Nothing prepared Adrian for what met his eyes when he unlocked the front door of his apartment. His heart immediately plunged in his chest. Cory was sitting in the darkened living room, looking all dazed. She didn’t get up to greet him. Adrian’s trained eyes quickly darted around the room searching for anyone else who might be there with her.
Then he noticed the opened bottle of scotch on the coffee table in front of her. Was she drunk? What the hell was she thinking? Making him think the worst that someone was probably here attacking her and here she was getting herself wasted. Having him rush over here, jeopardizing his duties like that.
Relief washed over him first. Cory was all right. He strapped his gun back in its place. “Cory, since when do you drink scotch by the way?” Adrian asked in a low voice. “You hate scotch,” he added. There was no answer.
He switched on the lights. Cory winced. Then Adrian noticed the state of her face. Swollen, red and puffy. He immediately rushed toward her, fearing the worst. “Cory what happened?” Adrian barked at her, demanding a real answer from her this time.
A smile played on her lips now. “Tell me again why you married me, Adrian,” she demanded quietly.
“What?” Adrian demanded. “Please tell me this is not the reason you had me rush over here.”
“No! You tell me!” she screamed at him. “I need to know why.”
“Cory, I don’t have to tell you because you already know why. I tell you every day, for Pete’s sake!”
“But I need to hear it now.”
Adrian took a deep breath and sat down next to her on the sofa. Softening his tone he said, “Because I love you, Cory. Is that what you wanted to hear?”
Cory burst into hysterical laughter. “You love me?” she asked him incredulously. “Then how is it possible for a man who claims he loves me to do such an evil thing like this to me?”
Adrian was feeling something rising in his chest. That sickening feeling was coming back. “Cory, what’re you talking about?” His voice was back to its normal low tone again.
“This is what I’m talking about, Adrian,” she yelled as she flung sheets of paper at him. Adrian caught a page, read the top, immediately added up the events, and went cold.
“God, Cory! I’m so sorry. You weren’t supposed to find out like this,” Adrian said.
“Well, I suppose you should be more careful with the information you have stored on your laptop. Especially when you allow other people to use it.”
“Cory, I’m sorry. Baby, I swear. I was going to tell you everything. This was what I was going to tell you last night,” Adrian tried to explain.
“Sure you were. Boy Scouts honor, right?” Cory laughed. “You know, I thought you were an honorable man, Adrian. But you’re just like the rest of them. You’re such a liar!”
“Cory, I never once lied to you.”
“So what do you call this, then? Lying by omission is still lying, Adrian. You knew about this all the while and was stringing me all along like a fool.”
“Cory, that’s not what happened. Look, I need to explain everything to you and exactly the way it all happened that night.”
“No! You had six months to tell me everything, Adrian. Six months!” Cory shrieked. “I don’t want to hear anything now.”
“But I only found out about this the night I had dinner at your house, I swear to you. When you showed me that photo of you and Collin, that’s when everything clicked.”
“Liar!” Cory shouted to his face.
“That’s the truth, Cory.”
Cory went quiet for a while. “So that’s the reason why I didn’t see you for days after that? That’s why you couldn’t return any of my calls? Then you made up a lame work excuse thing and then you supposedly popped the question you thought I wanted to hear. You were planning your strategy all along?” Cory asked dumbfounded. When Adrian didn’t answer her question or say anything, she quietly began to sob.
“Oh my God. I was such a fool. To think you loved me and wanted to marry me, Adrian. When all you really wanted to do was to cover your ass. So that I’d never find out what you did. How could you do this to me?” Cory managed between the sobs. “After you made love to me this morning and this afternoon. After you look me in my face everyday, Adrian? How could you do this?”
“Baby, no! That’s not true. I love you more than life itself, Cory and I wanted to marry you. I couldn’t live my life without you in it.” Adrian was becoming desperate for Cory to understand what he was trying to say to her. He took her hands into his. “You have to believe me, Cory.”
Cory screamed and pushed his hands away from hers. “How could I ever believe anything you have to say to me again, Adrian?”
“You have to believe me, Cory. Trust me, I’ll never do anything to intentionally hurt you, baby.”
“Only you did, Adrian,” she yelled. “You killed my brother. And you pretended to love me to cover it up. You lied to me. And now you want me to trust you?”
“Cory, your brother’s killing was an accident,” Adrian barked at her.
“So tell me. Since you were the closest to Collin, how many of your bullets you think went into him?”
“Surely, you don’t expect me to answer that, Cory.”
“Tell me!” she screamed at him again.
“I don’t know!” Adrian screamed back at her.
“You’re nothing but a murderer, Adrian,” Cory looked him in the eye when she quietly said this to his face. “You killed my brother and you killed my mother.”
Her words stung Adrian like a slap in the face. He never expected to hear these words coming from Cory, of all people. They could have come from anybody else. But not her.
His heart squeezed against his rib cage. Adrian suddenly felt ashamed. But nothing could come to his mind to say to her. Nothing. Because she was right. So much for the honor and courage he so prided in himself.
“I’ll take full responsibility for your brother’s death, Cory. But your mother died from breast cancer,” Adrian said quietly.
“No! She died because you killed her firstborn son and she didn’t want to live anymore, Adrian,” Cory shouted.
Adrian came closer to her, trying to comfort her in his arms but Cory wasn’t having any of it.
“Don’t touch me!”
A knock on the door shifted Adrian’s attention from Cory for the first time since he’d come home. He waited till he heard the knock again. “We aren’t finished yet, Cory,” he quietly said to her as he got up to get the door. When he opened it, one of the soldiers who accompanied him was standing outside.
“Is everything okay, LT?” he asked.
“Everything is fine, soldier,” he replied.
“Then, sir, with all due respect, we have to get back to base.”
“Just give me a minute,” Adrian said to him and closed the door.
When he turned around, Cory wasn’t sitting on the sofa anymore. He headed straight for the bedroom. He turned the door handle but it was locked. Adrian began banging on the door, begging Cory to let him in. “Baby, please open the door. We haven’t finished talking about this.”
“I don’t want to talk anymore, Adrian. I’m tired,” Cory shouted from behind the door.
“Cory, c’mon.” Adrian could have easily broken the door in but he knew that would only serve to scare Cory even further. She was already in such a delicate, fragile state right now. He was such a fool. He never prepared himself for this day. He never imagined all this drama. But what did he expect? He drove her to this state. Adrian was mad as hell with himself for not telling Cory as soon as he realized everything. Maybe all of this heartache could have been avoided.
“Cory, I have to go,” Adrian at last said through the closed door. “When I get back, we need to really talk about this, okay.” Adrian didn’t want to go. But he really had to go now.
“Yeah, I know you have to go, Adrian. So just go, then. National duty is calling,” Cory scathingly said.
Adrian shook his head in despair as he continued to press his body against the door. “I know I should’ve told you this before … but Cory I didn’t want to lose you. I know I was selfish and I’m so sorry, baby. I know I’m not perfect. Please promise me when I get back we’ll talk some more about this.” But there was only silence on the other side of the door now.