by J. M. Newlin
Ben wished he could forget everything, but that was a dream for all but a few dangerous seconds of freefall.
‘Ready to jump again?!’
Ben looked up. Mathias looked at him expectantly.
Ben smiled. ‘Yeah brother, let’s do it’
Chapter 3 – At the bottom of the bottle
‘Last orders!’
Sarah lifted her head from the table.
Fuck, already she thought. Its only 9pm!
‘Itzzz onlly niiiinnnneee’ she slurred at the barman.
‘No it’s eleven’ he retorted ‘And anyway you’ve had enough. Go home lady, I’ll call you a cab’
‘Ferrk youuu, I’m fine, more wiine’
‘No, you’re not fine and no you can’t have more wine’ the barman turned to his colleague’ Call her a cab’ he told him.
Turning back to Sarah he asked her ‘Where do you live love?’
He normally wouldn’t be this nice with a customer who just told him to go fuck himself, but something about this girl made him empathetic.
She’d come into this bar alone, but unlike most woman who went to bars by themselves, she didn’t seem to be looking to pick up a man.
She’d have no problem doing so if she wanted.
With her long blonde hair and her high cheek bones, she was something to behold.
But, her eyes, blue and wondrous as they were, held such pain in them.
He’d noticed them as she’d first come in and ordered a drink.
They bought him such sadness to look into that he could barely look her in the eyes when he served him.
He wondered what misfortune this beautiful girl had experienced to leave her so forlorn, perhaps she was dying he thought.
‘Immm, not tellling yous whereee I livvee’ she shrieked as she stumbled off her stool and towards the door.
‘Geeet myy oown cabb’ she continued as she fell into the door and pushed it open.
Outside in the night air, Sarah straightened her skirt and tottered off down the street towards the taxi rank.
There was no line for the cabs, but after all Monday night wasn’t exactly the liveliest of times in the area.
The cab dropped her off at her home. It’d taken a couple of attempts for the driver to understand what her address was but he’d got it in the end, he was used to deciphering drunken slurs from people who’d had too much to drink.
Opening her front door, Sarah tripped and fell over into the hallway, sending the coat stand tumbling over onto the floor.
Lying on the floor on top of the fallen coats, Sarah remembered Alex picking her up in his arms and carrying her over the threshold of the doorway on the day they moved in here together.
She’d shrieked like a delighted little girl as he scooped her up into his firm arms and she buried her face in his neck as he stepped through the doorway, kicking the door behind him and carrying her to the bedroom.
There he’d laid her down on the bed, lifting her dress up over her head and peeling it off her lithe body before slipping her panties off and making love to her on the white sheets of their new bed.
Sarah pulled herself up from the floor and closed the door, there was no Alex to carry her anywhere any more.
Walking into her bedroom, she turned on the light and curled up on the bed.
The room was exactly as it had been before Alex left for his tour in Afghanistan. His clothes were still in the closet and his keys were still on the dresser.
Sarah knew she should throw his things away but she couldn’t bring herself to do it, she had to have something left of him.
She picked up his leather jacket that was slung over the back of a chair and lay her head down on it, her face burying into the lining of the jacket.
It still smelt of him, his cologne still permeating the soft leather.
Sarah had spent every night since his death curled up with his clothes around her on the bed, the knowledge of them there on the bed making her feel that he was, at least in some way, still with her.
Her family and friends had tried to help her move on with her life, but Sarah didn’t want to move on.
Her life had died along with Alex.
She was washing up when she heard the knock on the door and she answered the door with her kitchen gloves still on.
She was confronted by two young, clean shaven men in uniform.
They looked somber and anxious and started to speak but Sarah wasn’t listening. She knew what they had come for.
She heard a wailing scream coming from somewhere she couldn’t place.
A guttural, screeching howl that seemed to fill up her skull.
She struggled to hold herself up on the corner of the open door as her legs began to buckle underneath her and the young men’s voices became very loud and distant.
‘Mrs Kinney!’ the young men cried as they rushed forward to stop her collapsing.
As their arms caught her and supported her falling weight, Sarah realized who it was wailing and screaming.
It was her.
The young men carried her inside and placed her gently on the sofa.
One of them called her mother whilst the other made her a cup of hot tea to help calm her down from her shock.
Once her mother came round, the two young soldiers left the house, leaving Sarah in the arms of her mother.
The following 24 hours were a blur to her, friends and family all came over to see her with their platitudes and apologies for her loss.
None of their words helped. She didn’t blame them, but what could they do for her. All she could think about was her beautiful husband, lying alone in a morgue.
She thought about the last time she had seen him, had held him and kissed him. She knew he was going to war and it was dangerous but she never expected that he would become a casualty.
She wished she had kissed him harder, held him tighter and longer when they said their goodbyes. But neither of them believed it would be the last time they would ever see each other.
They had talked as much as possible on satellite phone when he was in Afghanistan, but when they moved out of the main base into a patrol base in the heartland of the Taliban the communication stopped except for a couple of letters that she had wrote him and some he had written back.
