After the End Ch. 06

I scanned the evening gathering, searching for Delta, and caught him also watching Avery's form as it disappeared into the darkness. Whatever everyone else thought of our commander, I wasn't afraid of the man, legendary war hero or not. I was no slouch myself when it came to facing danger or protecting my own. I couldn't undo last week's events, but maybe I could change the outcome.

I waited until Delta gave the rest of his meal - also barely touched - to his friend Maurice and headed out. I followed him toward the command center, hurrying to catch up.

"Delta," I called when I was a few paces behind.

He paused and turned. "Rowan." He made my name a challenge, almost a threat.

"We need to talk," I said firmly, refusing to be intimidated.

"You have no right to talk to me about anything."

I stepped nearer and lowered my voice so that I wouldn't be overheard. "Look, Avery and I have been close since long before you showed up here, and he'll always mean a lot to me, but there's nothing else between us. What happened was just a bad combination of circumstances and lapsed judgment. It was unfair to you, and I'm truly sorry. But what you did was much worse."

Delta's expression darkened. "What I did? How dare you pass judgment on me."

I interrupted before he could stalk off. "Avery cares for you deeply, more than I thought he'd let himself care for anyone after what happened with his family. You convinced him that you loved him, yet the first time he made a mistake, you abandoned him. That's not love. Maybe it's easy for you to shut someone out of your life. But I don't know if Avery will ever get over you."

Delta's reply was bitterly sarcastic. "Yeah, I can tell he's torn up about it. Best thing that ever happened to his libido."

Suddenly I perceived the hurt behind the words. On some level, the imperious man in front of me was feeling abandoned too. Compassion softened my tone.

"Don't you know Avery any better than that? Can't you see he's in terrible pain? He's coping with a broken heart the best he can. Sure, he's attracted to women, but you're the only person he's ever wanted something real with. And you still are."

Delta maintained his silence, brows pulled down, not moving his gaze from my face. I hoped that meant he was listening.

"I know you still care about him too," I finished quietly. "You should forgive him before he really does move on."

With one more meaningful look, I left him to his brooding thoughts.

* * * * *

Julian:

I just wanted it to be over. I needed it to be far in the past where I'd never have to think about it again: the fool I'd made of myself, falling for the local playboy. What the hell kind of delusion had I been under, expecting to have a life with someone five years younger who'd never moved past casual sex? He guarded his emotions as closely as my family had guarded our private stock of gold and ammo, in an underground vault inside our heavily armored compound. He hadn't even been interested in men, for god's sake. I let him charm me into his brief experiment with homosexuality, and the second it ended, he started throwing down every attractive woman he laid eyes on. Like he'd just been waiting to be free of me. Like he was making up for all the time he'd wasted.

I hated to imagine what he was saying about me to his many friends and lovers. The secrets he knew, my sexual proclivities, the wounds I bore from my upbringing and my wars...all of it probably relegated to the punchline of jokes. He'd be able to coast on this feat for months: the only one to tame me, and still I wasn't enough for him.

I never should have let myself get involved. Worse than the betrayal or the humiliation or the loss was the fact that it had all been entirely preventable. After the mess of my last breakup, I'd known that entanglements of this sort almost always end badly. I should have stuck to solitude and silence.

He'd been upset when I told him to leave, but it was only natural that he'd become attached to the easy security of living with me. He wouldn't want to give it up, even after he'd broken our bond by sleeping with his best friend. Accidentally, as if that made it better. As if I'd be comforted that he simply forgot I existed until after he was finished fucking someone else.

I figured he would move on quickly, since it was so easy for him to discard our relationship. His behavior over the past week certainly suggested he had. Yet Rowan's words haunted me as I lay in bed that night. She seemed to believe that the flagrant promiscuity was a sign of grief, not relief. Was it possible that their story was true, that the infidelity was simply a mistake?

I didn't want to think about him, for any reason. But if she was right...

What you did was much worse. You abandoned him. Can't you see he's in terrible pain?

The accusations echoed long after I should have been asleep.

