Refusing to take my eyes off of the woman across the room, the one I walked through fire for just to make myself whole again so I could come back to her, I reach over and grab onto the front of Bobby’s shirt and pull him into my line of sight.

“You knew about this when you told me it was high time for me to come back here, didn’t you?”

Even though I planned on coming back as soon as I started healing and realized I could live a normal life if I wanted to, the phone call from Bobby urging me to do it soon because it was “time” was enough to get my ass in gear and start the process of getting the okay from my counselors to go back into the real world.

Bobby just shrugs, taking another sip of his beer and ignoring the furious clutch of my hand on his shirt and the daggers I keep shooting his way in between glances over at Lucy and her fucking “date”.

“Dude, you’ve lived on this island all your life. People can’t take a shit without their next-door neighbor knowing what size and color it is. Do you really think Lucy would be able to start dating someone and the whole island wouldn’t know about it five seconds after it happened?”

I tear my eyes away from Lucy when I see her rest her hand on top of that douchebag’s she’s sharing a table with.

“I thought you said she was ‘on’ a date, not ‘dating.’ Which is it? Is she on a date or is she dating him? There’s a big difference between those two things, so pick your words wisely,” I tell Bobby, trying not to let my voice rise to shout level, even though I’m about two seconds away from screaming my fucking head off.

Bobby calmly removes my hand from his shirt and takes a step back, crossing his arms in front of him. “His name is Stanford and he works for your father at the main branch of the bank on the mainland. Your father hired him to do some auditing work for a few of the businesses and Trip asked him to take a look at Butler House’s books while he was here. He asked Lucy out a month ago and she said yes. They go out every time he’s on the island, which is pretty fucking often, if you ask me,” Bobby rambles. “And really, what kind of a fucking name is Stanford? It’s a school, not a dude. Fucking pussy.”

Bobby keeps complaining about that asshole’s name, but I tune him out, staring at Lucy across the room and wishing I could hate her. She moved on. She wasn’t supposed to move on. She was supposed to love ME forever, be with ME forever. She’s even more beautiful than every memory or photo I have of her. In a light blue wrap-around dress, I can see every curve of her body and the color of the dress highlights her summer tan, showcasing the freckles she always tries to hide with make-up. She crosses her slim legs to the side of the table and my hands itch to run my palms up the smooth skin of them and feel them wrapping around my waist. I miss her smell and her laugh and her touch so much that I want to drop down on my knees in the middle of this fucking bar and sob like a baby.

Of course she moved on. Of course she stopped loving me. I looked her right in the eye and told her she didn’t deserve me and that she was weak and pathetic for sticking around, waiting for me as long as she had. I broke her and I hurt her in the worst imaginable way and then I walked out. I never deserved her and she should have always known that, always felt that, always believed that. I just want her to be happy. I want her to smile easily and laugh often. I see her doing it with that fuckwad across the bar, but I don’t care. I know it’s selfish and I know it’s weak, but I don’t fucking care. If I were a better man I would walk away, leave this island and never look back. I would let her have this happiness that she deserves even if it killed everything inside of me.

Too bad I’m not a better man. It should be me. It was always me and it’s still going to be me, dammit.

With Bobby calling my name and telling me not to do anything stupid, I clutch my drink in my hand to keep me from throwing any punches and make my way across the room to MY Lucy.

Chapter 5

Lucy

April 8, 2014 – 1:45 PM

“Fisher, please, don’t do this!” I beg through my tears as I stand in the doorway of our bedroom with my arms wrapped around my waist and watch him stalk around the room.

He yanks my clothes from the hangers in the closet and rips them out of the drawers of my dresser, shoving everything into the two open suitcases he has lying on top of the bed.

For two months he’s barely said more than a few words to me and now he’s done a complete one-eighty, saying more than I ever wanted to hear.

“We’re done. This is over. I’m packing your shit and you’re leaving!” he barks, grabbing my books and reading glasses off the nightstand and tossing them on top of the clothes.

I race across the room and grab onto his arm, determined to make him see reason, but he jerks out of my grasp and goes back to the closet, snatching up my shoes and piling them in his arms.

“Will you stop and just talk to me?” I yell, coming up behind him and reaching for the shoes in his hand.

He side-steps me, never even glancing in my direction.

“There’s nothing to talk about. It’s perfectly clear what’s going on here. Everything is fucked up, don’t you get that? It’s ruined, all of it is ruined and you need to fucking leave!” he yells as he slams the armful of shoes into the suitcase.

My body shakes with fear and the sobs that I’m trying so hard to contain. I’ve done everything I could. I’ve tried talking, I’ve tried ignoring things, I’ve tried reading books and speaking to other wives whose husbands have been deployed and nothing has worked. No suggestion was good enough and nothing I’ve done has broken through whatever walls Fisher has put up in his mind to keep me out. I made the mistake of casually suggesting over breakfast that maybe it was time for him to talk to a counselor and that’s when my world came to a screeching halt.