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have to know. Tell me what it is you intend to do, tell me how your broken heart is going to break mine .” And she lay with her head on his broad chest, her ear pressed against his heart measuring the strong rhythmic beats.
    He told her he was leaving the Academy early and he would be reporting for SEAL training immediately. He told her not to wait for him, that no one would ever love her more than he did, but he had no intention of leaving her a bereft war widow somewhere down the road. He said she should find someone more suitable, she would most likely meet the right sort of man when she began her classes at NYU. And he was ashamed to tell her that he was indeed a hypocrite, he wanted, in fact he insisted that she see other men, fall in love, get married, all the things he couldn’t promise her. But if he ever found out who these men were he would torture them and make them wish they were dead before he sent them on their way. He hoped she wouldn’t let her studies suffer by worrying and thinking about him. He wondered if she was going to continue modeling after college and if not, what was it that she planned to do.
    “ I hate you for this, Atti… no I don’t, but I hate that you’re going to do it. I hate that you’re going to put an end to us just when we’re getting started. And more than that, it’s insanity that you’re putting yourself in harm’s way just to prove what? That you’re stronger and more capable than most men, that you have more testosterone, that you don’t fear death? Well, you do fear death, especially your dad’s, and getting yourself killed isn’t going to solve anything. Atticus you’re the only lover I’ve ever had and you’re the only one I want, but what you’ve been doing here tonight is not making love. Atti, it’s so clear, you’re trying to fuck the pain out of yourself. Then you’re leaving to become an elite killing machine so you can play cat and mouse games with death. Well let me tell you, you can’t win against death and pain doesn’t go away that easily. When my dad didn’t come back from Mexico I thought I’d die and I really wanted to. My mom hated me after that, I guessed she blamed me because he went looking for my birth mother. But your mom rescued me, she took me to a grief counselor every week and I learned that you can’t go around pain, you have to go through it to get to the other side.”
    “Well I sho uld be better soon then, since I’m going through hell right now.” he said, lying next her, wishing they could in that room in that moment forever. “Maybe men are wired differently, Sky, because I need to learn to take lives and I need to carry on where my dad and your dad left off. I need to change the world, to save people from all the bad out there, I need to lose myself and find myself.”
    “ What you want is to save Finn and sadly, you can’t, no one can, Atti, but you go ahead and I’ll learn to live without you. I may not fall in love again but I’ll take a lover or maybe a dozen. If that’s how you want this to end, so be it.”
    “FUCK! No it’s not what I want, and yes, it’s what you should do,” Atticus was out of bed i n a flash, pacing the room. He felt like a caged animal, he felt like putting his fist through the wall, he felt like jerking that fucking piece of hair that was always falling across his forehead out by the roots. He felt like his mind would implode just thinking of another man putting his hands on the woman he loved, on his Sky . And instead of telling her that he couldn’t stand to be torn apart from her, that it would kill his spirit and ruin his life, he told her a lie. “Yes, it’s what I want you to do. Take as many lovers as you want, I don’t care, Sky, it makes no difference to me. We’re over, move on, I don’t love you, I just didn’t want to say it. I am not in love with you. Do you believe me?”
    “That’s one of my favorite things about you, Atticus, you’re a terrible liar. My