Page 42 of Dangers of Love

When I’d talked to Alec, he’d warned me not to be an idiot and make the mistakes he had. Him marrying Keli had been one of those mistakes, but it’d only been a mistake because he hadn’t wanted to actually be with Keli.

He’d stayed with her because he’d let his own issues with us losing our mother push him into doing something he’d known was a bad idea. If Keli hadn’t been pregnant, their relationship would’ve been over. With Aline and me, I still would’ve wanted a relationship, just maybe not as fast.

I would’ve been a little lost even if there wasn’t a baby involved, but I was really out of my league here. I’d fucked up so many times already with Aline, and she’d forgiven me, been willing to work at making this thing between us work. Now, we both had someone else we had to think about, and if I fucked things up again, Aline might not be as willing to give me a second chance. Or, more likely, an eighty-third chance.

If I finally used up her patience, pushed her too far, I’d lose her and a child. Not to death but my own stupidity. And if I did that, how would I protect them? How could I keep them safe if I’d pushed them away?

Or maybe that was the answer.

Get them as far away from me as possible.

If I hadn’t stayed friends with Leo, maybe he wouldn’t have enlisted. Even if he still had, he might’ve gotten out before the mission that led to an ambush. Or he might’ve decided to rise in the ranks. He’d been good enough to do it. If he and I hadn’t been friends, he could’ve been anywhere else on that day. Hell, he could’ve settled down with a wife and six kids.

It was like that movie about the butterfly. One little difference, and suddenly you’re in a mental institution because you think you can time travel.

Who knew how many other people might still be alive if I hadn’t enlisted? A different person in my place that day might’ve made all the difference. If neither Leo nor I had been in the convoy, there would’ve been two new people who could’ve changed things. Kept Doto or Bart alive. Maybe both.

Okay, so maybe I wasn’t responsible for those deaths, and even I couldn’t find a way to blame myself for the pulmonary embolism that had killed my mother, but people I loved died around me all the time.

“Eoin, help me. Save me.”

Ringing in my ears, but I could still hear him begging me.

“Save us. Don’t leave us here.”

Hear all of them begging for their lives.

“Eoin! Save me!”

Aline? Where was she?

A scream of pain.

“Aline!” I didn’t see her, but I could hear her screaming my name. I couldn’t see anything. It was dark and cloudy and too heavy to breathe, and she kept screaming. “Aline!”

No. No. No.

“No!” I tried to scream it as I pulled myself out of the waking nightmare, but it came out as something like a croak. My heart was racing, my breathing harsh. My mouth was so dry that trying to swallow made me cough.

I realized I still had my beer bottle in my hand, and I drank the rest of it all at once. When I finished, I stood up, my head spinning for a moment. I grabbed onto the counter and counted to ten. Not every flashback fucked with my balance, and it never lasted long, but it sometimes happened, especially if I was triggered while drinking.

A lot of people thought that flashbacks were just really intense memories, and when someone with PTSD was triggered, they would relive an event, and that was it. Sometimes, it happened like that for me, and maybe that was all that some people ever had, but a lot of times, the shit I saw and heard came more out of the guilt I felt for all I hadn’t been able to control.

Or fear of what might happen in the future.

I wasn’t stupid enough to think that I could keep everything bad away from Aline and the baby, but I’d do whatever I could to keep them as safe as possible. To do that, I needed a plan.

And, suddenly, an idea popped into my head. Part of an idea, anyway. It just might be what I needed, but I had work to do if I was going to pull it off.

Instead of taking another beer out of the fridge, I reached for water. I could handle this with one beer in me but getting buzzed was no longer an option. I had shit that needed done.

Twenty-Four

Aline

I hadn’t thrownup yet, which meant the morning wasn’t going too badly, but my night had been restless enough that I was still exhausted. I’d tossed and turned, constantly in that weird place where I was sleeping but knew I was sleeping.

The worst part was that I hadn’t even been able to focus my thoughts enough to get any real thinking done. I’d start in one place and end up on some crazy tangent that made absolutely no sense and didn’t even connect to my original thought in the first place.

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