Fate on Fire by E. L. Todd

Author:E. L. Todd [Todd, E. L.]
Language: eng
Format: epub
Publisher: Hartwick Publishing
Published: 2020-07-16T18:30:00+00:00

I got her a beer, and we sat together on the porch, just the way Vic and I had the other day.

I kept staring at her, finding her to be the most beautiful thing in the universe, far more beautiful than that desolate planet I’d risked my life to reach. My fingers felt the cold condensation on my bottle, but the liquid didn’t stay cold for long because my palms were so warm—and not from the summer heat.

Now that I had her there with me, I didn’t know what to say. She continued to ask me questions about the mission, what my living conditions were like, how my life had been for the last two years.

But I didn’t want to talk about me.

“Vic told me you’re still living at the same house. How’s Torpedo?”

“He’s good.” She smiled. “Still takes up the whole damn bed…”

I chuckled. “Yeah, I remember…” It would be the two of us with a huge dog at the edge, and in the summer, it was a bit much, but I never complained. Now I’d give anything to have that again.

She looked away.

I wanted to ask her if she was seeing anybody, but I really didn’t care if she was. If she was unmarried, she was fair game to me. I doubted the other guy would be able to compare to me anyway, especially since she was in love with me when I left. “Char…there’s something I want to say to you. The reason I didn’t send you any videos wasn’t because I didn’t want to… It was just too hard. I thought about you a lot while I was gone.” I thought about her the entire time, actually. Like she was my wife…the love of my life…and I was working so hard to get back to her.

She continued to stare down into her beer, taking a noticeable breath at my words.

“I didn’t ask Vic about you…because it was too painful.”

She still wouldn’t look at me.

“I just…it was all too difficult. That mission was an incredible experience, and not by any means am I ungrateful for that opportunity, but I regret it… I regret leaving you.”

She lifted her gaze and looked at me, her eyes wet.

“Seeing that red planet made me realize that I’d crossed the solar system to see a bunch of red dirt…when the only things that actually mattered were back on Earth. When we lost our communication, it hurt that I couldn’t tell you how I felt, that I might die without you ever knowing. I just—”

“Neil.”

I hated the tone in her voice, the way she cut me off, like she didn’t want to listen anymore.

She sighed loudly before she spoke. “I’m engaged.”

Like a twig underneath my shoe, every bone in my body snapped in two. When Vic told me she wasn’t married, I thought I had a good chance to make this right. But he purposely hid that from me, and I didn’t know why. Now, I was speechless, unsure what to say, how to accept that horrible news.

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