Brave (14 page)

I
knew Alissa was pulling on my arms, but like before, I was locked
into the flashback, a murderous rage consuming me. Something hit me
hard, and when I rolled into the snow, I saw it was Alissa. She had
rammed me with the full force of her body. The Pooh backpack lay in
the snow. The man rose coughing and choking and I snapped out of it.
But my heart sank when I realized what I had almost done and that
sick, twisted feeling overwhelmed me.

“Who
are you?” I rose in one fluid motion and stood between Alissa
and the man.

“I’m
her father.”

“Leave
Alissa alone.” I said.

“Who
the hell are you?!”

“I’m
the fucker you’re going have to go through to get to her and
those ashes. She came to do something extremely important, extremely
personal, and deeply moving. But you wouldn’t know anything
about that, because you’re an idiot and never took the time to
get know your amazing, beautiful daughter. Now, get the fuck off my
property. You’re trespassing.”

“Wait. Dad,
how did you know what I was going to do?”

“Someone
at the funeral home discovered the ashes missing and they called
Charlie’s parents, who called us. I guessed what you were going
to do. Charlie’s mother said that this place in Colorado was
the only place he ever talked about. We guessed you were going to
release them here. I came as soon as I could get here, but the pass
closed and I had to wait until the blizzard was over.”

“You
didn’t come here for me. Even though Charlie was like a brother
to me. You didn’t once consider what his death meant to me. You
just came for the ashes.”

“Of
course, I came for the ashes. We’re sorry about Charlie. We
are. But, what you did was very irresponsible. His parents are very
upset.”

“Really?
Why?”

“Don’t
be impertinent. I expect that you will go to the car now with the
ashes and we’ll go home.”

She
looked up at me, the blue of her eyes matching the clear sky above
us. “Home? That isn’t my home. I’m already home.
Wherever he is, that’s home.”

I
was overcome. No way to describe how those words settled on my heart
and transformed me in an instant. I had a decision to make, and it
wasn’t an easy one, but in my heart I knew it was the only
answer I could come up with.

“Go,
babe, do what you came here to do.”

With
a disgusted and disappointed look on his face, her father said, “Go
ahead and do it, Alissa. I’ll wait for you out front.”

Alissa
was leaving and I didn’t want to let her go, but I knew what it
was that I had to do. It was going to be hard for both of us.

#

Alissa

I
looked at Dakota and he smiled at me. I took his hand and kissed his
palm, then his lips as my father marched away through the snow
without looking back. I turned, Dakota’s love like a brand on
my heart, his courage in seeking help burning deep inside.

My
boots crunched across that endless swath of white, and I snagged the
backpack on my way by. It was heavy, but Charlie had never been a
burden. I walked to the edge of the cliff and gazed around at that
breathtaking view. I unzipped the bag and pulled out the urn. Then I
broke the seal and pulled off the cover.

“We’re
here, Charlie,” I said. “I made it. We made it! I’m
here to keep my promise, because you were my very best friend. I will
love you forever, my Piglet.”

The
breeze whipped around me as if saying,
Let
him go. He belongs to us now, to the push and pull of the wind, the
movement of the earth, the endless flow of time. He’s ours and
we want him back. Let him go. He will always be with you. Just listen
to the wind. Just listen, Alissa.

My
hands tightened on the urn and a terrible sense of loss scored me. I
didn’t want to let him go. I was losing the last physical bit
of him and it was so final. I closed my eyes and let that pain wash
over me. I embraced it and held it. But instead of being empty, all
my wonderful full memories of Charlie settled there with a soft glow.
He would always be with me. This wasn’t the end.

Goose
bumps covered my skin and I heaved the urn, gripped tightly in my
hands, and the ashes flowed out, and the wind caught them like gentle
fingers and took him away. Charlie soared free.

And that feeling,
that wonderful, glorious feeling of flying free was inside me, too.
That was it. That was what I’d been searching for my whole
life. I was the one who had to let go of my fear. I was trying to
have the kind of relationship that I wanted with my parents. It
wasn’t going to happen. They wouldn’t let it happen. I
was the stubborn one. I was the one who was making myself unhappy. I
had to be the one to go out and seek what I wanted and it had
happened unexpectedly.

