Soundtrack for this chapter:
Desperado—Eagles
The Rock Show—Blink 182
The Perfect Drug—Nine Inch Nails

14

Theo

I had the most incredible date planned for Jules. She'd made this comment the first night I met her about how fall in Boston was better than fall in Savannah and I knew the perfect place to take her. After we decided we'd stick to weekends early on in whatever the fuck we were (because I still wasn't quite sure the extent of our relationship) I knew I wanted to ensure that each moment we spent together was meaningful. I felt the walls crumbling around me; I felt hers coming down, too. I wanted to show her that we could be more than just a casual relationship.

I got it, well, sort of; I tried to understand her fear of putting a label on us. If I'd been married, if I'd had to go through the process of divorce, I'd probably be weary of entering into something really serious as well. She'd only been in Boston a little over a year; things were still fresh for her. But I wanted so badly to call her mine and have her do the same with me. I was in far over my head with her, and somehow I knew that whatever ride we were going to take together would likely be the most insane of my life, save all the shit that happened when I was twenty-two, but still—she made me both excited and scared, happy and nervous; she made me question both my sanity and the depth of feelings I didn't realize I could have for someone outside of my family. She made me feel too many things all at once, but I wouldn't have changed a single moment I'd had with her.

Midway through the week, as I was driving home from a twelve hour shift, my phone buzzed in the center console cup holder. Against my better judgement (though I did wait until I was stopped at a traffic light), I picked it up to see a text from Jules asking if she could come over.

Before the light turned, I set it to speaker and called her.

"Couldn't get through a few days without me, huh?" My lips strained with a grin.

She cleared her throat. "Oh, um, I can take the T—"

Something wasn't right; not only did she not laugh at my joke, but she sounded off.

"Shit, sorry Jules. I didn't realize—you know, I don't have work tomorrow, and I'm already driving. Why don't I just come to your apartment?"

She shuffled something in the background. "I don't want to inconvenience you."

"You're not. I'm on my way. See you soon."

"Bye, T." And she hung up.

The entire ride over, the hairs on my arms stood on end, and I had to work to maintain a clear head. At times my mind could be my own worst enemy; the amount I cared about Jules' physical well-being was unsettling.

I parked in the visitor's lot closest to her building and rummaged around in my backseat for a t-shirt. I found two; one of them was passable for wearing in her presence.

When I approached the doors to her building, someone just let me in; I assumed it was because of my uniform and not because the guy was stupid enough to let a stranger into a secure building; I mean, I'm not a psychopath, but he didn't know that. Jules wouldn't be safe there with these assholes letting in random strangers off the street, and I had a fleeting moment of thinking I should say something to the guy, but Jules needed me, and I wasn't going to keep her waiting.

I don't know why but instead of my hand forming a fist and knocking on her door, it went straight for the handle and turned it; you could imagine my surprise when it opened without resistance.

I pushed the shock at her leaving her door unlocked into the back of my head when I saw her; she was sitting on one of the stools at her counter, a mug of hot liquid raising steam to her face. When she picked up her head and saw me, she ran a hand over the right half of her face and then through her hair; she looked absolutely drained.

"Hey."

"Hey yourself." I walked over to her and sat in the stool next to her before swiveling both of them so we were facing each other. She folded forward into me. "What's going on?"

She pulled herself away, tapped on her phone for a moment, then slid it in front of me. Open, on her screen, was an email. There was no salutation; it just went right into ranting mode.

I listened to you and agreed to let my parents send me to this place to talk to someone and guess what? This place is stupid. I trusted you, and you betrayed me, Jules. I keep trying to call Jeremy, but he just sends my calls to voicemail. I'm sure he hates me, and that's all because I asked you to keep a secret and you didn't. I'd ask for your advice on what to say to him but it means nothing to me anymore. I wish you never showed up to my room. I would've just slept it off and been fine and Jeremy and I would be together right now but he clearly doesn't even want to be with me. He hasn't tried to visit me and that's your fault. I don't plan on coming back to Parnassus, so congrats, you won't have to worry about me anymore.

Well fucking shit. I locked her phone to black out the words and set it on the counter. Before I could even begin to try to tackle that shitshow, she started talking.

"The cherry on top of today's "let's all screw with Jules" sundae was the call I got from my ex. I just don't know how to please everyone without destroying every last piece of me."

Fuck again. She'd never really talked about her ex-husband before, and I felt moderately ashamed that the first thing I felt was a small bubbling of jealousy in my chest.

