Simon "Ghost" Riley's Point of View (POV)
Go after her. She's right there and she's slipping away...
Just move your legs, idiot.
My mind isn't strong enough to tell my body what to do. In terms of fight or flight, I'm in the crippling mode of freeze.
Even if I do go after her, then what?
"Will you commit to me?"
I don't know if I can. I've never committed myself to anyone, not since after...
No. Not that. Fuck you. I'm not thinking about that.
It's fine, right? It'll all be fine. I don't need her.
But God do I want her so fucking badly.
No. No. No. No. NO.
I don't deserve her. She deserves better. What can I offer her? Nothing. What have I ever offered anyone? Nothing. I'm nothing, not even a man, just a shell of one. Just a tool to be used in war; that's all I'm good at. I need to let her go because it would be selfish of me to ask her to stay.
I should have just let Soap have her. He would have treated her better anyway. All I've done is hurt her, over and over again, yet she still loves—
No, scratch that, she doesn't actually love me because no one does. She still wants to be around me, though, and I have no idea why.
I've strung her along, I've made her cry, and I've rejected and pushed her away.
Why, Breanna? Why me?
She says she loves me but does she really? Can anyone truly fall for an unlovable monster?
"I won't forgive you."
I've already tainted her perception of me.
She's out of my line of sight now, probably in her quarters.
She leaves tomorrow. Should I say goodbye? No, what good would that do? I'll just leave her be. She probably hates me now anyway.
I wonder what her future will look like, where she'll go, who she'll...be with.
I feel my jaw clench and chills run up my spine.
Maybe she'll be with Johnny.
Fuck that.
I'm getting angry just thinking about it. I don't want anyone to touch her the way I do, admire her beauty the way I do, or know her the way I do.
I love her, I truly do, but I can't love her the way she deserves.
If we were to stay together I'd only continue to hurt her and she'd grow to resent me. I'd be her biggest regret.
I need to let her go.
- TIME SKIP -
7:18 PM
"L.T.!" I hear Soap calling for me as I walk toward my office.
"What is it, Johnny?" I turn to face him as I grip the door nob to my office.
"Have you seen, Breanna?" He sounds panicked.
What's going on?
"Not since earlier in the day, why?" I sketch a brow, still gripping the door nob.
Soap looks distraught, breathing heavily.
"Speak, Sergeant," I order sternly as his panic is starting to weigh on me.
"We can't find her anywhere. She was supposed to go with Gaz and me to the movies as one last hurrah before she leaves," Soap tells me.
She has connections outside of me.
"I love everyone in the Task Force but this comes down to you, to us."
She truly doesn't want to leave, does she?
"Have you checked her quarters? The training room? The-"
Soap cuts me off.
"Come on, L.T.!" he scoffs, frustrated. "Gaz, Price, and I have looked everywhere. Her stuff is gone. All of it."
Her stuff is...gone?
"Price invited her to stay and join 141, did you know that?" Soap's gaze is cold, piercing.
He's angry.
"She told me," I deadpan, feigning nonchalance.
Soap shakes his head in utter confusion.
"Then why would she leave?" He's starting to tear up. "Breanna said she wanted to stay so why would she leave? And early for that matter..."
Because of me. It's my fault per usual.
I don't know what to say to him so I say nothing: my favorite cop-out.
Soap has his hands on his hips, staying silent for a moment as if he's processing something, then looks me directly in my eyes with pure rage in his.
"What did you do?" Soap accuses.
Oh. He's angry. With me.
"Excuse me?" I scoff, offended as if he's not right on the money.
"You said she told you that she was invited to stay. What. Did. You. Do?" His tone is less accusatory and more certain now.
He's not wrong.
"That's none of your concern," I snarl.
"Yes, the fuck it is." Soap approaches me, only inches away now.
"I suggest you take a few steps back, Johnny," I admonish. "Before you regret it."
My defenses are up.
No one fucking talks to me that way.
But she did, and I always let her, because I loved the way she could command me like a storm commands the water.
When I'm around her I don't always have to be cold or strong. I could just be myself and let the storm calm.
