Betrayal

"To tell you to your face that Tara and me, we're kind of an item. We're going out together. I thought the right thing would be to let you know."

Evan felt his hands tighten into fists again under the sheets, but he couldn't find a response in words right away. Until at last he said, "All right. Now I know."

"I don't blame you for being pissed off," Nolan said.

Evan's nostrils flared and his breath seemed to be coming in ragged chunks. But he said, "I'm not pissed off. It's none of my business. We were broken up."

"Yeah, sure, but I met her doing an errand for you. That's got an odor on it. You being hurt makes it worse."

"So? You want some kind of forgiveness? You're barking up the wrong tree, dude."

"I don't think so. And I don't have a guilty conscience. I just wanted you to know how it happened, so you'd know it wasn't me. I didn't start it."

"I don't care how it happened."

"No. You'd want to know. It was when I came to tell her you'd been hit."

"You did that? What for?"

"I thought I owed it to both of you." Nolan raised his right hand. "I swear to God, I went over to her place as your comrade-in-arms. I told her the whole story, that you'd been talking about her the night before the attack, that you knew she'd ripped up your last letter and were still going to try to work things out with her."

Beyond the bare truth of Tara and Ron's involvement with each other, a far more important fact leapt out at Evan, and he wanted to make sure of it. "You're saying she knew I was hit from before I even got here to Walter Reed?"

Nolan nodded. "Within a week of it anyway. All she said was that this is what she assumed was going to happen when you went over in the first place. When you actually left, she was done. That's why she never wrote. It's why she never contacted you here. It was over, dude. When she knew I was coming out here this trip, I told her I was going to come see you and at least try to explain my side of it…"

"There's nothing to explain. Who wouldn't want her? You think I blame you for that? I barely knew you for a few weeks in Iraq. You didn't owe me squat, Ron. And, okay, you got her. Good luck. I mean it. Now get out of here, would you? Get out of here."

"I'm going," Nolan said. "But there's one last thing. I asked if there was anything she wanted me to say to you. You need to hear this. You know what she said?"

"I can't imagine."

"Here's the quote: 'I'm sad he got hurt, and I hope he's okay. But I've really got nothing to say to him. He made his bed, he can lie in it.'"

***

IT TOOK TARA three days to work up the nerve to call Evan. Still uncertain exactly about what she was going to say, even once she'd made up her mind to call, she actually wrote some ideas down so she'd hit all the notes-she didn't know he'd been injured, she missed him. Mostly-she wrote it five separate times-she was going to say she was sorry. She was going to tell him that when she'd found out what had happened to him, she was resolved to reach out and try to connect with him again. In spite of how badly she'd treated him by not answering his letters, she hoped he could forgive her. She had been wrong, and she was sorry, sorry, sorry. Now she had to know where she stood with him before she could go on with her life anymore. In spite of their philosophical differences, they'd had something rare and special. He knew that. She was sure they'd both changed since he'd left, and possibly it could never work between them, but maybe they could at least start talking again and see where that led.

Sitting in the big chair in her living room, she listened to the ring at the other end of the line, three thousand miles away. Her mouth was dry, her heart pumping wildly. She realized that she was holding her breath and let that go with an audible sigh, reminding herself to breathe again.

"Hello."

"Hello. Evan, is that you?"

"No. This is Stephan Ray. Do you want Evan Scholler? I'm his therapist."

"Yes, please, if he's there."

"Just a second. Can I tell him who's calling?"

"Tara Wheatley."

Stephan repeated her name away from the phone and then she heard Evan's voice, unnaturally harsh and unyielding. "Tara Wheatley? I don't want to talk to any Tara Wheatley. I've got nothing to say to her."

Stephan must have covered the mouthpiece with his hand, because his next words were muffled, but even through the muffling, there was no mistaking what Evan said next. It was loud enough they probably heard it at the Pentagon. "Didn't you hear me? I said I'm not talking to Tara Wheatley. Get it? I'm not talking to her! Tell her to get out of my life and stay out! I mean it." Next she heard what sounded like a heavy object being thrown against a wall, or knocked onto the floor. And swearing, Evan insane with rage.

Or just insane from what he'd been through.

Back in Redwood City, Tara stared at the mouthpiece that she held in her shaking right hand, then slowly, as though the violence she'd heard in it might escape and hurt her further, she lowered it into its cradle.

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