"Wow, okay, well, um, which do you want to talk about first?"

Any color left in Jules' face left it. "Oh my goodness. I'm so sorry." She brought her hands to her face and covered it. "I shouldn't have mentioned my ex in front of you. I wasn't thinking."

"One, stop apologizing. Two, if you want to talk about it, I'll listen, and I'll offer you whatever subpar advice my totally inexperienced brain can give you."

She just stared back at me, eyes looking as though a thousand thoughts were running through her mind; she didn't say anything.

"How about we start with this: you said something about wanting to please others. Do you feel like you still have to please your, er, ex?" That felt weird. It all felt weird. I didn't want to think of her with someone else.

She reached for her mug, but I grabbed it before she could get to it.

"Jules. Focus."

Her chest rose and fell with a deep breath. "It's not really him, I guess. It's my parents. They...well, I haven't been back to Savannah since I left and—"

"You haven't seen your parents in over a year?"

"They're not like your parents, Theo. You wouldn't understand."

"Help me understand."

"I don't know what else to tell you. I thought I was pretty explicit in explaining to you the control they've held over me for my entire life. I thought moving here would help, but sometimes it feels like it's just making things harder; how long can I run before I drop from exhaustion? And now I've failed in helping Katie, so what's the point? I'm a shitty daughter and a shitty counselor."

"You are neither of those things."

"And clearly I was a shitty wife. You should run while you still can."

Okay, even I knew that kind of talk was unhealthy. I recalled an earlier conversation where Jules said she couldn't use the coping mechanisms she gave her clients to overcome their fears, and I started to think Jules was incapable of taking her own advice in all capacities. As I was trying to formulate something to say to her, she took my silence as a cue to keep talking absolute nonsense.

"And now I've made yet another encounter we're having about me. My parents were right. I'm selfish and inconsiderate and don't think about anyone's happiness but my own. What am I doing here?"

Before she could bury her face in her hands, I held it in my own. "This is happy? This isn't happy, Jules. I, I can't fully understand everything you're going through with your parents because I've never been in a situation like yours, but I know that what I'm seeing right now isn't happy, nor is it selfish or inconsiderate. What I see right now is a woman who thinks of every person other than herself because she wants to please them, rather than herself—"

"Theo, I need to—"

"Let me finish. You asked what you're doing here? I can tell you exactly what you're doing. You're saving a girl you care more about than yourself from an early death. You're getting to play the music you've always wanted to play for the first time in your life. You're...you're giving me a reason to get out of bed every morning. You're helping me wade through all the shit I've gone through, even if you don't realize it. You're better than you give yourself credit for, Jules."

She blinked a few times, and I wasn't sure if she was doing it because it's one of her signs of feeling uncomfortable or because she was trying not to cry. She took a breath and then leaned into me, lips connecting with mine, and my heart beat hard against my chest. When Jules kissed me, everything else faded away. The anger and resentment I held over my past slipped into nothingness. The fear of ultimately getting so close to someone that I cared more about her life than my own floated away.

I pulled away from her just a bit and stared into her honey colored eyes; it was time. "Jules, I—"

"I'm falling in love with you." Her eyes searched mine for acceptance.

"You had to beat me to it, huh?"

Her eyes relaxed, and the butterflies in my stomach took flight again. "I'm falling in love with you, too, Jules." I'd never said that to a woman before, but with Jules, everything felt right.

As I held onto her while she slept that night, I tried to sort through all of the things she made me feel. Over the weekend, she'd asked me about my deployment, well, more specifically, about after my deployment. I didn't want to be labeled as someone with PTSD. I didn't like it when the woman at the VA said it, and I didn't like it when Jules said it. Sure I sometimes felt angry, sometimes confused or anxious, but not to the point where I'd needed a label. It was a fucking nightmare, but I dealt with it and it was over. It wasn't like it affected my day to day life; if it did, then I could see the need for clinical help. I just needed Jules to understand what happened, understand that my mind maybe needed a little work but that overall I was fine and that everything was fine. She could do that because she was trained to do that.

She rustled in my arms, and I closed my eyes, pretending to be asleep. She stirred awake and twisted in my grasp so her face was inches from mine; I could feel her eyes scanning me. One of her hands set to rest on my scars, feeling for them through my shirt. The doctors said I could've lessened their appearance with some ointment they'd given me, but why would I want to erase that part of my history? They reminded me to put others first, to do everything in my power to save someone.

