by Alie Garnett
Sitting hurt, standing hurt, breathing hurt, thinking hurt. Getting shot in the leg last month had been a breeze compared to this. It had been weeks, and he still felt like it just happened. His mind was still there, surviving.
One minute he was with his guys in the desert and the next, he was in Germany and in pain. There was no memory of what happened in between those moments. That much he was grateful for. He had lost two good men that day and two others had been seriously injured, like him.
At least the bomb hadn’t been an IED—it had been a vest of explosives strapped to a young local they thought that they could trust. They had been wrong. Maybe if he hadn’t been thinking about Dylan, he would have noticed the kid was acting weird earlier. Maybe if he hadn’t been consumed by her, he would’ve had his head in the game.
Instead, he had been lost in thought when he should have been protecting his men, and he had paid the price. The pain in his back wasn’t his worst pain right now.
“How are you feeling today, Captain?” the doctor asked. Holden had decided he didn’t care who the doctor was; they weren’t going to fix anything.
“Great, never better.”
“Good to hear.” The man didn’t joke around much. “I’m guessing that you should be able to head home in about a month.”
The man made it sound like it was a good thing to be sent home. A good thing to have to start a life where he couldn’t do what he loved. A good thing to have to move in with his mother, who was going to complain about the Army hurting him, and that he deserved it.
“Thought you’d be more excited.” The doctor wrote something in his file, probably something about him being depressed.
“I want to be where I belong—with my team, but we both know I’ll never go back again. The Army’s done with me,” he hissed. He couldn’t even lean back in his bed, much less carry a gun over his back.
“You’re not going back, but that doesn’t mean you have to leave the Army. There are other jobs.”
“I am not sitting at a desk all day.” He knew his limits.
“How about you talk to your CO? Maybe they have some ideas of places you could go?”
“The government wants soldiers, Doc, not people doing nothing.” He didn’t add “people like you,” but should have. The man had done little since Holden had gotten there. Other doctors had done the bulk of the work.
“It takes people doing nothing, as you say, to support those that are fighting. You still have a place if you want a place. You just have to want it.”
As the doctor walked away, probably to torment another used-up soldier, he looked out the window. All he saw was blue sky; his angle didn’t allow him a view of the ground.
“Hey, Captain, how’s it going?” A female voice came from the door. The blond hair was tied back, and she was holding her hat under her arm.
Squinting at her in the green fatigues, he couldn’t place her at all, though the voice was familiar. Without being asked, she walked into the room and looked at his back since he had no shirt on. There was no need with all the bandages on it.
“Did that bomb blow away your memory?” she asked, poking at his back a little bit.
“Sorry, can’t place you,” he admitted, hoping like hell she wasn’t someone he’d dated.
“Really? I help you get into Dylan’s pants, and you promptly forget me? Next time, you’re out of luck.”
“Elissa?” He looked at her again and saw it this time. He had never seen her in anything but scrubs, and just like with Dylan, had forgotten she was actually in the Army.
“Good job, sir. Only a little rattled.” She flicked his ear before sitting down in the chair by the bed.
“What are you going here?” he asked. She was in the wrong country if she was heading home.
“Heading home, but we had to come through here first. Never question the military. When I found out you were still here, I decided to stop by and visit. You know, catch up.” She was as cheerful here as she had been there.
“Welcome to my hell.”
“You’ll heal.”
He gave her a flat look. “Not enough.”
“Better than dead. Dead is always worse.”
“Some days, I wish.”
“I guess this is why Dylan hated patient visits. They are such a downer.”
“I suppose you want me to ask about her?”
“Up to you. I’m not going to tell if you don’t ask,” she admitted.
“Not going to ask.”
She shrugged. “We caught your call. She sewed you back together. Knew it was you without asking. There’s something still there between you two.”
“It’s over.”
Elissa’s eyes turned downward, shoulders slumping a little. “As she said.”
“Where’s home?”
“Suburbs of Chicago. Husband and a kid, I get to go back to that. Last deployment, too. No more re-upping.”
“Sounds great.”
“It is. Unlike you, I haven’t had sex in over a year and cannot wait to get home.” She laughed at her answer.
Holden felt a smile pulling at the corner of his mouth. “I can see why Dylan loved working with you.”
“She worked with me because I’m the best. She doesn’t take second-best.”
“Me neither, which is why we would never work. I can’t compete with a ghost.”
“You mean her late husband? He’s just an excuse to not get close to anyone.”
“Well, it works.”
“A man just has to work hard for her. You know she’s worth it.”
“How is she going to get by without you?”
Her smile fell at his words. “She doesn’t have to. She was sent back to the States on medical leave until further notice…burnout. She was gone within a week of you.”
“Shit,” he hissed under his breath. At this point, he had no idea what she was doing if she wasn’t working.
“Your injury might not have only ended your career, Captain, it might’ve been the straw that broke the camel's back for Dylan.”
