Chapter 26

CHAPTER 26

We go out onto the front porch and I close the door behind us.

"What's your news?"

Cole clears his throat, shoves his hands in his pockets, then looks me in the eye. "I just got TDY orders I was not expecting."

"What's T-D-Y?" I ask.

"Temporary Duty. I'm going to do trauma training for seven weeks at a hospital in Raleigh, North Carolina. I leave at the end of the month."

I cross my arms and nod, studying a particularly red geranium bloom as I process his announcement. So this is it, the Navy's curveball, the variable we couldn't account for, the thing outside of our control. In some ways it's a relief to hear it's not worse. He's not deploying, he's not going to a combat zone, he's not leaving forever. But in other ways, it feels like it could be the beginning of the end for us, the point where we start to drift apart. Maybe that's why he said what he did.

Be with me. Be mine.

I shake my head and exhale. "Okay, that's not the worst news in the world. What's trauma training?"

"I'll be at a Level One trauma center, learning how to deal with critical injuries. It's part school, part hands-on learning." I watch him run his hands over his hair and his next breath has notes of frustration in it.

"That sounds right for you," I say, cautiously. "Why do I feel like you're angry about it?"

"Because I have to be away from you for seven weeks. After…that," he says, pointing back to the house, his face flushed.

I nod. "It's only seven weeks, Cole. What's seven weeks between friends?"

I'm the worst liar in the world and seven weeks is a terribly long time.

"Can we just stop trying to pretend about the whole friend thing?" Cole says with a groan. "We are more than friends. We can be boyfriend and girlfriend or dating or anything other than this stupid, odd limbo, and we don't have to promise each other marriage and a baby carriage."

I bite my lip, unable to form any sort of rebuttal.

"Let's talk, let's get it all out in the open, let's go to the beach?—"

"Cole, I?—"

"Come on, Tia. Let's figure this out. I don't care if we need to argue or fight about it, I just want to have an honest conversation. You can be angry, you can be truthful, whatever, but I'm tired of this in-between. I know what I want and you need to tell me what you want."

I would never say this to him or anyone else, but he's hotter when he's a little grumpy and passionate about something.

"Okay," I say with a nod. My walls are firmly in place, and there is nothing Cole can do to topple my resolve. It can't hurt to talk about it.

"Good," says Cole. "Let's go." He takes my hand and confidently leads me down the sidewalk.

"Wait, I don't have shoes on," I protest. Before I know what's happening, Cole has scooped me up in his arms. "What are you doing?" I squeal. He does the same move he did when I had the stingray injury, maneuvering me onto his back, my legs around his waist, my arms around his neck. He carries me down the sidewalk, past all the white mansions, the field, across the street, past the dunes and boulders of the seawall, until he can set my feet down in the sand.

The sun is dipping lower, and the golden hour is beginning. There's a subtle chill in the air, a promise that the heat of the day is going to cool off soon. Cole instinctively starts moving towards the water.

"It's a beautiful night," he says, breaking the ice.

"It really is."

If I sound anything less than calm, cool, and collected, it's because I've been content to drown in the depths of us , and Cole, thanks to the Navy's newest TDY assignment, is now dragging us to the surface, forcing us to take a breath of reality.

"When we talked about the future, a few months ago," he says, "you said you don't want to date around, you only want to date the guy that will eventually be your husband." I nod as he continues, "And when I said I liked you a few weeks later, you said the Navy thing was holding you back. But then we kissed. Not just once, we've…really kissed. So, I guess I'm wondering, have you changed your mind at all?"

I study our feet pressing into the sand as we walk side by side. "I love that you love your job. I love what you do. I literally could not be more proud of you. But I've talked to Anisha and Lorraine, and it…everything I would go through, in support of you, sounds so hard."

"I'm not going to be in the Navy forever. It's a short season in the grand scheme of things. Sure, there'll be a few moves, some time apart, stressful assignments, but it's all stuff I know you're strong enough to get through."

