“It’s okay, V,” she murmured. “You’re allowed to think like you are right now.”
“How do you know what’s on my mind.”
“Why would there be anything else?”
Jesus . . . what a female of worth. “I love you.”
“I know. And right back at you.” Pause. “Do you wish . . . you were there with someone else?”
The pain in her voice was nearly eclipsed by composure, but to him the emotion was bullhorn clear. “That’s in the past, Jane. Trust me.”
“I do. Implicitly. You would cut off your good hand first.”
Then why did you ask, he thought as he squeezed his eyes shut and hung his head. Well, duh. She knew him too well. “God . . . I don’t deserve you.”
“Yes, you do. Come home. See your sister—”
“You were right to tell me to go. I’m sorry I was an asshole.”
“You’re allowed to be. This is stressful stuff—”
“Jane?”
“Yes?”
He attempted to form words and failed, the silence stretching out between them once more. Fucking hell, no matter how much he tried to put sentences together, he found that there was no magical combination of syllables to properly phrase what was in him.
Then again, maybe it was less a function of vocabulary, and more a case of what he’d just done to himself: He felt like he had something to confess to her, and he couldn’t quite do it.
“Come home,” Jane cut in. “Come see her, and if I’m not in the clinic, find me.”
“All right. I will.”
“It’s going to be okay, Vishous. And you need to remember something.”
“What’s that?”
“I know what I married. I know who you are. There’s nothing that’s going to shock me—now hang up the phone and get home.”
As he told her good-bye and hit end, he wasn’t sure about the noshock thing. He’d surprised himself tonight, and not in a good way.
Putting his phone away, he rolled up a cigarette and patted his pockets for a lighter before remembering he’d tossed his Bic POS back at the training center.
His head cranked around and he looked at one of those goddamn black candles. With no other option, he went over and leaned in to light his hand-rolled.
The idea of going back to the compound was the right idea. A good, solid plan.
Too bad it made him want to scream until he lost his voice.
After he finished his smoke, he meant to extinguish the candles and go straight home. He honestly did.
But he didn’t make it.
Manny was dreaming. Had to be.
He was dimly aware that he was in his office, lying facedown on the leather couch that he regularly crashed on for REM catch-ups. As always, there was a set of surgical scrubs wadded under his head for a pillow, and he’d kicked off his Nikes.
All this was normal, business as usual.