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Too edgy to sit still, I head toward the trailhead Chelsea showed me just a few weeks ago. Ironically, that trail is where I made my first breakthrough with her. I set off in a jog and get lost in my head for a while.
I don’t understand how Chelsea can keep throwing up wall after wall. All her life, she’s bent over backward for others to notice her, but the closer I get, the harder she pushes me away.
She sounds a lot like you.
The foreign thought halts my steps. Nothing about that makes sense. Chelsea and I are not anything alike. I’m an open book. What you see is what you get. By her own admission, Chelsea doesn’t even know who the hell she is. “If I’ve avoided relationships, it was to protect my son.”
Chelsea did it to protect herself. You were using Caleb as an excuse.
“Talking to yourself again, Lieutenant?”
Fish jogs up to me and matches my stride when I take off again. “What is it, Hill?”
“Nothing. We’re finished and ready to fly back.”
I reverse course and slow to a walk. Fish keeps pace, acting like something’s on his mind. I can only guess after the very public eruption between Chelsea and me. “Go ahead and spit it out,” I tell my second.
Fish chuckles. “I wouldn’t know what to say. I’m not surprised you guys hooked up. I wouldn’t have expected it to be a problem, though. Can’t say Knot or the commander’s too happy about it.”
“Let me guess. I’m off the assignment.”
“You were anyway, I think. The husband is no longer needed.”
“Pfft.” Like I didn’t already know that.
“Are you alright, Pin?” he asks carefully.
Lying would be preferable, but Fish knows me too well. After a beat, I finally answer, “I don’t know.”
“Need to talk it out?” he offers.
“I don’t think it would help.”
Fish nudges me with his elbow. “It couldn’t hurt.”
We take several more steps before I make up my mind to speak. “I’m chasing a woman who wants to be chased. The problem is that she’s afraid to get caught.”
“And you’re in too deep to walk away.”
“I thought so, but I just did.”
“Nah,” Fish says, smacking my shoulder. “You’re just blowing off steam. It wasn’t walking away unless you refuse to go back.”
I stop walking and kick a rock out of the path.
When I’m silent, Fish encourages me to continue. “Spit it out.”
“I want…” I hesitate to share my thoughts because of how selfish they sound. At Fish’s raised brow, I open up and let it all out. “I want to know the struggle will be worth it. I haven’t been in a relationship since high school. My time with Caleb as a kid was not going to last, and I didn’t want to waste any of it.”
“And there’s nothing wrong with that, but that boy doesn’t need you anymore. He’s old enough that you get to be his best friend if you’ve done your job right. If anything, he’ll start worrying about you.”
I chuckle without humor. “He already does. Caleb wants me to find someone to build a life with. I just don’t want to invest time and energy into someone if they don’t want the same thing.”
“Is Chelsea that person?”
I lift my eyes from the ground and look straight at my friend. “I wish I knew the answer to that.”
Chelsea