#i forgive queue

And really, she trusted Miles’s judgment. And was really lonely, and sad, and miserable, and longed to be able to have someone in her life who’d help her out because after Finn, her life consisted of work and Miles and having to take too many jobs to be able to pay the bills, and her social life was nonexistent.

Besides, Zeke didn’t seem to mind the fact she was a mother. If anything, he seemed to like that the two came in a package, and it wasn’t long before they were dating and he became more of a father to Miles than Finn ever was.

They moved in with him few months later, because Raven loved him and he loved her and even though they were young and probably rushing into things, she trusted him more than she ever trusted Finn and that was all she needed.

He knew her story. Only child, doesn’t know her father, raised herself because of a deadbeat mother, and didn’t go to college because her grades weren’t good enough since she spent most of her time working three jobs to pay for the bills and her mother’s debts. At eighteen, she started dating her childhood best friend and at twenty he proposed and at twenty-one she got pregnant with Miles, and he had to go to California for several months, and when she gave him a surprise visit, she found another woman in his bed.

She knew his story. Born and raised in Brooklyn, studied programming at MIT before deciding to be a pilot in the Air Force. Big, beautiful family of all intelligent and loving people, with a mother who died few days before they met, of breast cancer. One long-term girlfriend, but he didn’t want to continue the relationship while serving the country, and he came back from Afghanistan two months before they met.

After a year of living together, Raven feels like she can finally breathe again. She’s twenty-six with a four-year-old who treats the man he lives with as his dad, and Zeke treats Miles as a son. Miles has taken after Raven’s Hispanic complexion and has her curls, so when his old friends see him with Miles, nobody thinks he isn’t his.

In addition to that, Raven left her job at the mechanic and is studying part-time for a degree in the mechanics, even though she’s better than all her peers. She got a job at a prestigious car company and she’s met Monty there, who introduced her to Harper and Jasper and Miller and Jackson, all the people who are now a part of her and Zeke’s friendship group.

For the first time since she found out she was pregnant with Miles—or maybe first time ever, really—she’s truly, infinitely happy.

That’s why it hurts so much to confront him about the letter from the military.

And that’s why she confronts him about it while Miles is at Harper and Monty’s kid’s birthday sleepover, and she and Zeke have some time to themselves. They took a Harley to Brighton Beach and when Zeke left to get them ice-cream, Raven sat on the sand.

Right now, she feels heavy. It’s not the kind of sadness she’s used to, because she isn’t particularly sad. She lost the capacity to be sad when Finn ruined her and she promised herself she’d become stronger, never let anyone do that to her again.

It feels like walking for a long time, when your feet hurt and you know that walking doesn’t ease the pain, but you have a place you need to go to and sometimes your feet hurt.

Sometimes you ache, with a blank stare, trying to figure out the whirlpool of emotions inside you. To figure out where you are at this moment, at this place, with this person, and who you are in midst of all that. Sometimes, it’s acceptance that hurts more than the realization of impending loss.

Maybe it takes Zeke a long time to get the ice-cream, maybe every moment she spends agonizing over the future lasts a short eternity.

Raven runs her fingers through the sand. It’s brittle and warm, and she feels the dying sun on her face and can’t help but feel a different kind of heaviness weighing her down.

She doesn’t feel like crying. It feels too deep to be so shallow, it feels like a house ripped away from her and her roots snatched from the ground and she’s floating, and her body aches, and she feels it too deep to be able to cry.

Zeke planned it as a romantic getaway. Something they haven’t had in a long time, and as much as they love spending time with Miles, it’s beautiful to have moments like these.

Just the two of them.

And a letter from the military.

When Zeke comes, she can’t even bring herself to smile, or look at him. He tells her about the line he had to stand in, and stupid kids, and she hears the adoration in his voice he has every time he talks about kids. She knows he wants one of his own, one to be a brother or a sister to Miles.

He notices, almost right away.

“What’s wrong?”

‘Nothing,’ Raven wants to say, but it’s a lie too heavy. Her eyes are burning and so is her throat, but there are no tears threatening to fall.

She stares at the sun that’s turning orange. There’s people around them, kids playing, some even swimming, but it feels like they’re somewhere else. She can barely perceive what’s happening to her.

“I love you,” she says.

It’s not the first time she says it and it’s not unusual, but she’s certain he notices the way her voice cracks at the end of the statement. How she doesn’t look at him, how gravely her voice is. Maybe he even notices her fingers shaking, even if they’re buried in the sand or holding the cone.

“I love you, too.” He moves some hair out of her face. “What is going on, Raven?”

“I found your letter,” she says. “From the Air Force.”

She looks at him. He holds her gaze, for a second or two, before tucking a strand of hair behind her ear and focusing on something behind her, anything but her.

“I was going to tell you.”

“When? You’re leaving in two weeks.”

Zeke opens his mouth, parts his lips in a way he does before he gives an excuse, but gives up and looks at the ocean instead.

There are still no tears threatening to fall, but Raven feels as if someone’s choking her.

She should’ve known when McCreary came over, and Zeke couldn’t fall asleep that night. When he was grumpy—and Zeke is never grumpy, not with her or Miles—and when he was quiet, and it was months ago.

She should’ve known he would want back in.

There are many reasons why Raven loves him and his hero-complex that he so vehemently denies is larger than most of them.

