I shook my head. “No.”
“Okay,” she accepted. No argument. No questions. Just support.
I ground my jaws for a moment, unsure of what to say. “Damon was my best friend.”
She waited, close, patient, and warm.
“Back home, there was some shit going on with his family. One of his sisters had taken his Corvette out for a drive. He didn’t like the idea of the damn thing sitting in the garage for a year. So she offered to take it out every other weekend.” I paused, trying to remember the conversation we’d had in the mess hall that morning. The weeks before the plane crash had all but evaporated from my memory. Dominic had tried a plethora of techniques and exercises to revive the memories, but they were lost to my trauma. My brow pinched together. “I—I’m sorry, I don’t…I don’t remember what was wrong with the car.”
“That’s okay,” she cooed.
“It’s an important detail, and I can’t fucking remember,” I pushed out in a frustrated huff, breaking our gaze. I leaned back, head against the wall, eyes on the ceiling. “He was stressed because it was an expensive problem. He was in his head over it all day, the Corvette was his father’s. He had passed away when Damon turned sixteen.”
She squeezed my hand.
“It was triggering for him,” I continued. “So once we were in the air, I took over, giving him a break.”
“Yeah,” she murmured.
“Then the fucking—” A sharp pain shot to my throat. It was almost as if my body was done talking about it, not wanting to relive the memory again. “So, yes, Margo, it was my fault.”
“Hayes, would anything have been different if the roles had been reversed?”
My neck snapped straight, the hairs on the back rising, my muscles tensing. “What?”
“Your plane was a target,” she said. “No matter who was flying it, it would’ve been shot down.”
“I—”
“You said the radar malfunctioned and didn’t pick up the incoming aircraft.” She talked over me. “That was another thing out of your control.”
I bit down, glaring at her as her logic tried to pierce its way into my brain.
For years, Dominic had been saying the same thing.
For years, I’d pushed back against his logic. Angry and unwilling to see the truth.
Yet now, as it spills from her lips, the lie I’d conjured up to live my life, to cope, was starting to shatter.
Those mossy green eyes started shining as she let out an unsteady breath. “You’ve been punishing yourself because no one else’s head was available for the chopping block.”
I jerked.
She moved closer and leaned in, a new tear gliding down her cheek. “You’re carrying an incredible amount of survivor’s guilt, my love.”
My love.
“You’re innocent, Hayes Mitchell.”
Innocent.
“You’re afraid of the truth,” she murmured, bringing her fingers to my lips, brushing over them. A caressed whisper of touch. The lie—the wall—crumbled down, the final blow leveling it before her final words were even spoken. “You’ve found comfort in your guilt, in the lie, Hayes. You’re afraid of letting go of that comfort, of giving yourself the chance to be imperfect, because you think no one will accept you.”
I blinked, chest heaving now. “I don’t—I don’t—”
“Shh,” she cooed again, her lips close now. My world was drenched in her green and hers in mine. “I accept you. I accept you as you are now and who you’ll become as you start to heal. You have a long way to go and so do I. But we can get through this. Together.”
“Margo…”