The next morning, I drilled the guards in the practice field as usual. The regularity of form and technique for effective fighting usually provided a chance to rest my mind. The correct angle for an elbow strike, how to transfer force without losing balance, the hours of practice needed to make a firearm worth carrying: these are scientifically determined. There is no room for sentiment or opinion. But today my concentration was divided, knowing that he - Avery - was nearby and possibly suffering. I winced internally as his name surfaced from where I had buried it.

Even though he didn't report to me anymore, it was my job to know how the community's labor was distributed on any given day. He would be outside the workshop near the practice field, helping build new nesting boxes for our community's growing flock of chickens, one of the more stable food sources in any climate. I'd already tried to clear my memories of him; I didn't want any new ones. But when I steeled myself for a glance in his direction, I found his gaze focused directly on me, while a serrated handsaw sat motionless in his grip. He hastily turned back to the board he'd been cutting, and I returned my attention to target practice, but new doubts rose. Had he often been watching me this way?

After practice, I dismissed the guards and headed toward the fort's north gate to check in with the captain. I stopped at a small shed where we kept tools and raw goods, to make sure my orders about storing weapons only in the armories were being followed. When I opened the wood plank door, instead of stray guns, I found Avery.

I probably should have left. But before he could spin to face the shelves, I saw tears on his dark lashes. I hesitated on the threshold as my eyes adjusted to the dim interior. The magnetic pull of Avery's distress was too powerful ignore, even now.

Cautiously, I stepped inside. "What's wrong?" I asked, almost without conscious intent.

He kept his back to me, and his voice was rough with suppressed emotion. "Nothing involving the security of the community."

"Does it involve me?"

He answered through thickening tears, broken in a way that tore at my heart. "You told me not to bother you, so please just go."

I wavered another moment, but I couldn't leave if there was a chance I'd been unnecessarily cruel to him. I shut the door behind me so we wouldn't be seen. There was no window, but some light leaked in under the eaves. Hearing the latch, Avery turned, as if expecting to be alone. When instead he found me only a few feet away in the small space, it proved too much for his composure. He covered his face with his hands and tried valiantly to stifle the sobs, but they broke out of his chest in jerking gasps.

If there was one thing that hurt me more than seeing Avery in pain, it was seeing him try to hide it from me. Immediately it became clear that regardless of what he had done or whether we were together, that hadn't changed.

I took a step closer and reached for his shoulder. "I shouldn't have said that. Just...come here."

With stunning intensity, he fell into my arms and clung to me, sobbing desperately. "I'm sorry, Julian - I'm so sorry, more than I've ever been in my life - I can't believe I did something so stupid and horrible to you - I would do anything to take it back!"

Completely caught by surprise, I held him mostly by reflex. Before I could gather a response, he choked down some air and kept going. Raw, vulnerable emotion poured out in words as well as in tears.

"I told you that you were too good for me and I was just a screwup, but you said you wanted to be with me anyway, but now when I do screw up, you just leave and act like you never even knew me..." The heaving sobs against my chest didn't slow. "I'm not like you; I can't just stop caring for you and stop needing you. I know it's your right to...hate me, but this is absolute hell. I'll never love anyone else like I do you. I miss you so much, I can't stand it."

I scrambled to reconcile what I was hearing with what he'd been doing every night since we'd been apart.

"I don't see how you could be missing me that much, with all your other company," I observed. "Seems to me like you've been enjoying yourself."

He shook his head, still crying helplessly. "Of course not! I was just trying to...survive. I thought I could distract myself at least for a while, but it never helps. Nothing helps. I can't - I can't even breathe."

The vast flood of Avery's anguish was putting dangerous strain on the dam I'd constructed to cut off my feelings for him. Each revelation eroded the beliefs I'd been so sure of all week. This boy weeping and shaking in my arms couldn't possibly have mistreated me through indifference. Empathy slipped toward remorse for my hasty conclusions.

"Ok," I consoled, rubbing between his shoulder blades. "Try to calm down. I didn't know you were still this upset."

Desolation welled undiluted from his depths. "I tried to tell you, but you wouldn't let me -"

My remorse rapidly degraded to guilt. Rowan was right. What I'd done was worse. Avery's cheating hadn't caused me nearly as much pain as the breakup had caused him.

