The Body #3: Rogue and Euphemia

Chapter 20 (Euphemia): One Year, Five Years, Ten

"Let's table this until I get you home," Rogue said to me after I demanded to know what was going on between Rogue and the Feroce Body. There was something in his voice when he responded to me that I'd never heard before and, therefore, had no clue what it was. "Then you can ask me anything and I'll answer whatever you want to know."

Thinking about that tone in his voice provided a distraction from what had just happened. It was like going to the dentist and being given a shot of lidocaine to numb your mouth. I was still numb but that was starting to wear off, and I was afraid that all of the emotions and all of what I'd seen and been through tonight would drown me with their intensity very soon.

Rogue kept his eyes on the road, but rested his hand on my thigh. He didn't know it, but that simple touch was grounding me, keeping me in my skin.

"I'm sorry, Euphemia." He gave an unamused laugh. "And I'm sorry I keep apologizing. It must sound like a bunch of meaningless, fucking noise to you, even if I assure you otherwise, given what I'm apologizing to you for. But I keep saying it because I am. Sorry. So fucking sorry and frustrated because it's not enough."

His voice sounded dead. As dead as all those people in that warehouse. I shuddered at the thought and he mistook the meaning of it and nodded slowly, resignedly, and withdrew his hand from my leg.

And it was in that moment that I knew he was sorry. Knew it deep inside to the point that I felt it.

"Rogue, I have no doubt you're sorry about...everything."

"But?"

"But, even with what happened tonight, with you choosing me out of all the choices you were given --"

"Euphemia, sorry, but I have to stop you right there. Even with what happened tonight in the warehouse in no way makes up for or erases what I did when you were shot at the clubhouse. Nothing can change that. Nothing can ever make up for that. I left you there without a backward glance and tonight's fucking game of eeny-meeny-miny-who gets shot has no bearing on that."

He looked over at me for a second.

"I've never been so fucking terrified in my life. I didn't know how to answer, wondering if they were fucking with my mind and once they figured out you were the one I was protecting with every choice, if that meant they'd turn the gun on you. I didn't know which way to go with my answers. And how fucked am I that I was relieved when they were shooting the person I chose to be shot?"

"Nobody should have to make choices like that, Rogue." The thought of it turned my stomach, especially since they'd given him no choice.

"And I can't even tell you that I was scared to death you'd get hurt tonight because you'll come right back at me with well, you sure didn't care about what happened to me during the club house shooting."

I didn't answer right away, thinking about what he was saying and realizing he was probably right. I would have shot that snark at him, almost word-for-word. 

I settled on something more to the point. "I wasn't even a thought, Rogue."

His hand tightened around the steering wheel and his voice, when he spoke, was hoarse. "No. You weren't. I want to refute that, but I can't. You know what happened that day and why but it'll never excuse what I did and didn't do that day."

 We drove on in silence for a few miles.

"It's the kind of mistake that goes deep, Euphemia. It's the kind of mistakes, I should say. All of the selfish shit, all of the wrong shit leading up to that day when I did the worst thing of all."

"Did you even love me? That's what I keep asking myself."

"I did love you. I do love you. And you may think that's just words, but it's not. I had two investigators dedicated to finding you for the year you were gone."

"That could have been for the baby."

"It could have been. But it wasn't. I wanted to find you. I quit the club for you, in anticipation of you coming back someday. If they weren't going to support you, I wanted no part of the MC."

"You quit it for yourself, too, Rogue."

"If it was a decision for myself, I would have stayed. That club is all I've known for my entire life. The brothers were my family. I would have stayed and figured out a way to get rid of Prez and my brother and, therefore, Gel. But I walked away from the MC because they wouldn't support me, which meant that they wouldn't support you. I never stopped hoping that you'd return, Effie. It was all I had left, even though I knew if you did return, I had no guarantee of winning you back. But even so, when you came back, I needed to be clear of the club for your sake."

I tried to think about that, about him choosing me over the club ultimately, even after he'd chosen the club over me when we'd actually been together.

"I bought your house for you, Euphemia. I waited for you to come back, kept hoping you'd come back, and I'd have a chance to prove to you that I had my head on straight and you'd never be second to anything again."

"It sounds so awful when you hear it put so bluntly. Second."

"It sounds awful because it was awful. What I did was inexcusable. I didn't let you all the way in to my life, I kept important shit from you that Gel used against you and got you caught in a life-or-death situation you weren't even aware of and I didn't even fucking check on you. There's no way to pretty up that kind of shit, and I know the odds are stacked against me that you'll ever believe how much I love you, but I've had to live on hope the last year, and I can't break that habit until you tell me there's no hope, and even then I'll keep trying."

"Why? Why keep trying?"

"Because I hate the fact that I made you feel unloved. Second to anything. Nobody on this planet means more to me than you do, and yet if my actions were my closing argument on a case, the jury would find a lack of sufficient evidence to prove my claims. I did everything wrong with you. I did nothing to show you how much you meant to me when it came down to it...and yet I know that my actions didn't reflect my heart."

"Or maybe they did," I said.

"No, they didn't, Effie. And I know you have only your perspective and you can't see inside my heart, but if you could, you'd know why I've spent the last year building a life around you without even knowing if I could find you or if you'd come back."

Rogue pulled up in front of my place and stopped the car, and he turned in his seat and focused his eyes on me.

"Euphemia, I boiled my life down to the only person who matters: you. I cut out everything else and everyone else from the only life I've ever known. Tell me, why would I do that for someone who didn't matter? Why would I do that if you didn't mean everything to me? I wouldn't do that for someone who isn't my top priority. I chose you with no assurance you'd be back, and whether it was one year, five years, ten, I was going to be right here waiting for you. That's how much you mean to me; that's how much I love you."