“You want to be the hero,” she states.

He doesn’t deny it this time.

She smiles, still. “You already are one. You’re Miles’s hero.”

“I know. And it’s more than I deserve. Sometimes it’s too much to bear, to know that this little, beautiful kid sees me as his hero when there’s so many better people than me out there.” Before Raven can protest, he continues, “It’s easier when you’re fighting a war for someone else, when you’re a hero without a name. Just a number.”

“You’re not just a number.”

“I am, Rae.” He brings a finger to her lips and brushes over them, glancing at her as if in fear of what happens next. “But McCreary and Diyoza and my team, they need me.”

“I need you.”

“You don’t,” he says. “You’re perfectly capable of living your life on your own.”

“I was giving up when I met you.”

“You were never going to give up. Finn fucked you up and ruined your self-confidence and shit, but you’re a great mother and a woman because you had to raise Miles on your own and he’s the best kid I’ve ever known.”

“He says that because he’s yours.”

Zeke smiles. “I wish he was, but he isn’t. But if I ever have kids, God, I want them to be raised by you. I want them to be kind and sassy and confident and stubborn just like Miles. Just like you.”

“Then why leave?”

This time, he doesn’t answer right away. He drops his hand from her face and puts it on his lap, and Raven resists the urge to hold it. To ask him to promise that everything’s going to be okay, that he won’t leave.

She knows better. She knows he can’t promise her that, because his team is as much family to him as she is.

Instead, she watches the sun. It’s closer to the ocean and it’ll start to set soon, and she wishes she could embrace the sight as much as she should. Without knowing he’s going to leave, too.

“Is there something wrong with me?” Her voice is quiet, almost inaudible, and she can’t look at him when she asks it. “Is that why everyone leaves? I become too much? Do I say stupid shit? Is there something I—”

She doesn’t realize she’s crying or that Zeke is holding her until she runs out of breath and she’s shaking in his arms, barely even feeling the warmth of his body. He smells like the garage, like his Harley, like the mint that’s planted all around their apartment because Miles loves it. He smells like home.

Raven doesn’t want to imagine a home without him.

His hands pull her closer when she starts sobbing, and she’s in his lap and he runs hands through her hair. She doesn’t even have the energy to hug him back, to wrap her hands around him and never let him go.

She doesn’t want him to go.

She doesn’t want to be left alone again.

She doesn’t want this.

He kisses the top of her head and she feels tears in her hair, too.

“You are perfect,” he whispers. His voice is hoarse and he’s about to break down, struggling to get the words out, but does it anyway. “You are kind and brave and intelligent and you don’t deserve any of the shit you’ve been through. You deserve to be treated right and I feel like I can’t do that, not yet. You’re a woman who knows what she wants and I feel like I’m not mature enough to be with you. Like I don’t deserve you.”

Raven parts her lips and tries to say something, but can’t. There’s nothing she can say that could convey the weight of the emotion she’s feeling right now.

Zeke pulls her even closer.

“This is my last time, but I need this. I need to sort my head through. It’s just six months, and then I’m done with it. But I want to figure out who I am before I can be the man you deserve.”

“I already deserve you,” she whispers.

“No,” he says. “Raven, you and Miles are the best thing that’s happened to me. And I want to have kids with you, more than we can handle. And I want to take you to my stupidly big family celebrations, and I want to let Miles take my name, and I want to marry you. I want to spend the rest of my life with you.”

“But you’re leaving.”

“Yes. But I’m leaving so I could come back a better man.”

“War doesn’t make heroes,” she says. “It ruins them.”

Zeke pulls her back, cupping both her cheeks, and makes her look at him. She hates the sight – he looks just as broken as she feels. Red eyes, skin swollen underneath them, and trembling lips, blushing cheeks. He looks like a mess, but it’s the mess she loves and can’t bear to lose.

“Listen,” he says. “I owe my team this much. And I’m not leaving. I’ll never leave you. I’ll write to you, I’ll call when I’ll be able to, and I’m not going to be another person who left you on your own because I’d rather die.”

“Don’t say that.”

“I’m serious.”

She can’t bear the thought of him dying. “Please, don’t say that.”

“Look at me. Rae, please. I love you, okay? You may not understand, but this is something I need to do. And when I come back, I’ll marry you.”

“What if I say no?”

“You’ll be too happy to see me to say no,” he says. He looks at her for a moment and realizes it was an attempt to make a joke, and his lips spread into the tiniest of smiles – but genuine. “I’m serious. I want to spend the rest of my life with you.”

“But you didn’t tell me about this.”

“I’m sorry. It was shitty of me, but I didn’t know how to. I was going to do it today, and explain everything.”

“And propose to me?”

“No,” he admits, “that wasn’t a part of the plan. But I’ve been meaning to do it since the moment I realized you were Miles’s mother, because he was the best kid I’ve ever met and I thought he must have the best mother ever, and when I saw you looking stunning even though you looked like you were about to fall apart, I knew I was going to marry you someday.”

She smiles. Barely.

He’s leaving, but he’s not leaving. And he’s making a promise that he’ll come back.

“When you come back,” she says, “I promise I’ll say yes.”

When he kisses her, lips wet and salty with tears of goodbye, she knows she means what she said.

He’s not her dad, or her mom, or Finn.