“Are you blaming that on me?”
“No! She drove herself to the edge; you just were the wind that pushed her over. She was going to fall sometime, anyway. I’m kind of glad it happened before I left, so I didn’t have to worry about her.”
“She really liked working with you also.”
“We were a good team. I’m really going to miss her. The desert, though? No.” She chuckled.
“I'm going to miss it all.”
“Maybe you can find something better than sand. Dylan’s back somewhere in the States and will be for a while. You can romance her again.”
“I doubt she would want someone like me.”
“I don’t think she will settle for anyone but you, Captain. She might still wear his ring, but he doesn’t have her heart anymore.”
“It’s his name tattooed on her arm.”
“As is yours.” Elissa patted his shoulder lightly as she left the room, her blond hair swaying as she did.
Chapter 15
“We are starting our descent and will be landing in Minneapolis in thirty minutes. The local time is 8:15 p.m., and the temperature is thirty-five degrees,” the pilot announced, as if half an hour was long enough for her to come to grips with returning to where Dylan had come from.
When she’d gotten on a bus at eighteen, she had said goodbye to this place. She had no plans of ever returning. And now, she was in a steel tube, barreling right at it.
Last week, she had returned to a country she hadn’t seen in two years. It hadn’t changed. But her return had meant a full physical, from her body to her mind. Neither made the medical board happy.
Her mind was shot, and the shaking in her hand wasn’t controllable anymore. Even now in the middle of a flight, it was trembling on her lap. Grabbing it with her other hand to make it stop, she looked out the tiny window into the darkness.
A three-month leave was her sentence; three months of doing nothing
was her price to pay. Once those three months were up, she would meet before the board again to plead for her job back.
Not that her body was doing any better than her mind. She was twenty pounds too light and had no appetite. What little she ate, she threw up just as fast. Running hadn’t been an option since Holden’s accident; her mind wasn’t clearing anymore. All she saw was his mangled body, and at night in her dreams, she couldn’t fix the damage.
The lights of the city below them came into view, and she wondered if anyone was going to meet her when she got off the plane. Had her mom been told she was coming home? Would they ignore all the notes in her file to not tell her unless she was dead? Would they both be there: Janet and her perfect Jenna?
Dylan ran her hands over her face, forcing the images of the imaginary reunion from her mind. She was here to rest. Her CO had sent her home, but she was in no way going home. Tonight, she would find a hotel and from there, she would decide what she wanted to do.
“My wife wants you to know that we’re proud of you.” The voice came from the burly guy beside her who had been silent the entire flight from Texas. The only words they had spoken the entire three hours they had been together had been when she asked for the window seat.
Looking around him, she saw a skinnier guy on the other side reading. No wife in site.
“Um, she’s at home. I’m on a business trip, so she couldn’t come along,” he explained nervously at her questioning look.
“Thank you, I think?” she said in confusion. She had never had a stranger say they were proud of her. Thanked her, sure, but never this.
“Our son Wyatt joined up when he was eighteen. It pissed us off to no end, but that was how he was. What we wanted for him had never mattered—he had a mind of his own. The Army, it grew him up like nothing we could’ve done. They made him into a man. He was killed before we could tell him; before he came home again.” Seeing the tears swimming in the big man’s eyes, Dylan couldn’t help but wonder if the guy had been on her table? Had she not saved him?
“Sorry about your son,” she said words she had never had to in all of her years of being a doctor. She had never faced a grieving parent and was grateful for that now.
“Me and the Mrs. decided that whenever we see a soldier from then on to tell them we are proud of them. We didn’t get the chance with Wyatt, and everyone deserves to be told.”
“You don’t even know if I have done anything to be proud of.” Maybe his son hadn’t died at her hands, but others had. She didn’t even know the numbers anymore.
“Have you done something for me to be proud of, Major?” he questioned her.
“I hope so, sir. I sure hope so.”
She let the dead fall away and wondered how many were alive today because of her. How many got to hear again that their parents were proud of them? Loved them?
“You going home?”
“I guess. This is where I’m from.”
“Do your parents know you are coming?”
“No,” she admitted, not that she would tell this man that it was because her mother couldn’t be proud of her. She wasn’t perfect enough for that. And now she was nothing.
Her dad was long dead. He’d died young, but Dylan didn’t know and didn’t care how. His family was not a part of her life.
“They’ll be so excited to see you.” The guy nearly laughed at the excitement. Dylan didn’t even crack a smile.
“I’m sure they will be.” She faked a smile for him—they were not going to see her.
“Do you need a lift?”
“No, thank you. I have a ride. You go home to your wife; she misses you.”
“You married?”
“I was once, a long time ago.” She tried to come up with images of Marquez, but his brother’s face was all she could think of now. That and his mangled body.
“Sorry about your loss.” He took her hand and squeezed it.
