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The setting sun lights the city skyline with a halo glow. Pretties it up. Makes it look presentable. She’s aware of him sitting next to her, the way his knee bounces and his fingers tap an unknown beat against his thigh. He shakes his head as if having a conversation that she’s not invited to. But Karen thinks she knows exactly how it goes. “You should walk away." How many times has he said that to her?
“You look at me but you don’t see me. You only see what you want to,” his gravelly voice scratches across her heart. Lays it open. And she wishes she had a goddamn needle and thread to stitch the pieces back together. It wouldn’t be any more painful than what he’s saying to her.
“There’s nothing good in me, Karen. Nothin’.”
“I guess I get to decide what I believe.”
“There you go again being so goddamned stubborn.”
She hasn’t seen him this twitchy since he was in the hospital trying to convince her he was the monster. Telling her there was no light. That he didn’t want to choose a different life...with her. That the only way he could choose her was to walk away and never look back. His face that day almost took her to her knees. Scared, vulnerable, lost...all the things no one would think Frank Castle—The goddamn Punisher—could ever be. She’d seen it...more than once, and it gutted her even now when she thought about it.
There was no explanation for how he made her feel scared shitless and safe and treasured, all at the same time. How she relaxed when she was around him even when the world was blowing up. It was illogical. Crazy. Certifiably insane. She was smart enough to know that, but powerless to stop feeling what she felt.
Reaching out, she laid her hand over his, felt the thick, smooth ridges of scars across his knuckles. The movement ceased. She thought he’d pull away, but instead he turned his hand over and took hold of hers, thumb brushing across the back of her hand. She felt the relaxation more than saw it, in the way his muscles loosened, his shoulders dropped, and wondered how long it had been since he’d had a full night’s sleep. Did he dream of Maria, Lisa, and Frank Jr. still? How many more faces had been added to the nightmare? She wanted to ask but was afraid she’d spook him. That he’d get up and melt into the ink black of the night, and it’d be another six months...eight months before she saw him again. Not that she was counting, but she was tired of buying bouquets every few days, putting the flowers in a vase on her windowsill, and thinking the worst when he didn’t appear.
“Curtis says he hasn’t talked to you in months.”
“You been checkin’ up on me?”
She shrugged. Of course, she had been. At first Curtis wasn’t having any of it. Still battered and shaken from what had happened with the girl and the pilgrim, he’d said he didn’t care. That whatever she wanted from him he didn’t have to give, he was done, and he’d hung up on her. But he’d called her the next time. Every couple of weeks they touched base. She wondered if it was just to hear someone say his name again.
“I don’t belong there.”
“You don’t belong with me...you don’t belong with Curtis. Where do you belong, Frank?”
“Nowhere. Right where I am.”
“And when did you decide that?”
He shook his head, scrubbed his hands over his face. “Maybe the day I pulled the trigger in Kandahar.”
“Goddammit Frank, you were following orders. What were you supposed to do?”
His teeth scraped across his lower lip and he shrugged, “Don’t know. Something other than what I did. Maybe then things would have turned out different. Maybe if I’d stopped...Billy wouldn’t have...maybe then he wouldn’t have done what he did.”
She could feel his eyes on her, turned her head and met them. The glowing gold of the sunset painted across the hard planes of his face. He didn’t look as lost as he had, but still haunted. Definitely still haunted.
“You told me you felt like there was no light. Do you still feel that way?”
“Do I look like I’m livin’ in the light, Karen? Hmmm, do I?” He said gesturing at his face.
She reached her hand up, fingers resting gently on the blue black stain painted across his skin like a storm. She brushed her thumb over the stitches on his cheekbone, felt the prickly thread and warm hot skin and the way he settled his face into her palm for an instant.
Letting out a sigh, she asked, “Do you ever...”
He shook his head and his whole torso moved. “No,” he said quickly, like he was afraid of what she was going to ask. “No.”
“You don’t even know what I was going to ask.”
“I know you, Karen. I know you want things to be different. You want me to be different. But there’s no going back now. Done is done.”
He wasn’t wrong. She wanted a different future for him. He’d said he didn’t want one, but Karen refused to believe that. He was just scared and couldn’t see how to climb up out of the darkness far enough to reach for the light.
“Why are you here, Frank? Why now?”
He shook his head. “Goddamn if I know, Karen.”
“You checking up on me?”
He smirked, “Wouldn’t be the first time.”
She hoped to Christ it wasn’t the last.
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