Brooke Roberts

The question seems to echo in the room. Seth’s blue eyes shimmer with determination under the yellow light of the bedside lamp. What did I see when I looked at him? What kind of question was that?

Seth waits patiently for my answer. Always patient, always willing to give me the time I need to deal with a new blow, a new exercise, or with my demons. It’s what he did this afternoon. Or was it yesterday? It doesn’t matter. I have no idea how long we spent sitting on the cold floor of that fitting room, but I was sinking in quicksand made of despair and fear. But when I heard his voice, felt his warmth around me, I slowly managed to anchor myself back.

His sudden change of subject leaves me confused. How can he hear my confession and not show any reaction of shock? Of disgust? On the contrary, he seemed to approve, and then the shadow that often covers his expression was back.

As if encouraged by his question, my eyes wander over his face, noticing his light brown, unruly hair falling in every direction, with some strands slipping over his forehead, passing through his intense eyes and drifting to the sharp jawline I once believed, as a child, could cut my fingers if I touched it. When my gaze lingers too long on his pink lips, I shake my head, trying to focus on his question. The memory of our kiss still vivid on my lips.

I try to find the answer he wants, but I choose the truth. It’s all I have.

"I see an incredible man, loyal to his friends, patient, affectionate, thoughtful," my gaze drops to his torso, and I remember the many scars scattered across his skin. "A war hero."

The laugh he lets out through his teeth makes me lose my train of thought, and I look at him, confused.

"I'm not a hero, Brooke," he says in a dark tone.

"Of course you are," I protest. "You received several medals when you left the Marines, I know. I was at the ceremony," I add, my mind going back to that day years ago. All three of my men, in uniform and solemn, being recognized for everything they did for the country.

"The things I did during the war weren't heroic, but that’s not what I was referring to." He clenches his jaw and takes a deep breath before holding my face in his hands, anguish etched into every inch of his expression. "Just let me memorize the way you look at me before I tell you about my past, let me hold onto that before everything changes."

"Nothing you could become would drive me away from you, Seth. I trust you," I echo his own words, and I see the recognition in his eyes, but the sorrow remains. "I lo—" His finger presses against my lips, stopping my declaration. The first time I was about to say those words to him.

"You have no idea how much I want to hear those words, but I don't know if I can do what I need to if you say them now."

He kisses me deeply before pulling away until he’s no longer touching me, and I miss his warmth immediately.

"I don’t know if Kyle ever told you anything about where I grew up," he begins.

"I think he said you were from Nevada or something like that, but I don’t remember much else."

"Yeah, I grew up there, in Reno." His eyes go distant. "I don’t know if I was born there, but I was left at a fire station as a newborn. At least that’s what the records say."

Seth was abandoned? As a baby? How did I not know that? This man has been in my life for a decade.

"That’s when I entered the foster care system. When I was about three years old, I was adopted by a couple who already had another daughter, also adopted." He gives a sad smile, and my heart fills with hope. Seth had found a home. However, that seed of hope is crushed by his next words. "That’s when the real nightmare began." His voice is void of emotion, cold, like he’s just recounting the weather.

He runs a hand through his hair, making it even messier.

"I still don’t understand how the State allowed them to be guardians. All they cared about was the government money. The wooden house was in an abandoned neighborhood. The guy..." He pauses, his fists clenching. "He was a worm, the worst kind. By the time I was six, I already recognized the patterns, I already knew how to prepare for the kind of night we’d have when he got home from work. Whether it would just be a few slaps or if he’d go further."

No. My instinct moves my arms to hug him, to protect him, but he pulls away.

"Sorry, Bee," his gaze softens as it finds mine. "But I can’t feel your touch while I talk about this. About him. It’s not rational, I know, but I can’t."

"You don’t have to tell me any of this, Seth, you don’t have to relive these memories," I plead.

He sighs and looks at me with so much tenderness I feel like he’s caressing my skin.

"I need to because you need to understand that you’re not a killer, that you’re not a bad person. I know what true evil is. I lived with it my whole life, Brooke, and you’re as far from it as anyone could possibly be."

He’s doing this for me. The realization hits me like a wrecking ball.