Her fingers started tracing the long line that wrapped around my ribs to the middle of my back, and instinctively I grabbed her wrist. I heard her breath catch in her throat, and my eyes fluttered open.

"Not tonight."

"You always say that."

"It's not pleasant, Jules. You don't need that story tonight."

She was unsatisfied, I knew that. But it was true. With everything she'd been dealing with, my story was the last one she needed to hear. It would only bring her further anguish and worry for my mental health.

I pushed the hair out of her face and kissed her, really kissed her. She was going to be the one to break me from the confines of my past; I just had to wait for the right time.

***

In the morning, I stayed in bed as Jules got ready for work. I barely slept, and after a twelve hour shift, that meant I was beyond exhausted. She popped into her bedroom with two mugs of coffee.

"You like cream and sugar, right?"

"Yes. Dump them in. We could only drink it black overseas, and it was the worst."

She smiled, then turned out the door and back into her kitchen. I listened as she opened cabinets and drawers, trying to picture her movements in my head. I winced (as I imagined she did), when I heard something shatter and a muttered "shit" fall from her lips.

Before I could get up, she was yelling to me from the kitchen. "I'm fine! Don't get up. It was just the sugar bowl." She appeared through the bedroom door moments later, and I sat up in her bed.

"You didn't cut yourself?"

"Nope. It broke into large pieces." She handed me one of the mugs, then set the other down and flashed her hands in front of me. "See? All fine."

I caught hold of her right hand and inspected the scar that was forming across it from the accident.

"Is it healing okay?" She raised her eyebrows at me.

"Oh, yes, it's alright. But this is going to be a decent sized scar. I can ask Marnie to bring over some of this cream they give to patients to help lessen the appearance."

She pulled her hand from mine and looked at her palm. "That's okay. Whatever is left of it will remind me of how fate brought us back together, even if it was less than ideal."

We were more alike than she knew.

Jules picked up her mug and sat next to me in bed. "I need to leave in about ten minutes, but you're welcome to stay longer and rest. Just lock the door behind you when you leave."

Right. "Speaking of locking doors, you should always lock yours, even when you're home. Twice now someone has let me into this building without asking who I was. It seems like they'll let anyone in."

She laughed, and the confusion on my face must have been enough for her to realize I wasn't joking. "You're serious? Theo, it's a college campus. No one cares about checking someone's ID when they enter a building."

"Differences between going to college and entering the military, I guess."

She paled a little, but I had no intention of making her uncomfortable.

"I always forget that you didn't go to college. Anyways, if it makes you feel better, I'll lock the door, okay?"

I leaned forward and kissed her forehead. "I don't need to stay. I'll follow you out and go back to sleep at home. We're still good for Saturday?"

"Mhmm."

"Cool. The place is just under an hour from here, and we'll be outside most of the time, so dress warmly."

"You going to give me any more details?"

"Other than it being a very fall appropriate way to spend the day, nope."

She stuck her tongue out at me, and I realized playful Jules was one of my favorite Jules.

***

The rest of the week passed by easily. No alarming phone calls from Jules, none of the nightmares I sometimes had after thinking about my military experience, and very little annoyance from Aiden. All things considered, Jules and I were on the perfect path.

Before leaving to pick her up for our date, I had breakfast with Danny. It was then cold enough that he moved from his usual morning meal of cereal to oatmeal, and I joined him.

"Taking Jules up to Palmer Orchards today."

"The one mom and dad used to take us to? That place is the shit."

"Yeah, I think she'll like it. She said she loves fall here, something about it being crisper and the leaves changing earlier. She, um, well we kind of, sort of—"

"Use your words." His smirk made me want to overturn his bowl of oatmeal.

"Fuck off. How're those two?"

"Come on, what were you trying to say?"

I let out a quick sigh. "She told me she was falling in love with me. And I told her the same. Too soon?"

"I told you, if it feels right, it's not too soon. Did it feel right?"

I nodded at him, suddenly unable to pick the right words.

"What?"

"If I'm being honest, it's more than falling in love with her. I'm in love with her, but that wasn't what she said and I didn't want to scare her off."

"If you haven't scared her off by now, I'd say she's in it for the long haul."

I reached behind me, grabbed the kitchen towel from its hook, and hurled it at Dan.

"Chill, T. I'm happy for you. Really. I can tell you both feel something special for each other, and if you're happy, I'm happy."

