by W. S. Greer
I drive through the residential area, knowing how close I am to his house, and my nerves start to kick in. I don’t even know if he’s home, and even if he is, I don’t know if he’ll actually talk to me. If he sees me at the door, he probably won’t even open it, in which case I’ll just have to come back another day. Regardless of what he does, I’m not giving up until I know I’ve done everything I could—until he hears everything from me and has time to think about it. I’m not giving up because I care about him too much, and I think he cares about me too, and that’s worth saving.
I pull into his driveway and park the car. He only has one car, and he parks it in the garage, so I can’t tell if he’s home or not because the garage is always closed. I take a deep breath and open the door, trying to use the cool breeze to calm myself down, because I feel like my skin is on fire. I’m hot all over; from my ponytail all the way down to the soles of the white tennis shoes I decided to wear. The nerves are almost unbearable, but I press on and knock on the door.
At first, I don’t hear or see anything. I give it a good thirty seconds before I knock again, but again, there’s nothing. Maybe he isn’t home after all. I wait another thirty seconds and knock one last time. Still, there’s nothing. So, I turn on my heel and start towards the car, and that’s when I hear the door opening up behind me.
The man I see standing there isn’t Austin. I mean, it is, but he’s obviously not himself. He looks tired and defeated—like his soul has been snatched out of his body and there’s nothing left but an empty shell. The look on his face hurts me to my heart and I instantly want to cry, but I push it back down. Even though I feel terrible, I know I’m not the victim here, he is. So, I fight off my tears and focus on him.
I take a step closer to the door, but he lifts one hand, signaling for me to stop right where I am.
“What do you want?” he says. His voice is ragged and low, like he’s been screaming all night and his vocal chords are shot. After he speaks, he just stands there staring at me, his eyes cold and devoid of happiness.
“Umm, I uhh,” I stammer, unsure of what to say first. “Umm, I just really need to talk to you. I was calling you all night, and you didn’t answer so I got nervous. I wanted to make sure you were okay. I needed to see you were okay.”
“Well, here I am,” he replies. “Obviously I’m not dead, so you can quit worrying about me. I’m sure there’s other guys out there for you to be worried about.”
I close my eyes for a second and allow that shot at me to sink in.
“Okay, I deserve that,” I say after a loud exhale. “Look, I know you’re upset, and you deserve to be . . .”
“Did I deserve to be lied to?” he interrupts.
“No, of course not. Austin, please just give me a minute.”
“A minute? A minute to do what? Lie some more?”
“No, a minute to explain.”
“You had over a month to explain!” he bellows. His voice echoes into the street and I hear a dog start barking in response. He’s furious, but he takes a second to breathe and gain his composure before he speaks again. This time he’s quieter. “You had almost seven weeks to explain, so what good is another minute gonna to do?”
He steps back and starts to close the door, but I rush over and place my hand on it.
“Austin, wait, please!” I say, now the volume of my voice is starting to go up. “I know you’re upset. I understand. I’m not here to try to convince you to not be upset. You have every right to be angry with me, because I know how much I hurt you with this lie. All I want is the chance to explain how all of this came to be—how all of this developed from beginning to end. I just need you to listen to me for a few moments so I can give you all of the information, and then you can take all the time you need. I’ll leave you alone if that’s what you want me to do, but I really hope it’s not. Please, Austin. Please let me explain.”
Everything in his eyes is saying no. I can see it written on his face that he wants nothing more than to slam this door so hard it breaks my hand, but he doesn’t. He holds it back, and instead, he swallows hard and steps back from the door.
“Fine,” is all he says, then he walks into the house and leaves the door open for me to follow him.
He walks in and sits down at the dining room table while I close the door behind me. When I make my way over to the table, I look down at him, but he doesn’t look up, he just stares at the floor. I sit down on the opposite end of the table and clear my throat.
“Okay, umm,” I begin, but he still doesn’t look at me. It’s awkward, but I continue anyway. “First of all, I really just want to say I’m so sorry for lying to you, Austin. I know that was wrong, and the right thing to do would’ve been to tell you right from the jump what I did for a living. I know that, but truth is when I met you, I liked you. I liked you right away, and that felt very different from the times I’ve met other guys outside of . . . work. You were so genuine and sweet, and I could tell you were hurting inside just like I was, but you were still going out of your way to put a smile on my face. I was drawn to that. So, I lied to you and told you I was a bartender, in the hopes that maybe you’d like me, too. When things between us started to pick up, I was too afraid to tell you the truth because I didn’t want to lose you. I liked having you there to make me smile. So, I kept my job a secret, hoping I’d find the right time to tell you.”
“Are you out of your fucking mind?” he finally says as he snaps his eyes up to me. “Other than the day we met, please tell me when the hell would’ve been the right time to tell me that you’re a prostitute?”
Once again, I feel hot all over. This time, there’s no breeze from outside to keep me cool.