My self-deprecating laugh comes out like a scoff. "We like to think we're strong enough, but what happens when we're not? Where does it leave me if I can't handle it?" Crushed—that's where it would leave me. I shrug my shoulders in frustration. "It's not fair. Like, no part of this is fair. I can't stop thinking about you, can't stop thinking about how you kiss me. I want it to happen again every second of every day. I genuinely think you are the best guy I have ever met. I like you so, so much. I truly…I would say more if I thought it would help."

Cole has hope in his eyes, a smile about to erupt.

"But it's so not cool that if I want a future with you, I have to give up"—I hold up my fingers and tick off all the reasons that come to mind—"my job, my family, my community, the places that are familiar to me, my support system, my sense of security. I have to give up all of that and blindly follow wherever the Navy sends you into a wildly unknown future. I hate unfairness, I hate imbalances, and every time I turn it over in my head, I come up with the same answer—it's totally unfair to ask a woman or a man to commit to the lifestyle of a military significant other."

"Okay, but you could say the same thing for baseball wives or oil rig wives or any number of careers where one person has to follow the other. It's not unique to the military."

"And all those jobs would be deal-breakers for me too."

He shakes his head, and keeps trying to frown, then wincing as it pulls at his eyebrow injury. "Cole, everything I've heard and seen makes it seem like I would have to make myself and my needs smaller to accommodate your job and the needs of the Navy. How is that any different from what I just went through with my crappy ex?"

Cole goes wide-eyed. "It's not like that. If you'd have to be anything less than your fullest self, I would say goodbye right now. But I know there's give and take and negotiations and compromise, where each person gives up something not out of compulsion, but out of love."

"I don't know what that's like. I've never had that, Cole. Forgive me for assuming the worst in an effort to protect myself from getting hurt again. All I've known is guys who take sacrifice for granted."

"That's not me!"

There—his spark is turning into a flame, and when he speaks it's not because of anger directed at me, it's because he's fighting for something he believes in. The frustration between us is palpable, but it doesn't scare me. I know we're arguing, but the way Cole argues is almost respectful. He's not making it personal or attacking me, he's attacking the obstacles between us. I can't remember the last time I've felt so safe in an argument.

"I agree," he says, "it is unfair if someone asks you to commit to that and takes your sacrifices for granted. But that's not love. If you are with someone in the military, they should be looking out for you, making sure they're there for you as much as they can be, whether you're together or apart. They should make it clear that they love you and are grateful for you and they see what you're going through."

"I get that, but there's no guarantees."

"Okay, let's stop talking in abstracts. Talk about us, okay? I would guarantee it, Tia. Tell me honestly, what do you think it would look like for you and me?"

"I told you, I'd be jerked around the country, following you and being lonely in new places."

He shakes his head and nearly growls. "You're talking like I wouldn't even be there. You wouldn't have to give up art to date me or even marry me, Tia. Or life in California, for that matter. There's so much that would stay the same. And sure, if we end up together, the honest expectation is that we would have to move from time to time and deal with some crappy situations when we're apart, but just because my career has to be prioritized does not mean it's more important. It's because of the whole idea of ‘service to country over self,' not because I personally want to drag you around and make your life miserable. I would want for us to have a happy life together."

I roll my eyes. "A happy life? Okay, go ahead and tell me about your pie-in-the-sky, sunshine-and-rainbows version."

"You want to know what I want? I want you. I want us. I want you to never stop painting. I want you by my side when the going gets tough. I want to support you and encourage you when you doubt yourself. I want to hear you saying you're proud of me and I want to tell you every day that you're my favorite artist. And we can do that no matter where we are in the world, in Fort Huachuca, Arizona or Norfolk, Virginia or Sasebo, Japan."

"Those are three wildly different locations," I mutter, swallowing against the lump in my throat.