"I'm sorry." I stroked his back some more, trying to soothe him with my touch. "I should have given you a chance to explain. I don't handle betrayal very well."

With an effort, he slowed his breathing and got control of his tears. Gently I guided him to face me.

"Avery, surely you can understand that if you were able to do what you did without even meaning to, it would seem like our relationship meant nothing to you." I forced out the rest despite the throb inside my rib cage. "Like I meant nothing to you."

He swallowed and dredged quiet words from his scoured throat.

"But it's not true. You mean everything to me, Julian." One of his hands tightened, as if to keep from reaching for me again. "I hadn't even considered being with anyone else in so long...I was just caught off guard. I switched back into my old habits without realizing it. I would never let it happen again, now that I know what to watch out for."

I weighed his sincerity against my determination not to repeat the experience of last week. "You preferred women your whole life until last year. It may be a permanent need in your constitution."

He shook his head. "I don't need to be with anyone except you."

"Maybe not today, because you had your fill already. What about next time you get bored with me?"

He looked away and dug his nails into his palms. His stance shifted and his voice grew huskier. "I don't - I wasn't bored. The casual stuff with women is not even comparable to being with you. I would rather give up sex completely than risk losing you again."

I sighed. The dam inside me was barely holding together. Might as well go for broke at this point.

"I need to know that this isn't just about what you want, Avery. I'm not your security blanket. You expect me to lay everything out, to make everything safe for you, yet you give me so little in return. This is probably the most I've heard in eight months about how you feel. You leave me to infer what I can from your behavior, which, when something like this happens, forces me to question all of it. A relationship has to go both ways. Does my wellbeing matter to you, or just your own?"

Avery stared at me, taken aback by my speech, his own expression forgotten. "Yes, of course it does," he said when his brain caught up. "But you're right." His gaze fell to the floor. "I...get scared. I'm new at this...I don't know what I'm doing. I was letting you take care of me, and I didn't realize I wasn't taking care of you. It's still...really difficult to think that you would need it."

He moved in close, then, and let me see his eyes. They were richly brown, transparent and devoted. "But I want to. I will."

The dam collapsed. God, I loved him. I couldn't imagine wanting anything in the world more than what he was offering. I brushed his cheek, still damp from the tears.

"I forgive you, for what happened," I told him softly. "Can you forgive me, for how I reacted?"

Relief washed his whole body. "There isn't anything I wouldn't forgive you for, Julian."

Curving my palm against his neck, I kissed him - first gentle, an apology for doubting and deserting him. Then deep, from the fathomless reservoir I only wanted to share with him. His lips pressed back just as deeply, and his arms wound around my shoulders.

After a minute, I pulled back to study the beloved face I'd almost lost forever. "You'll come home tonight?"

A small smile relaxed Avery's features. "Yeah."

I gave him another kiss, then I hugged him tightly. He rested his head against my mine and his voice dropped low and hesitant.

"You - you still love me?"

"So much," I whispered into his hair. Now that I could acknowledge it, the horror of our separation almost took my breath away.

He softened into my embrace, and I couldn't bring myself to let go.

"You're probably supposed to be somewhere," he said after a while.

I let out a long breath and released him with one more kiss. Then I pulled his key to our room from my pocket and dropped it by its braided chain into his palm.

"It's...a little messy. But you don't need to wait for me, if you get done with work sooner."

Avery's fingers closed around the symbol of our reunion. "Um, can I ask you something?"

"What?"

"Did you...have anyone there...while I was gone?"

"No, babe. Didn't even cross my mind."

"Ok." He glanced to the side, some combination of self-conscious and relieved.

I gripped his shoulder reassuringly. "I'll see you tonight."

When he nodded, I opened the shed door and stepped back into the light.

Late one night the following week, I lay gazing up at the invisible ceiling, letting my thoughts wander. Avery sprawled beside me, his well-used muscles at rest. The faint warmth radiating from his skin and the silent vapor of his respirations mingled with mine to bring the room's humidity to a level that soothed my mind on some primal level. With Avery present and safe, I had permission to relax.