“Umm, I don’t know,” I reply.
“Right. Exactly. So, now that the real you is out in the open, I’d like to know how much of what you told me was a complete lie. So, how long have you been doing this?”
I take another deep breath to steady myself.
“Nearly everything I told you about me is true,” I start to say. “I really did run away from my father’s house when I was seventeen, for all the reasons I told you I did. The only thing you didn’t know was that when I ran away, it didn’t take long for me to realize I was in over my head. I had two hundred dollars, which I’d stolen from my dad as I left, no car, and no place to stay. I spent the first night sleeping on the floor of McCarran Airport. I hunched up underneath some seats where there weren’t any people, and I slept there until the next morning when I took a cab down to Summerlin, and when the cab dropped me off, I stiffed the driver and he chased me for two blocks before I finally lost him. I spent the next night at a friend’s house—the only friend I had left from my school—but I couldn’t stay there more than one night. So, on the third day, I found Red Pony Gentlemen’s Club, and they hired me on the spot. I thought I was going to be a stripper. I thought Red Pony was just a strip club, and I knew strippers made fast cash, so I went there, and all I did for my first three months was strip. My first night I made over a thousand dollars, and I was able to rent a hotel room. After I turned eighteen, Damien started making me do things with the customers. I didn’t want to do any of it, and I resisted at first, but Damien has a way of making you do what he tells you to do, and a person can only stand so much of that. I meant what I said about him being violent. So, once I started to do it, my pay went up a lot, and the truth is that I needed the money.”
“I don’t want to hear that shit, Layla,” he snips, scrunching his forehead. “Don’t tell me it was all about the money. On some level, you must’ve enjoyed it, because you’ve been doing it ever since. I mean, you just turned fucking twenty-two for god’s sake! It’s been four years, and you want to convince me you kept at it for the money? You liked it.”
“No, I didn’t like it!” I snap back, even though I know I shouldn’t be defensive. “It may be hard for you to believe because you never had to worry about anything like this. Your parents were there for you. Your father was a
pilot and your mom was awesome, and you never had to run away from home and do anything you could to survive. You can’t relate to this, so I don’t expect you to understand how I could do something so disgusting for so long, but whether you believe it or not, I kept doing it because I was making money. I bought a car, and an apartment, and clothes, and food, and a life. I lived in a hotel for a month, because I wasn’t old enough to sign a lease yet, so when I turned eighteen, that’s when I got my apartment, and I can’t tell you how good it felt knowing I wasn’t gonna have to go back to my father. All I wanted was to not have to go back to him, so yes, I did something I didn’t want to do so I could keep making money.”
“So why didn’t you stop after you’d made enough?” Austin asks.
“And do what? I dropped out of school when I was in the tenth grade. I’m working on it now, but I still don’t have my high school diploma, so who the hell was gonna hire me?”
The tightness in Austin’s face finally relents, but only a little.
“That’s the point I’m trying to make, Austin,” I continue. “I had to do it to make money. I didn’t have anything else I could do. At this exact moment, I still don’t, really. But, that’s not an excuse for not telling you the truth. Regardless of the circumstances that led me to Red Pony, I should’ve told you, and I’m so very sorry for that. I truly am, and I’m begging you to forgive me. If not that, then at least to understand.”
There’s silence for a while. Austin doesn’t reply, choosing to stare down at the floor instead, and I’m not sure what else to say, so I wait for him to speak. In my head, I’m hoping he’s deciding to forgive me. I’m wishing he’ll just get up, walk over here and kiss me. I’m hoping he’ll hold me and tell me it’s okay. But, that’s a dumb thing to hope right now.
“This is too much,” Austin finally says, breaking the silence. “You’ve been sleeping with countless guys for four years, and you just slept with me a couple of days ago. How do I even know you’re clean? You made me wait to be with you. Why? Is it because you only sleep with guys who pay for it?”
I have to close my eyes and let that one sink in too, even though it hurt more than the first insult.
“That’s not it at all,” I reply. “We get tested every week, and we make everyone use protection. Look, I was contemplating what I was gonna do. I wasn’t sure of what was gonna happen between us, and the only thing I knew was if and when you and I had sex, I wanted it to be special. I wanted it to be different from what I get paid to do. I wanted it to mean something. So, I waited until I knew it did mean something. It meant everything to me, Austin. I know you felt that, too.”
“Yeah, I did. I did feel it, and I thought for a second you might actually be the one for me, but then I went out to celebrate and have one last night with my friends, only to find out that what I thought was special, was complete bullshit. I saw you in there with that guy touching you, and you were wearing next to fucking nothing, and then you went and sat next to Damien. Your ex-boyfriend, of all people.”
“Damien isn’t my ex, Austin,” I reply. “Damien is just the guy I worked for at Red Pony. He’s my . . . boss. He was my boss. I quit right after you left.”