I
had found the love I had always wanted in Dakota.

I
took that feeling, embracing what I had shared with Dakota and
Charlie.

As
I freed Charlie into the waiting wind, I freed myself and my heart
soared—
unshackled
at last—
full
of life, energy, love, and Dakota. Full of my love for Charlie. I
could never go back.

I
would never go back.

In
that moment, in that beautiful moment…

I
was…

Brave.

#

I
came into the cabin, and Dakota stood at the counter, his back
pressed to the marble, his arms crossed over his chest. The somber
disquiet in his eyes unsettled me, especially when I thought we had
dealt with all our problems last night.

Dakota
held my gaze for a moment, his eyes shuttered, an unhappy cant to his
mouth.

A
flutter of alarm started in my middle, and I shifted on my feet.

“What
is it? What’s wrong?”

He
rubbed at his eyes and when he looked at me again, the sick, naked
expression made my throat contract. And suddenly I was faced with a
tormented man. I closed the distance between us. “No!” I
said.

“Alissa,”
he said with such gut-wrenching need, and I threw myself against him.

I
was his one vulnerability.

I
was his weakness.

He
had been my strength.

It
couldn’t end like this.

Dakota

I
saw the realization in her eyes, but I had no recourse. After what
happened with her father, I couldn’t trust myself around her.

“No,”
she said emphatically, holding onto me like there was no tomorrow. I
wasn’t sure there would be. My knees felt weak, and they almost
buckled. But I grabbed onto the strength that Alissa had showed me
that I possess and gently slipped my hands around her upper arms,
pried her away from me.

“I
can’t trust myself with you.”

“You’ve
never done anything to threaten me, you’ve been gentle, kind…”

I
shook my head and paced away from her. “I almost killed your
father.” I said. “I didn’t see your father. I saw
the rebel leader out there chasing you.” I had no anger left,
only the sadness of what I had endured and that it would keep me from
Alissa. “But, what if next time I see him in you? What’s
to stop me from choking the life out of you like I choked the life
out of him?”

The
shock on her face made me retreat deeply into myself. It hurt more
than anything I’d endured so far in my life. “I took a
vow never to take a life. But I didn’t understand violence
then. I was a nurse. What the hell did I know about violence until it
broke inside like a disease I couldn’t cure? The demons took me
and I killed a man. I killed him with my bare hands because I wanted
to watch him die. I wanted to see the light go out of his eyes and
have him feel the terror that Elsa felt, the brutality. It broke me.
It destroyed me, it took everything that I knew, everything I was,
everything. And obliterated it.”

Scalding
tears squeezed from my eyes and I looked at her blurring there in
front of me. But then her arms were around me.

“No,
they didn’t. They didn’t, Dakota. They didn’t take
that man, the one who carves beautiful works of art, a walking stick
carved with flowers for a pure, unselfish purpose, the man who teased
me, the man who held me, the man who bandaged my ankle, carried me in
his arms, the man who risked his life to save me from a frozen death
on a ledge. That’s all still here. It’s here.”

She
placed her hand over my heart and I thought it was just going to
shatter.

I
broke free of her arms, and looked at her, agony twisting in my gut.
“Don’t you know the real reason I came here? Haven’t
you figured it out yet?”

The
pain of her knowing washed over me in such a heavy wave of emotion I
covered my eyes.

“You
came here to kill yourself.”

“Yes!”
I shouted and looked at her, my pain and my fury making my voice
shake. “Yes! I couldn’t do it! I couldn’t do it.
Now I know why. I wasn’t going to give up on myself. I had the
courage all along, but I only just discovered it because of you. But
I have to tell you the rest of what I did six months ago. Let me tell
you what happened.”

“Tell
me everything, Dakota and you will be free, too.” she
whispered.