In a few days, he would be turning twenty-four. Soon after that would mark one year since Iris, Maurice, and I had discovered the community at Sabine Ridge. I fondly replayed the memory of my first introduction to Avery, in the old command center where my friends and I had been taken to meet the governing council. He had come striding in, flanked by several other serious-looking young adults, unloading his rifle with practiced dexterity and rattling off his report to the captain. He'd nodded politely to us when the council chairperson explained who we were, but his stance was bold, almost confrontational, and his eyes were calculating. It was a while before I would come to recognize his arrogance for what it was: fierce loyalty to his home and comrades, and well-justified mistrust of those who were supposed to protect him.

My reverie vanished as Avery started out of sleep with a sharp gasp. His breaths came rapid and shallow for a few moments until he regained his bearings and moved closer so he could lay shoulder to shoulder with me. He exhaled slowly with a slight shudder.

"I'm here, babe," I told him quietly, but I knew what memories caused those flashing emergency signals in his brain: the nights I had left him to endure alone. He didn't like to burden me with the damaging effects of the breakup, because he still considered himself responsible, but he couldn't keep from reliving it when he was unconscious. Every time he woke in a panic like this, I felt worse.

I listened to him gradually master the adrenaline response. Usually he fell back into less traumatic dreams once he could feel me against him. But after a minute, words floated through the dark.

"Were you asleep?"

"Not yet."

"You said last week that you wanted me to...tell you more."

"Yeah," I encouraged.

He took a deep breath, and a chill rippled down my spine before I could stop it. Last time Avery had asked to tell me something, the effect had been nuclear. But I didn't sense any foreboding now.

His voice was very quiet, intimate and unguarded. "I know that what happened was my fault," he told me, his arm still resting on the bed against mine. "I will do everything I can to learn to be a better partner, and not to hurt you again. But no matter how hard I try, I'm going to do something stupid at some point."

It was silent for a moment before I heard his near-whisper again. "Are you going to leave me again next time I mess up? I just need to be prepared, because I barely survived it before." There was another pause. "I don't want to be away from you, Julian. Ever."

For once, I was glad he wasn't close enough to hear my suddenly sprinting heartbeat. Could this be real? A nervous fluttering hatched in the pit of my stomach. No one had made me feel that in years. I hesitated, turning over his question, debating his intent.

"What do you mean by 'ever'?" I asked finally.

"I mean 'ever.' Never, ever, forever."

The fluttering multiplied. Hidden longings brushed wings with frightened excitement and buzzed against profound joy. I swallowed and steadied myself so I could reply.

"How can you be sure, when you haven't even tried this with anyone else?"

Avery's reply was soft but certain. "I don't need to try something wrong to know that what I have is right. I've had enough uncertainty and loss in my life already. I am very sure that no one else is going to be like you. I've known that for a long time. But I understand if you don't...feel the same."

The hive of emotions inside me soared to a height I had never believed I would experience. Of course, at times, secret fantasies that Avery might offer this someday had written themselves on my heart, but I hadn't allowed myself to actually hope for it. I certainly hadn't expected it this soon, or less than two weeks after a breakup, or to discuss it while lying in bed shrouded by darkness. But none of that mattered.

I turned and reached a protective arm over his lean body. For a moment, the entire universe seemed to recenter itself around the miracle of requited love. Then I spoke the binding words.

"I was wrong not to trust you before. I don't care how many mistakes you make. As long as you want to be with me, I won't ever leave you."

Avery let out the longest breath and all tension drained from him. He nestled closer, resting his head against mine. I brushed my fingers gently through his wavy hair as peace settled over us like a cosmic benediction.

I drifted back in memory to the very first night I'd spent with him - how hungry he'd been for my touch, how shy he'd been about wanting me to stay. How, with his strength and vulnerability gathered into my arms, I'd come alive in a way I'd given up even dreaming about. I couldn't have guessed, then, what the simple reassurance of my presence would come to mean to him. Tonight, I felt deeply grateful to turn our ritual into a vow.