Page 54 of Under Control

She feels helpless.

Unable to watch her break, he nodded sharply to the tent. “Go pack up your things. We leave in ten.”

Her expression grew pained. She had no other words. And that was when it really hit Carrick. He saw something too familiar—a young woman who deserved everything in life but had been unfairly handed brutal hardship. As she scrambled off the sand and spun to march back to the tent, he found himself blinking rapidly, trying to get a grip on the present and forget his past.

I can’t save her.

Finding himself alone again on the beach, Carrick realized how different he felt from when he’d woken up. He hated every problem weighing on him, every memory his mind threatened to flash before him. And with all that hatred, he walked toward the water, unable to be any closer to Danica, to think about her, to feel.

I can’t watch her suffer.

As his feet hit the cold water of the ocean and it crashed against his shins, a chill shot through his body. But he wasn’t cold. On SEAL Team Seven, he’d been on many, many dives in water that was frigid. He was used to cold water. The chill shooting up his body was because of what had just happened and the old agony that wouldn’t go away.

Now waist-deep in the waves, Carrick dove in headfirst, finding his way underneath the water. The power and force of the ocean overtook him, holding him and pushing him forward. The undertow was incredibly strong, and he knew inexperienced swimmers could get caught up in a bad way. It was a good thing that he was very, very capable. As he swam back and forth, never too far from shore, keeping his eye on Danica packing up, he had to come to terms with what was happening inside him.

This was all too familiar. He’d been there before, been down this road. An unwelcome memory flashed to the front of his mind. As Carrick swam, he allowed the flashback to take over in full, knowing he just had to relive it…at least this once.

It was a little less than two years before, and he was standing over Lauren’s intensive-care hospital bed, watching her stats on the monitors. She wasn’t doing well. She’d had a stroke.

“Why didn’t you take the meds?” he roared out of pure frustration, knowing his fiancée couldn’t even hear him. “I told you this would fucking happen.”

Her eyes remained shut. She was unconscious in her bed—vulnerable and weak. Her natural hair fanned out over the pillow, still messy and knotted, though Carrick had tried his best to brush it over the weeks she’d been there. Her dark lashes fanned out over her white cheeks, nearly lifeless. He desperately wished he could see those crystal blue eyes open to him once more.

“Lauren, I can’t fight this for you. I can’t climb into your body and beat the leukemia out.” He broke. “You have to listen to me. You have to keep fighting.”

Exasperated, he ran his hands over his unshaven face, feeling the pain of watching her get sicker and sicker before his eyes—the helplessness, the powerlessness, the exhaustion from living out of the hospital chair beside her bed. She wasn’t supposed to get sick. She wasn’t supposed to get worse. They’d just bought a house. They were supposed to get married. They had plans.

And they’d just painted the baby’s room. They’d just started trying. Sure, the wedding wasn’t until the summer, but they weren’t too fussy about formalities. They’d been together a long time already. Lauren had just turned thirty, and she’d told Carrick she was ready to be a mom.

But then they’d found out she was sick. Really sick.

The lining of his throat started to stiffen as he looked down on the woman he loved, wishing she would just fucking wake up, that he could see any sign she would turn the corner and come out of it.

“Everything okay in here?” A nurse with pink scrubs and a reassuring, motherly feel walked in with a handheld scanning device. She walked up and started doing her checks on her unconscious patient.

“It’s fine.”

“It doesn’t seem fine,” the nurse replied, keeping a calm voice.

“She shouldn’t have stopped taking the meds.” He lashed out, his fist tightening on the IV pole. “I told her not to fucking stop taking them—and look what happened! How long is she going to be out for?”

The nurse reached over to the side table, grabbing a tissue from the box, walked around the bed to where Carrick stood, and handed it to him.

“What’s this for?” he demanded.

“Your face.”

Frowning, he reached up with his hand and realized his face was wet.

“Why the fuck is my face wet?” He pulled his hand back, feeling clear liquid on his fingers.

“You’re crying.”

Carrick gazed back at Lauren. She seemed so small. So white. So sick.

“When is she going to wake up?” he asked.

The nurse reached out and grabbed his arm, squeezing it in a caring way.

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