Sappy Dan was alright; not my favorite though. "Well, thanks. I've gotta get going. See you tonight."

***

Jules was waiting outside of her building looking like she'd just been plucked out of a how to dress for fall in New England article. Dark jeans were snug along her legs, and brown boots rose to just below her knees. She had on a burgundy sweater under a plaid scarf and dark green jacket, and her hair was pulled back into a low bun, a few curls framing her face. She looked altogether adorable, and I thought that if my brothers could read my mind in that moment, they'd laugh their asses off.

She opened the passenger door and climbed in, leaning over to set her lips on mine before buckling her seatbelt.

"You look...autumnal."

She laughed, and I filed her laughter away in a safe spot of my mind.

"Is that a bad thing?"

"No, it's cute. Very appropriate for today. We're going to this apple orchard my parents used to take us to. There's a pumpkin patch and a hayride and—"

"Cider donuts? Please, Theo, tell me they have cider donuts."

"Are there orchards without them?"

"Georgia's not known for its apples."

I reached over and rested my free hand on her knee, and she covered it with her own. The ride was just under an hour, but time flew when I was with Jules. I was excited to get to show her a piece of my childhood, and I was happy to do something for her that I knew she'd enjoy.

When we pulled into the gravel lot, she hopped out and scanned the miles of changing colors, bright red apples, and piles of pumpkins. I met her on the other side of my car and threw an arm around her.

"What do you want to do first?"

"I don't care, so long as cider donuts are somewhere in the mix, I'm happy to be along for the ride." She nestled closer to me, and I kind of felt like things couldn't get better.

We started with picking some apples; Jules said she had a recipe for peach cobbler that she could easily swap apples into and that she'd show me how to make it when we got home. Then we hopped up into one of the tractors for a ride around the orchard. I remembered always loving that part the most when mom and dad would bring us.

There was a mother with two young kids, one boy and one girl, sitting across from us in the bed of the tractor. When the little girl started shoving the hay into her mouth and her mother had to tend to her, the young boy took his chance to try to stand while the tractor was moving; I remembered Aiden trying to pull that stunt every time we went. The kid only lasted a few seconds before he crashed forward into me and Jules.

Jules set him right up and looked into his eyes as his little lips quivered on the verge of tears.

"You okay, little guy?"

His mom looked up and sent us a smile of appreciation. Jules didn't see as she was still tending to the little boy. He thrust his hand into her face.

"Did you hurt your hand? Let me see." She delicately turned over his hand in hers and then kissed his palm. "There! All better."

He laughed, one of those hearty little kid laughs, and when the tractor stopped, he scurried back over to his mother. I wrapped my arm around Jules as I felt a new warmth in my heart for her. I think, without realizing it, I'd been worried that she wouldn't want children, or that she would shy away from them given her upbringing and the relationship she had with her parents. But seeing her interact with that little boy quieted that fear. I knew it was early on, way too early on to say aloud to her, but I could see us together far into the future, married, with children of our own. I was falling down the metaphorical rabbit hole real fucking fast.

After the hayride, we came to Jules' most anticipated part of the day: cider donuts, and, bonus, spiked hot cider. We sat at a picnic table out overlooking the orchard until the sun started to set. Over donuts and cider we bonded in a new way, one where we just talked, and it wasn't heavy or loaded or problematic, just, easy.

On the drive home, Jules tried to sneak one of the dozen cider donuts we'd picked up to bring back, but she was less than inconspicuous.

"Hey. Those are supposed to be for brunch tomorrow."

"They gave us a baker's dozen. No one is going to miss the thirteenth donut. Here, have a bite."

"Right, because there's no flaw in that logic." I opened my mouth, and she crammed a piece of donut into it. "Why don't we pick up real food for dinner? Then you can show me how to make that cobbler you were talking about."

"Can we get sandwiches from that place again? The one we went to when I stayed at your house?"

"Only if you promise not to take six years to choose a sandwich."

She crinkled her nose at me, but then took out her phone presumably to scan their online menu. After nearly ten minutes, she informed me that she was going to get the chicken pesto panini again, no tomato.

"Yeah, we're going to continue working on those decision making skills, okay?"

She smiled at me, and my heart felt so full I was momentarily concerned it would burst. 

***

Everything had been so good that day. Our Italian sandwiches were delicious (per usual), Aiden was out of the house and therefore out of my hair, and Jules and I made a really fucking delicious apple cobbler to bring to Sunday brunch along with the remaining cider donuts (which by then stood at a count of ten).

