THE EARLY EVENING SUN BAKED the parking lot and the landing outside Tara 's apartment. She could feel its warmth in her hand through the closed and locked front door as she stood behind it. "I told you, I won't see you. I don't want to talk to you."
"I need to talk to you, though, T. Please. I need to explain."
"There's nothing you can say to me. Nothing I'd believe. I can't believe you'd even come by here and try this. You
"No. I've been living the truth. And the truth is that I love you."
"You don't lie to someone you love."
"You're right. That was a mistake. I shouldn't have done that. I am so sorry."
"Sorry's not enough. I don't want to talk about this. I need you to go away now."
"I can't, T. I can't leave it like this. Could you please open up? Just so I could see you." When she didn't answer, he went on, talking at the door. "Listen, I knew you were confused about Evan, especially the timing about how we started. I thought that if you heard he'd been wounded…that you'd feel sorry for him, or like you owed him another chance…and that whatever happened, somehow I'd lose you."
"And now that's what's happened."
"I can't accept that, Tara. I didn't think he was going to live. I didn't think it would matter."
"That's not the question, Ron. You lied to me. Everything we did was false, don't you understand that? If you couldn't stand to have Evan in the picture on any level, even if he was dying, how were we-you and me-ever going to amount to anything anyway?"
"We did amount to something."
"No, we didn't. That's the worst part. We supposedly trusted each other. Now that can't ever happen again. Don't you see that?"
"Because of one mistake?"
"You really don't see it, do you?"
"I see somebody who was terrified he was going to lose the woman he loved, who wanted to make sure they had some time together without the distraction of a wounded ex-boyfriend, who might never be coming home alive anyway."
"That's all you thought Evan was to me, a distraction?" The chain lock rattled and the door opened the couple of inches that the chain allowed. "I'm not going to yell at you through the door anymore. I just need you to go. You're actually scaring me now, all right?"
"How can I be scaring you, T? I'm here begging you just to listen to me, to give me another chance." He shifted his weight. "Is it because of him?"
"Do I still love him, you mean? I don't know about that. I lost track of who he was, and now I don't know what I feel. But I know you're scaring me now. And why? Because you lied. And lied and lied."
"I lied once, T. Once to try to protect what we were starting to have, that's all."
"No, it isn't, Ron. What about Masbah?"
"What about it?"
"You firing on that innocent family. I Googled you and read all about it. You started that whole thing."
Ron hung his head, wiped his brow against the glaring heat. "I was trying to protect the convoy. I thought the car was on a suicide mission. You had to have been there, but I can't apologize for what I did."
"The report said they'd stopped way back."
"You can't believe everything you read. It was a damn close call and if I waited another two seconds, we all could have been dead."
"Most of you died anyway. How about that?"
"Not my fault. The point is that if I fired too soon, and I'm not saying I did, it was on the side of caution."
"Ron. You killed an entire innocent family! Doesn't that bother you at all?"
"It bothers me a lot, T. It makes me sick to think about it. But I can't say, given the circumstances, that I wouldn't do the same thing again. It was a split-second, life-or-death decision, and I decided I had to try to save my men."
"That's not what Evan says, Ron. And he was there too."
"I guess he doesn't mention the part about me pulling him out of the line of fire and getting him out of there alive."
"So now you're the hero?"
"I'm not saying that. I'm saying Evan's memory maybe isn't the most reliable thing in the universe right now. I'm also saying that he's got a reason to make me look bad."
"He didn't make you lie."
"How many times do I have to apologize for that? However many it takes, I'll do it."
"And what about the other lies?"
"What other lies? There were no other lies."
"How about me ripping up that last letter that you delivered to me?"
"You didn't rip it up."
"Right. But you told Evan I did."
"No, I didn't. Did he tell you that?"
"Yes."
"Then he's lying."
"I don't believe that, Ron. And what about when you visited him at Walter Reed, when you told him I said he'd made his own bed and he could sleep in it?"
Nolan looked down and shook his head.
"What?" she asked him.
"That's not true, either, T. Why would I say that? I went to see him to see how he was doing, if he was going to be all right. That's all. He's the one who didn't want to hear anything about you."
"That's not what he told me."
"No, I guess not. And why, do you think, would that be?"