“After
they killed Elsa, I pulled so hard that the stake came out of the
ground, and I was free and the demons inside hunted down the man with
the scars. I was on him like a wild man without thought for my own
safety, without thought of how this might affect me, without thought
for my vow and for who I was deep inside. I hit him like a battering
ram, locked my hands around his throat, and I squeezed and gloated as
the life left his eyes.”

She
was silent, her eyes only going softer, gentler.

“Then
I got up and kicked him and kept kicking him, until one of the SEALs
grabbed me around the waist and took me down and held on to me, until
the fury and demons took me deep into the darkness, off the path of
light, and into nightmare.”

Without
a word, she wrapped her arms around my neck and hugged me tight.

I
buried my face in her neck and the agony of what had happened on the
Ivory Coast washed over me along with the loneliness of the many
months I’d spent trying to get up the courage to take my own
life. And now I didn’t want to. I didn’t want to leave
her.

I
loved her.

I
fucking loved her with everything I had.

I
don’t know when it happened. Somewhere between the deep blue of
her eyes and the warmth of her touch.

I
didn’t want her to leave. I didn’t want to die. I don’t
think I ever had. I just thought I should.

#

Alissa

Overwhelmed
by the feelings that one revelation set off in me, I held on to him
with all the love and strength I possessed. For an instant, for one
instant, he remained motionless. Then with a gruff sound, he enfolded
me in a fierce embrace, holding me as if I were his next breath.
Fighting against the tears, I closed my eyes and cradled his head
against me, loving him so much that I felt almost suffocated by it.

“You’ve
got to go, Alissa, and handle your own situation. You’ve got to
let them know who Charlie was to you and why you did what you did.
You need to mourn him. Let yourself feel it. Remember to let yourself
feel it. You set him free. You kept your promise and released him.”

Kissing
the side of his neck, I smoothed down his hair, trying to comfort him
by touch alone. Then, taking a deep, tremulous breath, I caught his
head between my hands, my chest so full I could barely breathe. I
felt the muscles in his jaw contract as he tried to swallow, and I
tightened my hold, willing him to look at me. Finally he met my gaze,
the rawness in his eyes going straight to my heart.

“Now
I’ve got my own demons to face. Believe me, I don’t want
to leave you, but if you hadn’t stopped me, I might have killed
your father. I can face them now, knowing that you are waiting for
me. I’ve got to do this, or I can never be free of them. I want
to be with you more than I want my next breath. You woke me up, made
me feel again, live again.”

I
looked up at him, the richness, the unity, of my feelings nearly
overwhelming me as I tightened my hold on his face. “But I’m
afraid. I don’t want you to be alone.”

Twisting
his face away from my touch, he caught my hand, then laced his
fingers through mine with a tight grip. His face revealing a range of
emotions, he closed his eyes and pressed my hand against his mouth,
his voice hoarse. “I won’t be alone.” He pressed a
piece of paper into my hand. “That’s my cell number. I
want to talk to you every day. And, I’ll carry you here, in my
heart. I’m going home. Home to my mother and father, my
grandfather and my sisters. I’ve got to do this. You need to go
home, deal with your family and Charlie’s, and finish school.
Those are our priorities. For now. I need you to have faith. I need
you to be brave for me. Can you do that?”

Fighting
against the swell of tears, I tore my hand free and slipped my arms
around his neck, a soft sob wrenching loose when he gathered me up in
a hard, tight embrace. He roughly tucked my head against his neck and
shuddered, and I yielded to the pressure of his arms, tears of hope
slipping from beneath my lashes. “Promise me, you’ll come
for me. Promise, Dakota.”

Dakota
raked my hair back, cradling my head against the curve of his neck,
his breath warm against my skin. “I’ll come to you,
Alissa. I promise you.”

#

Alissa

My
father drove me to my car, but it was hard to worry about the
confrontation I knew was coming, because I was only concerned about
Dakota, so afraid that I wouldn’t see him again. But I had to
have faith. I had to be brave as he asked me to do.

We
sat in my father’s Lexus and he didn’t even look at me.

“You’ve
disappointed me, Alissa.”