"At the time, of course, I didn’t know that wasn’t normal. I thought every family was like that, that everyone did the same but just didn’t talk about it. The woman died around the same time Abigail, my younger sister," the longing in his tone tears me apart. And I know I’m going to hate the end of this story because, until now, I didn’t even know Seth had a sister. "turned thirteen and things got worse. Much worse. I got beat, but what she went through..." his voice breaks on the last word. He lowers his head, and I have to grip the sheets to keep from throwing my arms around him and never letting go. "Her screams still haunt me, but I was too weak at fourteen to protect her. I promised her that as soon as I turned eighteen, I’d get us out. I could work and support us. We were used to not having much anyway."

My God, my heart breaks for Seth’s stolen childhood. While he fought to survive, to protect his sister, to find a way out of the hell he knew as life, I was learning to surf and running to my mother’s arms when I scraped my knees. I had homemade birthday cakes and friends. I had Kyle. The tears fall silently down my cheeks.

Seth continues his story without lifting his head, lost in his memories.

"I tried to weaken him, to keep him from having the strength to go to her. I started provoking him almost daily, hoping that if he beat me enough, he’d be too tired to go to her room at night. It worked at first, but a predator adapts—I learned that early." His tone now is distant, and I’m not sure he remembers I’m even here. He seems to be talking to himself. "Abigail began to withdraw, to become distant, and I didn’t notice the signs until it was too late. We were so close," he mourns. "Two weeks from my eighteenth birthday, just fourteen days, but she couldn’t take it anymore and found a way to make sure her nightmare ended."

"Seth..." I interrupt him. "I don’t know what to say. ‘I’m sorry’ doesn’t seem enough."

"Don’t be. She’s at peace." He lifts his face to me and smiles gently, his eyes filled with tears. When he opens his mouth again, his expression hardens. "Of course he didn’t go to the funeral. Almost no one did. You know what that bastard was doing while I buried my sister? Drinking. And not because he was mourning her, no, his grief was because he lost..." he seems unable to go on, but he doesn’t need to.

Disgust and hatred churn in my stomach, and I just want to know if that piece of trash is still alive. Because all I feel is an overwhelming urge to avenge Abigail and Seth—for the stolen childhood, for all the suffering. The desire to hurt the man who hurt the one I love is as intense as my need to breathe. How can Seth say I’m not bad?

"I got home and found him with a bottle of vodka in front of the TV, and all I could think was that it was his fault. He was the reason Abigail would never see another sunset, would never get the chance to go to the beach. His first words to me were to ask me to go buy more booze, and I laughed. He threw the bottle at my head, but I wasn’t fourteen anymore. I was stronger and full of rage. I fought back—and I didn’t stop. I didn’t stop when he stopped screaming, not even when he stopped moving. I only stopped when I couldn’t lift my arm anymore."

Good. He deserved to die. The thought forms like a punch. I understood what Seth meant about my captor, about my motivation to kill him being tied to survival. I’m about to respond when he continues.

"In the middle of the night, I left that house, and the next morning I enlisted in the Marines. I never went back. There was nothing there for me." He smiles, happiness radiating from him for the first time since he began sharing his past. "I met Kyle and Raffi the following week, and I discovered that life was more than I’d ever dreamed. The Marines gave me a real family, but after we joined MARSOC, we received our first mission—Kandahar."

I remembered that first mission. It was after that one that Seth started calling me Bee. It was when he...

I understood what he meant—it was exactly how I felt when he showed up in that fitting room. He saved me too, so many times. Everything he told me only served to cement what I already felt for him. My admiration and pride for the man he became, even after everything life threw at him, only grew stronger.
"You said you weren't a hero..."
"There's more, Brooke," he interrupted me.
"You can tell me another day if you want, but now it's my turn. You..." I kiss his lips once more, completely surrendered to his taste. "You are a hero. You saved me too, Seth. The moment I saw you in that warehouse, I could breathe again," the tears make my eyes burn before they fall. "My biggest fear while I was there was that I'd never see you again, that I wouldn't get the chance to tell you how much you mean to me. You rescued me that day and you saved me again today. You're my hero and I love you, Seth Donahue!"