“Can I just sit here a moment?” she asked as the plane was emptying, and he was staying with her.
“Yeah, sure.” He got up and grabbed his bag from over their seats, saying, “I hope your parents give you a big hug, because if I were your dad, I wouldn’t let you go.”
“For that, I wish you were my dad. Go home and hug your older boys. They need it too.” She turned away from him, not wanting to see his tears for the kids he loved.
Staring out at the airport lights, she knew he watched her for a while before leaving, but she was done talking. Done with people for a long time.
Now was the time to think about her future; a future that might not include sand and destroyed young bodies. What was she supposed to do without work and exhaustion?
“Major, the plane has landed,” a flight attendant stated. He was tall and good-looking and had obviously drawn the short straw. He looked at the forward cabin nervously.
“Yes, I know. Thank you,” she said and climbed over the two seats to get out of her hole.
Dylan grabbed her bag, Army-issue of course, and tossed it over her shoulder. It contained almost everything that she owned. The rest was in a storage unit in California, where she had finished her residency. If Marquez’s things weren’t in it, she would have just abandoned it.
Walking off the plane, she tried not to notice the stares she was getting from the rest of the crew, the ones who got the long straws. Yes, she knew she looked like crap, but did they have to stare at her?
Once in the airport, she saw the sign for transportation and followed the arrow. Passing a food vendor, she thought about stopping but didn’t feel like eating. She hadn’t felt like eating in such a long time.
As she walked, she kept an eye out for any signs that her mother was there, that word had gotten out that she was home, but nobody seemed to notice her or pay much attention to her.
By the time she had made it to the car rental desk, she was happy she hadn’t run into anyone from her past. With keys to a little compact car in her hand, she headed for the restroom before heading out to her three months of who knows what.
Sitting down in a stall, she stared straight into her own blue eyes. The stall door had a sign with her mother's picture on it. After twenty years, Dylan knew it was her mother. The person smiling beside her had to be Jenna, all grown up and looking like her mother. The caption beside them said: Welcome home.
Scanning the advertisement, she realized her mother and sister were now real estate agents. Her stomach twisted at seeing their faces. They weren’t welcoming her back—just everyone else.
Slamming out of the stall, she knew she needed out of this town as soon as possible. She had three months before she had to be back and wouldn’t spend them here at all.
Forty miles away from the airport, she still hadn’t turned off the highway. With no destination in mind, she just drove, past unfamiliar, nearly foreign sites after so long away from the States.
Another town approached, and she finally pulled over to eat. Her timer had gone off just as she had left the airport, reminding her to eat. Pulling off the highway, she picked the first drive-thru she found and ordered the first thing on the menu. It didn’t matter what it was; she didn’t taste any of it anyway.
But for now, she had to eat. Not for her, but for Holden. For the next seven months, everything she did to her body would be for Holden and his child that she was carrying. A child she had no right to raise. A little soul that didn’t need a mother like her in its life. Holden would raise it and be the perfect parent with whatever wife he found.
After the baby was gone, she could go back and work until she couldn’t anymore. Then her life would be over.
Chapter 16
“Is being in the Army hard?” the kid asked. He was scrawny and hadn’t worked a day in all of his eighteen years, Holden was sure of that.
“Yes, it’s a physical job,” he said, wanting to tell the kid to just leave, because he wasn’t joining the Army. This was all a waste of time.
“I can do physical work, but hard work, I don’t
know.” As if there was actually a difference.
Holden barely held back an eyeroll, telling himself that at least he was still in the Army. It had been months—long, hard, painful months since some kid tried to blow him to pieces.
Behind him, where the kid couldn’t see, Jake David did roll his eyes. Jake had turned into a great friend in the last two months. They even were starting to think alike.
“To tell you the truth, Jaden, if you join the Army, you will be in the best shape of your life within three months. You’ll be ripped and toned, and the chicks won’t be able to leave you alone. But if you would rather play video games, do that.”
“But isn’t the Army like a video game?” he asked, his eyes a little brighter now.
“No, the Army is not like a game. You get up every day and do what you are told, no matter what. And you get shot at sometimes.” A little scare tactic.
“But I get a gun, too, so I can shoot them back?”
“No, that’s not the way it works. How about you take a few more days and think about it? Talk to your parents and friends and make sure it’s what you want,” Holden said, hoping to God he never saw the kid again.
“Okay.” The kid hopped up and left the office full of excitement.
He forgot to tell the kid that you lose friends and family. And that when you get hurt, you might not heal. Even today, the skin on his back pulled when he twisted. It wasn’t exactly pain, but it wasn’t nothing either.
“Guns and video games, that’s all they think the Army is.” Jake got up and looked out the plate-glass window at the street and watched the snow fall.
Holden had been lucky enough to get assigned to the recruiting station he had signed up at. It was close to home, and he had found a little house not far. Living with his parents at thirty-one had been too difficult, no matter how injured he was.
