay here for a while.”

But the words spun around my brain. I wouldn’t be staying here for long. If I could just get back enough physically, I’d go to San Diego—get some night security job and drink myself to death. Put everyone out of their misery.

“Okay,” she said hesitantly. “Well, I’ll put your bags in the spare room for now. We can go through them later.”

I didn’t answer.

She was gone less than a minute before she was in my face again.