Page 48 of Beacon

“I said I’ll do it.”

“Fine.” He stands up with a low grunt, like moving takes effort. “Gettin’ kinda bossy, aren’t you?”

That makes me giggle since it sounds like the old Mack. While he heads to the bathroom and then the bedroom, I go around the house, bolting the window shutters and locking and barring both doors. I check the fire in the woodstove. It should burn for at least a couple more hours, and then we’ll probably be fine until the morning if it doesn’t get much colder outside.

I turn off the lights and go to use the bathroom. Then I wash up, brush my teeth, and change into a nightgown. I grab a big bottle of body lotion and bring it with me.

Mack is in his own bedroom even though we always spend nights together in mine. I don’t know why the change would be significant, but it feels that way.

He’s lying on the bed on his stomach, covered with just a sheet. He left the bedside lamp on. He doesn’t say anything and neither do I as I climb onto the bed and sit on folded legs so I can easily reach his body. I squirt lotion on my hands.

As soon as I start massaging his shoulders again, he lets out another long, low groan.

“I’m sorry,” I say after a minute.

“For what?” He’s been visibly trying to relax as I work on him, and the words come out as almost a grunt.

“For just assuming you would want to… to go after Elizabeth. I shouldn’t have pressured you into a violent, dangerous situation. I should have asked first.”

“No. You were right. It would have been wrong to do nothing.”

“We could have done something different. I was simply acting by instinct, but I should have… Since I’ve been here, you’ve been forced into one situation after another that you were trying to avoid. It must have been really hard for you, and I’m sorry for it.”

“It was okay.”

I apply more lotion and rub hard against the line of tight knots around his shoulder blades. They must be sore because he groans again at the pressure. “Does this hurt?”

He shifts slightly beneath my hands. “No. I like it. I… Oh fuck… I need it.”

“Okay.” I spend a couple more minutes working on hisshoulder blades before I return to our previous conversation. “It’s not okay if I set back your healing.”

“You didn’t.”

“I didn’t?”

“N-no.” He’s obviously trying to restrain his moans so he can form words. His head is turned to one side, and his eyes are tightly closed. “It wasn’t good. What I was doing before. It wasn’t good. I don’t think I have PTSD. Violence doesn’t throw me back into the day I threw that grenade. It doesn’t retraumatize me or anything. I think I’ve mostly been… been hiding. From the truth. It’s been hard—to get back into things. To deal with life and to… to use weapons again and to protect y—protect people from danger. But not for the reasons you think.”

I slide my hands up to the back of his neck. I use my fingers to find and squeeze the tense muscles there. “What are the reasons then?”

“Because…” He trails off as I find a particularly tender spot just at the base of his skull. I push hard into it and hold the pressure for a long time until he stops groaning and I feel it soften. I’m rubbing it more gently when Mack finally continues in a hoarse mumble, “Because it keeps making it clear that I’m not the man I was before.”

I lick my lips, my heart and my stomach both twisting with pain for him and with bone-deep sympathy. “No one is the person they used to be. This world changes us. Even before Impact, this world will always change us.”

“Maybe. But it’s different for me. Other people… other people changed but still got better. Grant got more open. Cal got softer. Faith got more trusting. You… you got stronger.” His voice isn’t as mumbly now. It’s louder and raspy. “I didn’t get better.”

“Mack, y?—”

“Don’t lie to me, Anna. Don’t lie just to make me feel better. This world might suck most of the time, but other people didn’t let it break them. Not the way it broke me.”

“Stop it!” I’m still massaging his back with firm, relieving strokes, but my voice is almost angry, and tears are streaming down my cheeks. “Stop it! Stop saying that about yourself. Stop thinking it. All the people you just listed—including me—had major stuff to work on in themselves. You began as brave and strong and loving and generous. You’ve been that way for as long as I’ve known you. There’s no way for you to get any better than you already are!”

He’s making some harsh, breathless sounds, and his body has started to shudder slightly. Since neither one of us can speak for a minute, I swipe away my tears and apply more lotion so I can rub down to his lower back, kneading the brown skin and tight muscles there.

“Th-thank you for saying that,” Mack says at last. “For believing it. But the truth is I haven’t even stayed the same. I’ve gotten worse.”

“You—”

“You don’t understand, Anna. You’re thinking about me the way I used to be, but I’m not that anymore. I’msupposed to be… strong. People are supposed to be able to rely on me. I’m supposed to face the things that threaten us so other people don’t have to. That’s who I… that’s who I’ve always believed myself to be.”

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