"Answer the goddamn question, Simon," he growls, raising his tone.
How dare he use my real name.
Disrespectful little shit.
First, he makes multiple attempts at my girl and now he thinks he can order me around?
"What do you want me to say, Johnny? Huh? You want me to tell you how I pushed her away?" I'm losing my temper now.
"Yes, because I know that's exactly what you did!" he yells. "Why, L.T.? Why send her away?"
"I didn't tell her to leave. She made that choice on her own. If she wanted to stay she would have," I say dismissively.
Excuses. I'm fucking pathetic.
"Oh, fuck off," Soap scoffs, baffled. "You didn't have to tell her. Your actions speak for you!"
Without hesitating, full of anger, Soap shoves me against my office door.
Hard.
This insubordinate little twat!
Soap and I are now wrestling each other into the wall.
"Johnny. Enough!" I say strained, struggling against him.
When did he get so strong?
Soap reaches for my leg to trip me up but I manage to overpower him and pin him to the ground.
"Stop," I growl like a predator who's about to devour its prey.
But when I look into his eyes I see tears and utter sadness.
"John-"
"Get off me!" he wails, cutting me off.
And so I do and offer him a hand. He takes it.
We both stand there in the awkward and thick tension.
"I love her," Johnny whispers, as if not actually wanting me to hear the truth.
W-what?
"I don't care if you know that now. I don't care how you feel about that. I love her," he confesses.
I thought he only had a little crush on her—one that was motivated by sexual desire. I didn't think he had true feelings for her.
"I'm sorry." I don't know what else to say to that.
"You should be," Soap hisses. "I put those feelings aside for you. For her," he pauses, taking a steadying breath. "She loves you, you fucking eejit."
*Eejit - Scottish slang for "Idiot"
What does he know?
I continue to stand there with my arms crossed and a chip on my shoulder.
I can tell my demeanor is pissing him off given the fucking sneer on his face.
"You know nothing," I growl.
"I know enough to know that she'd never look at me the way she looks at you." Soap's throat bobs.
I feel as though he just gripped my heart and squeezed it.
My eyes falter to the ground as I feel unwanted emotions and the feeling of vulnerability rise in me.
Soap continues, "And not because you've done anything to deserve that love from her."
Ouch.
"But she loves you anyways and how fucking lucky that makes you!" Soap says passionately.
"Johnny, it's complicated..." The weakness in my tone reeks.
"It's really not-"
I cut him off.
"Yes, it is!" I bellow, my rage palpable. "You know nothing about me and her. Nothing."
"But I know a whole lot about you, Simon," Soap huffs arrogantly.
This motherfucking slag.
I laugh in his face.
"Think it's funny? Laugh at this then...I know you don't let people in, even the ones closest to you." He smirks cheekily knowing he has me right where he wants me. "How long have we known each other, Ghost? Years! We've been on countless missions together, always having each other's backs, and yet I've never seen your face; the real you."
The expression written on his face is too much to bear. Soap is hurt.
I hurt him.
But it's not that simple...
"I know you've been through the most atrocious shit ever, Simon, but that doesn't mean y-"
I cut him off.
"Watch your fucking mouth," I snarl, ready to pounce at any second and unleash upon him the wrath I've carried inside of me since the day I was born.
I will not talk about those times, or even think about those times.
Never.
Soap takes a deep breath and lets out a pained sigh.
"Enough, L.T." He shakes his head. "Those people who hurt you...she's not one of them. She genuinely thinks the world of you and loves you. She tells me all the time."
She tells me all the time.
Does she really? She talks to Soap about me? She tells him she loves me?
"Listen, Ghost," he says sternly. "I don't care what you do with your life on any given day but if you let that girl go it'll be your biggest regret."
My heart is beating so fast I swear I can feel the skin on my chest tearing so it can jump out.
"And if she leaves this place for good, leaves you, I will pursue her," Soap says with conviction.
It's taking everything in me not to kill this man.
Staring daggers into him I take a deep breath and then speak. "It's too late, Johnny. She's gone."
"You know, I've never taken you for a quitter," he scoffs, then walks away.
What the fuck just happened?