Page 101 of If This is Love

I slammed the laptop shut. I was shocked that I didn’t frisbee the damn thing across the yard so it could shatter against the fence.

Hearingthatwas like sticking my finger in an electrical socket. I flicked the cigarette onto the patio and shoved off the steps to march back inside. The screen door smacked closed behind me, and I dropped the laptop on the table as I stomped through the kitchen, down the hall, and into my bedroom.

I couldn’t call Ruth today. I couldn’t draw up the blueprint. I could barely fuckingseethrough the white-hot rage popping and cracking in my veins. I couldn’t do anything. Not today.

Between the video call that dredged up shit I intentionally buried, blinking out as a result of that and the exhaustion that always accompanied it, and now this extremely graphic picture in my mind of Ruth being abused and manipulated by whollyevilpieces of shit, this felt like a one-two-three punch.

Right now, my options were to break something, hurt someone, or go pass out for the rest of the day.

So I marched through the bedroom to the bathroom and dosed myself with as much anti-anxiety medications as I could safely take, then I stripped down to my skivvies and fell into bed. Sleep engulfed me immediately, pulling me into a storm of strange, exhausting dreams where it wasn’t the Yazidi women and girls that I couldn’t save, but Ruth.

Ruth trapped by fear behind those broken windows, begging me for help.

You are good man. You have weapon. You are soldier. You can help.

The broken windows morphed into stained glass found in churches, and a faceless brute was slapping her perfect, beautiful face over and over and over, all the while she kept murmuring what all those women had said, only it was in her velvety voice.

You are good man. You have weapon. You are soldier. You can help.

But I couldn’t. I’d never been able to because everything I had tried to help had failed. I couldn’t save those ladies and girls, and I couldn’t save my marriage, so how in the hell was I supposed to save Ruth from things that had happened long before I even knew she existed?

I couldn’t save anything. It felt like I was incapable of saving anything. It felt like the only thing I was capable of anymore was loving Ruth. That was the only thing I was interested in these days anyway. But that was just one more thing that was out of my control. I didn’t know what to do. My mind was exhausted, and my heart just wanted to take over, but I didn’t know how to let it.

So I shut down. I slept.

I checked out.

26

RUTH

ALGIERS POINT, NEW ORLEANS

Gabe Martinelli

Can’t make our run this morning. Sorry.

The message I woke up to didn’t surprise me too much. Gabe had been giving off nervous energy ever since our Sunday morning run, and I couldn’t help feeling like he was upset with me. And I couldn’t help feeling like he was upset with me because I got way too deep inside my head on Saturday night and flaked out on the rest of the evening.

That’s okay, friend. I’ll check on you later. Be blessed today.

Be blessedwasa crummysubstitute for what I really wanted to say to him. I was so tied up in knots the whole day that I could barely focus on work. Fortunately, I had three in-person meetings today at different places all over town, so at least I had the terrible traffic to distract me from my nerves about Gabe. Instead, I had nerves about car accidents.

By the time I got home, I was exhausted and keyed up, and I decided I was going to go by and check on Gabe. Then there were nerves about whether I should text him first. On one hand, it was polite to give a heads-up to someone before dropping by. On the other hand, nobody liked getting a message that saidhey, we need to talkand then having to suffer the tedious wondering what the heck that person wanted to talk about.

So, I decided I was just going to go. I packed up a few supplies to help in case Gabe was stressed or his skin was bothering him. It was obvious something was bothering him, and I’d convinced myself it was my fault. Realistically, though, I knew he might just be struggling with his own difficulties, and it might very well be nothing to do with me.

The weather was so crisp and lovely this evening that I decided to walk, mostly to calm my nerves. It only took about ten minutes or so to get there, but by the time I did, I felt a lot better.

Standing on his doorstep, I gave my hair a last-second fluff and then knocked and immediately clasped my hands together at my waist.

I waited a few seconds, and he didn’t answer, so I knocked again and then double-checked that, yeah, his truck was parked in the driveway. He was definitely here… unless he’d gone out on foot like I did. I glanced up the street toward Connor and Liza’s and Scott and Ophelia’s houses. Brennan’s car was parked up the street, and another car was just in front of that, so it looked like they might be having a friend gathering. I didn’t see Luke’s car, but people in the neighborhood tended to walk everywhere, so there was truthfully no telling where everyone was right now.

Just as I started pulling out my phone to call Gabe, his front door pulled open, and there he was.

He was wearing a simple, white cotton undershirt and the gray jogging pants that always dragged my eyes to where they shouldnotgo. Normally at least. This time I barely noticed them beyond their presence on his body and was instantly fixed by the look on his face. His face itself.

He looked so tired… not even tired, butexhausted.He looked like he’d shed about five pounds in only a little over a day since I’d last seen him.

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