Page 110 of Revealing Mark

Even though I got a phone call from him every night, it did nothing to lessen the fear that something could happen to him. He could even sense something was off.

“You sure everything is okay?” he asked.

“Everything’s fine.” I closed him down without even considering opening up to him about my fears.

I couldn’t ask him to stop being who he was, so I had to find a way to deal with it.

But with each day it grew worse. I couldn’t sleep and my appetite suffered.

It took me four days to come to the difficult realization that I couldn’t do it. Some people could find a way of compartmentalizing the stuff to deal with it but I wasn’t one of those people. I lived with the fear in every moment he was away.

The idea of it had been very different from living through it. And if I found it difficult to cope with him being away for a short assignment, how would I deal with longer assignments?

I loved him so much and everything he stood for. How could I ask him to change this for me? It was too selfish for me to even consider especially with everything he had told me his profession had given him, and that left me with only one other choice.

I was having lunch with my brothers that afternoon, when Cole picked up on the fact that something was up.

“You’re not even listening,” he murmured as I tried to drum up some appetite for what I had ordered.

“What?” I asked, not realizing I had allowed my mind to wander to Mark instead of paying attention to what Cole was saying.

“What’s going on?” Sebastian asked.

“It’s nothing, really, I’m just missing Mark,” I replied, not wanting to open up about something so personal.

They shared a look. “It’s not easy, is it?”

I swallowed. They were too perceptive to keep things from.

“Isn’t love supposed to conquer all?” I asked, knowing their views on love and marriage. They were both single and in no hurry to change that.

Sebastian shook his head. “No, unfortunately it’s not that easy.”

I felt more disheartened.

“Maybe if you spoke to him about it, you could work something out?” Cole suggested, but I was already shaking my head.

“It’s not just a job for him, it’s much more than that.” I shoved my plate away, feeling tired and frustrated. “I can’t ask him to give it up.”

Just when I believed we had conquered all the obstacles in our way, the one I hadn’t even considered was about to stop us in our tracks.

“Can you live with it?” Cole asked.

I hesitated. “I don’t know.” Even when I knew deep down that I couldn’t. It was slowly destroying me.

“Just talk to him about it,” Cole suggested.

I took that advice home with me and nursed a glass of wine. But no matter how I looked at the problem or how I tried to think of ways to solve it, I came to the hard conclusion that there was no easy way to fix it.

I loved him so much. Just thinking about how others had failed him, I didn’t want to do the same.

He was due back the next day and I wanted time to think about exactly what I was going to do and how I was going to do it.

It was probably one of the hardest things I had ever considered doing.

Tucked into my bed in the dark, I tried to get comfortable, when I heard the door creak open. I sat up and switched on the light.

It was Mark. Tears filled my eyes as I launched myself out ofthe bed and into his arms. I hugged him so tight like I would lose him if I let him go. He was okay, no gunshots, not injures. I held him closer and breathed him in with indescribable relief.