"There's two approaches to Navy life," he says, toning down the conversation. "There's the adventure path or the stability path. And we could make a choice together about how we want to do it. If we choose stability, I could request San Diego duty stations as many times in a row as I can. We could try our hardest to be here for 8 years or so."

"But I wouldn't want to hold you back from having an adventure. Isn't that the old phrase? ‘Join the Navy, See the World'?"

"Again, we would talk about it. We would figure out the best path forward for us. I would never expect you to be with me under the assumption that I'd be the sole decision-maker."

"You can't guarantee anything, Cole. Eventually something would happen that you'd have no control over, and we'd have to suck it up and deal with it."

"And we would deal with it, together!" He runs a hand over his hair in frustration and stares out at the ocean. "You cannot control life and not everything has to be all bad or all good, Tia. Navy life is not all bad or all good. It's normal for things to be mostly good and a little hard. Or to find a moment of something good in the midst of something difficult."

He's not wrong, and I know it. I exhale and uncross my arms. My mindset is a "hope for the best, prepare for the worst" way of thinking. It's anticipating getting the rug pulled out from under me, so I'm not surprised when it finally happens.

"It's all so…scary. What happens when it all goes to crap?"

"We don't run away. We fight like hell together until it gets better. We buckle down and figure out where things went wrong—and then make it right."

I couldn't have asked for a more reassuring answer. It's all the right words. There's a part of me that's ready to throw away all my concerns and dive into life with Cole. But there's another part of me that says I need to hold out, to be careful. It's okay to take it slow.

"Ugh, that all sounds so…healthy," I say, toeing at the sand, my emotions threatening to get the better of me and spill over into tears.

Cole huffs a laugh. "It's love, Tia. Real love." He puts an arm around me, gathering me to him in the crook of his elbow. "We made a pact to never settle for less and I'm going to hold you to it. You deserve every good and healthy thing." He presses a kiss to my hair. "Okay? You hear me?"

I nod, leaning into him, my mind still a raging inferno of counterpoints and further arguments about why this is a bad idea and how the life of being with Cole is not what I want for my life.

But my heart, my soul, wants to let him win. Forever.

We stay like that for a while, me tucked against Cole, his arms around me. I watch the waves and the gulls and the clouds rolling in as the sun still peeks over the horizon on its way down. I can hear Cole's heartbeat, and in everything he's said I can hear the heartbeat of his character behind his words. He doesn't ask for anything other than me believing I deserve every good and healthy thing.

He raises his phone and gives me enough time to softly smile before he takes a selfie. My heart squeezes when I see the photo.

"I can see it. It could be so easy," I whisper. "I want to believe that it would be happy and lovely."

Cole stops breathing for a moment. Eventually, he gradually exhales and tries to recover his voice, but there's a tiny shake in it. "We don't have to have some big, grand master plan. We don't have to know the end from the beginning. We can just try."

He's right. My soul aches with how right he is.

"I still don't know…" I say, biting back tears. I'm tormenting the both of us the longer this goes on. I'm the one holding us back. "I'm sorry," I whisper to him, shame welling up in my chest. "I'm sorry, it's my fault?—"

"Hey, hey, no. Stop." He tilts my chin up to look into my eyes, passion flaring in his gaze. "What I said in the kitchen was on me, I got ahead of us. But we're not going to start regretting anything."

I nod, and his hand curls under my jaw. "I'm leaving in less than a month, let's just give this a shot until then, take it one day at a time. Okay?"

A little less than a month, one day at a time.

A girl in a blue dress and braided pigtails runs by, dragging a kite behind her. She yells for her mom to hurry up because the sun is going down, completely oblivious to the fact that a desperately serious conversation is taking place between the two adults standing a few yards down the beach.

I smile to myself. Maybe I'm taking this all too seriously. What if I gave it a shot, started experiencing some of the ups and downs of Navy life for myself and, shocker, it isn't all that bad?

"Okay," I whisper in agreement. "One day at a time."