The One That Got Away

“You okay? I didn’t think you landed that hard earlier.” Of course he noticed; she should have known.

Monique shook her head. “Wasn’t you.” In retrospect she didn’t know why she’d thrown out a perfectly good excuse like that.

Enzo’s brow furrowed. “No?” Her reps were speeding up way past a point that could have been comfortable with an injury, but he forced a casual shrug. “I thought at least the VA hospital would make sure you were tip top before they discharged you.”

Monique’s arms paused mid-pushup as she froze in place. “I bet there’s plenty you don’t know,” she eventually joked, but her voice was strained. Pair that with the way her neck dropped to hide her face and Enzo saw the avoidance in her clear as anything. He didn’t like it, but Monique was where she was—he could push gently.

“Guess I don’t rank high enough to get the scoop on that, huh?”

Monique winced as the ache in her shoulder turned into more of a stab. She flipped over to switch to crunches. “It’s a boring story anyway.”

“All right, never mind. You know how much I like to be entertained.” Monique’s heart left her throat when Enzo leaned back against the bleachers, conceding his hunt for details with another reassuring, overblown grin.

She knew what he was doing by laying it on so thick—keeping things light; giving her space—and she was so, so grateful for that. She just wished he could do something about the sympathetic look in his eyes, because the longer Monique felt them on her the more she wanted to scream.

He doesn’t know, Monique reminded herself. But the way Enzo was watching her felt so much like the way Cruz had—in that suffocating medical tent and even more in the weeks after. Cautious. Worried. Too understanding. Monique stepped up her crunches, hoping the burn they caused might derail her train of thought.

No luck.

She’d never seen pity in Derek’s eyes, and not even a hint of blame. Part of Monique wished she had, because her own head was spinning with it and having someone echo her self-recrimination might have made her feel less alone. Less crazy. She always seemed to be letting people down. It was annoying.

It was my job to take care of maintenance. To find that bomb before it went off. And instead…

No—she’d been down that path before, and Monique really didn’t like what she found there. She was glad to have exertion as a cover for her increasingly harsh breaths; for the pained curl of her lips; for the maddening sheen of tears that she’d thought, optimistically, she had finally shaken off. Too much more and she knew that Derek would see right through her, though—she needed to focus.

What are three things you can hear? she tried, continuing her workout as she fought to center herself. Be here, not in Afghanistan.

One: the blood pounding in her ears. Two: cars driving by on the street outside. Three: the creak of Enzo’s shoes against the floor as he shifted position.

Her breathing slowed a bit. Good. Three things you can see.

The dust motes circling the rafter lights as she curled backward. The heavy bags across the room, visible when she curled up. The bare expanse of her stomach—sweat-slicked, taut…

Not growing. Not pregnant. A sob tore free before Monique could stop it.

Damn it.

“Take a breath,” Derek’s soft voice instructed as she buried tear-filled eyes in the heels of her hands. “It’s all good, Monique; it’s just us here.”

He was watching again—Monique felt it as she choked back the tremors in her throat—and she needed to deflect before he really reacted. It wasn’t that Enzo didn’t know about her past; hell they’d been in too many foxholes together not to bare souls. But he thought she was over it. Over losing the baby, over her…ex..husband…. People miscarried all the time; that wasn’t suspicious. It was just that Monique really couldn’t talk about it.

But as hard as she tried to make a plan, her mind was roaring with a white noise that she couldn’t think past. When she shifted her palms and found Enzo’s feet in her field of view, she still didn’t know what to say.

“Sorry,” was all she managed, voice crackling.

“No, come on. I don’t want to hear that,” Enzo chastised. Monique felt a rustling as he settled beside her; felt his hand rest carefully on her back. His voice was the gentlest she’d ever heard it. “I miss her too, Monique.”

The reassurance made Monique gasp out a startled laugh. It was relieved, tearful, and totally inappropriate for the moment, but she knew Derek wouldn’t fault her for that.

She didn’t correct his assumption. She did miss Emily, desperately. It just wasn’t in the same way that he did.

For her, Emily was just out of reach. Monique couldn’t contact her; couldn’t ask her how she felt or if she was safe. She had no way to reassure herself when she woke up haunted by the way Emily had crumbled and then steeled herself in the space of a blink when the bomb had gone off. But Monique guessed the loss was just too near, too fresh; too unbelievable. Guilt on guilt on guilt. She really didn’t think she could live like this much longer; something had to give.

Enzo, though—he missed Emily in a way that meant dealing with her being gone forever, and that made it easy for him to read his own grief into what he saw in Monique. Part of her worried that he would look back at these times with recrimination and regret once he really realized how culpable she was. But it felt good to grieve her own loss while she had something else to hide behind.

Thank God for Emily, her mind supplied. I can’t hide this myself. It took Monique a stunned moment to register that, for a second, she’d actually been grateful for the worst trauma in her friend’s life. The thought made her blood run cold. She swallowed back a swell of nausea.

Enzo reacted to her sudden pallor by sliding his water next to Monique, leaving it there for her to ignore. “Deep breaths,” he repeated. Monique complied, and it helped a bit. She nodded her thanks as Enzo’s hand ran in gentle strokes across her shoulders.