It was only fitting that something was bound to happen to fuck everything over. That something happened to be my brain.

I was in bed with Jules, and we were both sleeping. I knew it was a dream; I knew none of it was real, but it felt real. There was the dim light of the evening, the heat that never seemed to let up, and the dust that hurt my lungs even before everything happened. There was the crack that sounds so very similar to the Fourth of July fireworks. There was the ripping pain throughout my chest, the burning sensation that one of my most vital organs had been set on fire. There was the blood, covering my hands, soaking the ground. And there was the sensation of not being able to breathe, the sensation that I couldn't get air into my lungs no matter how hard I willed to survive.

I woke, gasping for air, soaked in the sweat that had felt like blood. Jules was standing next to my bed, an expression on her face that read concern but screamed panic and fear.

"I, I tried to wake you, but you were thrashing around a lot."

"I'll be back in a bit."

She moved across the room and stood in front of my door before I could even get out of bed.

"Jules, I need to go do something. I need a kick of adrenaline. Something to take my mind off what just happened."

She stood there, firm against the door, as I got up and pulled on a sweatshirt.

"How often do you have nightmares like that?" I didn't have time for that bullshit.

"It was just a dream." I pulled two socks out of my drawer.

"That wasn't just a dream, Theo."

My heart was pumping so vigorously in my chest that the blood rushed in my ears. "I know how to deal with this. Please, get out of the way."

She shook her head at me, and it took every ounce of my being not to feel anger towards her.

"You need to deal with this. This isn't healthy."

Had I been of more sound mind, I would've thrown that back in her face. She was trying to help, I got that, but I wasn't one of her clients. I walked up to her, her back against the door, hand on the knob. It took every bit of me not to scream at her.

"Jules, I need to go do something that reminds me I'm alive."

She scanned me up and down. Her free hand came up to my face and rested itself along my jaw; when she felt me relax even the slightest into her touch, the hand holding the doorknob settled on my hip.

Jules pulled my face into hers and set soft lips upon mine. Her touch on my jaw moved to the bottom of my sweatshirt, and she lifted it off over my head. I returned the favor to her and removed the Celtics shirt she was wearing and tossed it to the floor.

We hadn't been intimate, at least not in that way, since the morning after her accident. I bent slightly forward and scooped her up; her legs wrapped around my waist and her fingers tangled into my hair. With her set down on my bed, I hovered above her, and for a moment, I realized I could very easily make my escape. I soon felt her fingers graze my face and turn it back to hers.

"Don't leave me."

Her fingers skimmed the hem of my t-shirt and lifted it over my head. She curled forward and set her lips on the indented scar on my chest, just below my heart. Her soft lips against the tightly pulled, damaged skin sent waves of ease washing over me. When her head fell back onto the pillow, I kissed her, kissed her as if it were going to be the last time I'd ever get the chance to.

When her thumbs found the elastic band of my boxers, I knew I had permission to go further with her. Every time my hips sunk into hers, a little more of the images that had filled my dream blurred and faded away. She was my antidote; she was the thing that could calm the storms raging in my head. Part of me knew the shrink at the VA was right; part of me knew Jules was right.

But I still wasn't ready to accept that. I didn't want to be another number.

A/N: Hi!

Here we are, on Sunday! Our new update day! I'm sorry I had to make you wait two extra days, but if you remember some of my Instagram posts from a few weeks ago, I'd been celebrating the bachelorette party of one of my oldest friends, and on Friday I was there to help her get married! It was the first wedding I've been a bridesmaid for, and gosh was it an incredible experience.

Anyways, please vote and comment and chat with me! I'd originally planned on this chapter being mostly lighthearted and then the writing developed into something different and I was like "okay, I guess this is the direction we're going in now" and man is it draining to my emotional well-being. Here's to a (hopefully) lighthearted chapter next time! (Though, it should be said, you are VERY close to getting into the finer details of Theo's military experience.)

Also, I threw in the start of another little conflict; did you catch it? 😉

If there are any of you who are starting a new semester of college this week, or (gasp!) if you're starting a new year of high school (already?!), GOOD LUCK! Stay focused. Get good grades. Ask a lot of questions. And, don't read my stories while you're in class or supposed to be studying or doing homework! My stories will always be here waiting for you. ☺️

Have a good week!

-L