She kept those letters in a drawer along with some of his effects that the Army had given to her, but she couldn’t bring herself to open it again and read the words he had written. They spoke of their future together and his desire to start a family with her when he came back from his tour of duty. Reading those words now would just remind her of how cruelly he had been taken from her and with him the light and hope in her life.
She had got a call from Ben, Alex’s best friend, a few days after his death.
Dear sweet Ben. He hadn’t gone into details with her, but she knew that Ben had been with Alex in his final moments and that Alex had asked him to protect and care for her.
Ben had called to see how she was coping, but he was barely holding himself together and they had ended up crying on the phone to each other.
When he had come back from his tour Ben had come round and they had got drunk and reminisced about Alex.
He was a good man thought Sarah and she knew he and Alex had been close.
They hadn’t really spent much time together when Alex was alive, but his death and Ben’s promise had brought them closer together and Sarah liked having him around.
But he had taken Alex’s death hard as well, leaving the Army and taking a job in a construction company hauling concrete around all week.
He tried to stay strong around Sarah, she could see that, but she suspected he was just as broken as she was inside.
His obsession with B.A.S.E jumping seemed to be, as he said, a way to forget what he had seen and done, but when she’d asked him if he was worried about the dangers he had seemed apathetic.
Ben didn’t seem to care very much if he lived or died, and Sarah could sympathize with that.
She’d considered killing herself in the dark months that followed Alex’s death. She’d even stocked up with painkillers and vodka but had a change of heart as she opened the packet of pills.
Whilst she’d stopped going to church long ago, her Catholic upbringing had instilled in her the sanctity of life and the eternal punishment that awaited anyone who took their own lives rather than waiting for God to take it.
But if death wasn’t an option, then she needed something else to numb the pain she was feeling.
Alcohol was her opiate.
And, she reasoned, if she happened to die from alcohol poisoning then that wouldn’t count as suicide.
Her family had tried to put her into rehab, but she’d refused vehemently. She was only forced once to see a therapist when her neighbors had found her drunk on the lawn naked after shaving her own head.
She’d been taken to hospital and then sectioned for a couple of days whilst they tried to see if she was crazy.
The doctors had talked to her about her drinking and a psychiatrist had spent the 2 days asking her about her feelings and if she heard voices or saw things that others couldn’t.
They released her when they realized she was just a grieving woman struggling to come to terms with the loss of her husband.
She tried counselling at the behest of her mother, but it didn’t work.
The only thing that helped her was booze.
As she curled up on the bed, her head buried in Alex’s jacket she thought of Ben on his trip, he was coming back tomorrow. It would be good to see him she thought, really good to see him.
And with that, Sarah fell asleep.
Chapter 4 – Homecoming
Ben stepped out of the aircraft door and into the hallway that connected the plane to the terminal.
Uggh, back to reality.
The flight hadn’t been long, but it had been bumpy.
He’d slept a little bit on the plane, but his dreams had been filled with images of Afghanistan. Images he’d rather forget but his brain refused to let him.
He passed through customs and made his way to the exit and the car park.
Throwing his bags into the trunk, he started the car and drove out into the light rain.
He pushed voice control on his phone and commanded it to call Sarah.
As the phone rang he hoped she had been okay whilst he had been gone.
‘Hello’ she sounded tired.
‘Hey Sarah its Ben’
She suddenly perked up on hearing his voice.
‘Oh hey Ben! How are you, how was your trip’
‘Yeah it was good, how have you been? You stay out of trouble?’
‘I’m okay’ she sighed
‘I’m just driving back home now, if you want I can pop over and we can have dinner?’
‘Yeah that sounds good’ said Sarah.
‘Great, I’ll be over in a few hours and I’ll bring a pizza’
‘Okay, see you later’
Ben hung up the phone. She sounded a bit down, but hopefully dinner would cheer her up.
Truth be told he needed to be cheered up as well.
The instant he’d stepped off the plane, a dark cloud had overcome him. He’d left the world of B.A.S.E behind and was stepping back into normal life, a life with nothing to look forward to.
Well, that wasn’t quite true, he was looking forward to seeing Sarah. She gave him a purpose when he wasn’t jumping, something to keep him going.
It only took a couple of hours to drive back from the airport to his house, but by the time he arrived the light spattering of rain had turned into a deluge, soaking him the instant he got out of the car.
He ran to the front door and hurried through into the hallway, quickly closing the door behind him.
Dumping his kit bag in the bedroom, he jumped into the shower to freshen up. Couldn’t turn up to Sarah’s looking and smelling like shit!
20 miles away Sarah was getting dressed.
With Ben coming over she wanted to look at least half decent, she’d been lazing in her sweat pants all day and couldn’t have company over looking like that.
She put on a nice dress and carefully applied some mascara.
A dash of Channel no.5 and voila! She was ready.
She admired herself in the mirror, she looked good she thought. Not that she wanted to look good for Ben, but she didn’t want him to not think she looked good…
Perhaps she looked too good she thought, she didn’t want Ben to get the wrong idea.
She quickly changed out of her dress and into a pair of jeans and a pink jumper.
Much more suitable she thought.
It wasn’t as if she didn’t think Ben was a good looking guy. He was. But she wasn’t in any place to even consider dating anyone let alone anything more.
She felt guilty even thinking about it and she certainly didn’t want Ben to get the wrong impression.
There was a knock on the door. That must be Ben.
Sarah quickly checked her hair and makeup in the mirror before walking through the living room and to the front door.
‘Hiya!’ she smiled as she opened the door.
Ben was standing there in the rain with a box of pizza in one hand and an umbrella in the other.
‘Oh quick, come in!’ she said.’ I didn’t notice it was raining!’
‘Thanks’ said Ben as he quickly jumped into the doorway out of the rain, shaking his umbrella on the step and handing Sarah the pizzas.
‘Hold that will you so I can close this umbrella’
Sarah took the pizza box from his hands as he closed the umbrella.
‘Oh, it’s so warm! What did you get us?!
‘Hawaiian, your favorite’ Ben smiled.
‘Yay!’
Ben closed the door behind him and leant down to give her a kiss on the cheek.
‘Good to see you darling’ Ben said as he kissed her cheek. ‘Mm, you smell good!’
‘Why thank you!’
Sarah spoke as she walked to the kitchen and put the pizza down on the side.
Ben followed her, passing an empty bottle of wine on the living room table. He opened his mouth to say something about it but bit his tongue. No point having an argument the minute he walked in, and besides, she didn’t seem drunk.
‘How was your trip? ’ she asked as he cut the pizza into slices.
‘Yeah, it was good…….was nice to escape you know’
‘Do you want salad?’
‘Bit healthy isn’t it?’
Sarah laughed. It was a rare thing for Sarah to laugh these days and it made Ben smile, she had a lovely laugh. He hadn’t heard it in so long.
‘I think you need it Ben, you’re getting a bit chubby around the edges! In fact, I’ll eat the pizza and you can have the salad’
‘Fuck you’ Ben smiled, lunging for the pizza playfully.
‘Don’t worry’ said Sarah’ you’ll get your pizza!’
‘I’d better do’ Ben laughed as he went into the living room and sat on the sofa.
Sarah walked in and put his plate on the table in front of him and took a seat on the sofa to the right of Ben.
‘God, I’m starving’ said Sarah, ‘I’ve eaten bugger all today’
‘What have you been up to today?’ asked Ben.
Sarah looked sheepish. ‘Not a lot’ she replied as she spotted the empty bottle on the table.
She scooped it up quickly and put it in the trash can in the kitchen.
‘Sarah….’Ben started to speak.
‘What’ snapped Sarah, anticipating his question.
‘Nothing’ he replied’……..have you been to work this week?’
Sarah’s family ran a jewelry store in the town that Sarah had taken over from her mother and father a few years earlier. She’d done a great job with it, nearly doubling the revenue within 18 months.
But, after Alex’s death she had stopped working for the most part, letting the store be run by the store manage
r she had hired to help her when she took over.
‘Yes I’ve been in a couple of times’ Sarah replied ‘But Claire is handling it well, she doesn’t need me there all the time.’
Ben nodded, he knew that he should probably try to convince her to spend more time at work, to focus on other things other than obsessing over her dead husband, but who was he to talk?
Ben felt like a hypocrite trying to get her to make positive changes in her life when he wasn’t exactly moving in a positive direction himself.
BZZZZ, BZZZZ.
Ben’s phone started vibrating on the table. Before he could pick it up, Sarah had leant over at glanced at the screen.
‘Oooh, who’s Jessica?’ she asked Ben ‘Is she your girlfriend?’
‘Just some girl’ replied Ben as he pushed the silence button and let the call go to voicemail.
Did he detect some jealousy in her voice he wondered?
‘Check you out mister mysterious with all his girls’
‘All my girls!’ Ben said sarcastically ‘It’s only one. It’s just some girl I met in Norway and we swapped numbers.’
‘You player you!’
Sarah tried to hide it, but she had suddenly felt twangs of jealousy when she saw the girls name flash up on the caller ID.
Where was this coming from? she thought
She’d never thought of Ben that way. She could see that he was a handsome man, and she guessed in another life that she wouldn’t be averse to going out with him.
But jealous of a girl that called him. Surely she didn’t have feelings for him?
Sarah was confused and guilty at the same time. She felt like she was cheating on Alex which she knew was ridiculous but she couldn’t help it all the same.
It wasn’t like she hadn’t found other men attractive since she married Alex but since his death, just thinking about another man in any way other than platonically made her feel like she was betraying him in the worst kind of way.
She squeezed her hands together to try and mentally push down the wave of emotions that overcame her.
She felt herself calming down and the guilt began to subside.
Why did Ben not answer the phone? she suddenly thought.
And why was he brushing it off as no big deal?
Sarah found herself wondering if Ben had feelings for her.