“You mean, he’s your pimp,” he barks, ignoring the part about me quitting. “So, you lied about that, too. He was never your boyfriend, just your pimp. Great. You’re just full of fucking surprises. Damn!”
“I only lied about Damien because I couldn’t tell you who he really was without revealing what I did for a living.” It’s an explanation, but it doesn’t make him feel any better. Austin just shakes his head for what seems like forever, before I finally break the silence again.
“Austin, I’m sorry. I know this is a lot to take in, but please just know that I care so much about you. I never meant for this to happen. I swear I was going to tell you, I just didn’t know how or when to. I’m sorry.”
“It doesn’t matter, Layla,” he responds, staring now at the table. “This is just too much. You’ve been lying to me every day since the day we met, and that’s just too fucking much. I tried to be there for you. I tried so hard to convince you that not all men are assholes. I tried so hard, and it was you who was lying the whole time.”
“Austin . . .”
“Get out of my house,” he says, cutting me off. When I don’t move, he says it again, but louder. “I said, get out. Now.”
I exhale just as the tears begin their assault on my eyes, but I hurry towards the door because I don’t want him to see me cry. I stop at the door and look back at him, but he isn’t watching me leave. He’s still there, staring down at the table when I close the door behind me and walk to the car.
I back out of the driveway and drive a block up the road before I finally pull over and let the tears have their way. I lay my head on the steering wheel and cry until there’s nothing left. Long, gut wrenching sobs that make me out of breath. It takes fifteen minutes for me to pull myself together enough to be able to drive.
I make it home and lay on my couch—the place where Austin and I made love just a couple of days ago—and I cry some more. I cry until the cushion is soaked all the way through. I cry way more than I thought I ever would over a man I’ve known just over a month. Or, maybe I’m crying because I’m finally free from Red Pony. Maybe I’m crying because I have no idea what my future holds and it’s terrifying. I don’t even know anymore, but before I’m able to figure it out, I cry myself to sleep right there on the couch.
Austin
“You ready for this, Captain?”
I feel the wind coming in through the hangar door. I know it’s colder in the hangar than it is outside, but I still feel apprehensive about going out there at all. My stomach is in knots as we wait for the okay to head towards the flight line so we can board the helicopter.
It’s been three days since I last saw Layla, and even now, in this situation where I should be fully focused on what it is I’m about to do, I’m still thinking about it—about her. I’m distracted at exactly the wrong time, but I don’t let the six army soldiers that are waiting with me know that. I just stand there and try to project the proud, strong image they all expect from me, even though I’ve been sleeping like shit every night. I’m haunted by the dreams, and it’s gotten worse since the incident with Layla.
This’ll also be the first time I’ve been inside a helicopter since I was in Afghanistan—since Lieutenant Weston. My therapist, Major Nelson, asked me last week if I would be ready for this moment when it came, and I told him I didn’t know. Well, the moment is here, so I guess we’re about to find out.
“Hey, Captain Sloan, are you ready for this?” I hear a voice repeat behind me. I turn around and Colonel Marcus Burg is standing there with a thin smile on his lips. He’s one of the few people who knows about what happened with me in Afghanistan, so I know he’s checking on me, and I don’t like it.
“Yeah, of course,” I assure him. I don’t feel confident, but I try to force it. I tell myself I’m good at this, and I always have been. Once I’m in the pilot’s seat, I’m going to be good to go. I just need to make it there.
“Alright, we got the green light, let’s do this.” Colonel Burg pushes past me and leads the small band of us out the door.
I’m the only Air Force member of the group, and we’re here to do standard training for the Army paratroopers. All I’m supposed to do is take them up in the helicopter and let them jump out. The training isn’t for me, it’s for the Army troops to practice jumping from a chopper and using their shoots. All I have to do is go up, and then back down again. Easy money.
We walk out towards the chopper together, the wind blowing us forward from behind, and I see the helicopter sitting there on the flight line. It’s the first helicopter I’ve seen since I landed the one with Lieutenant Weston’s dead body in it. When I look at it, I instantly feel apprehensive, which is really weird for me. I’ve always been the one going around telling people about how you can’t do this job and be afraid at the
same time. I was always preaching about being brave and having no fear. Now, however, the sight of the HH-60 Pave Hawk sends a chill up my spine for the first time ever. No matter, I brush it off. I have a job to do, and I’m going to do it. I’m going to push past this, I’m going to push past Layla, and I’m going to be fine. I’m fine.
I open the door and climb into the pilot seat, while the six paratroopers climb in the back. As I settle in, I can hear them behind me, strapping themselves in and making small talk as they get their gear in place. I don’t have a co-pilot today because this is a simple training mission, and I don’t need one. It’ll just be a quick up and down.
I click in my harness and don the bulky headset, and I immediately hear a voice in my ears as I start the engines and propellers.
“Whiskey Sierra, this is Delta One. How do you copy?”
I take a deep breath in and then push the air out. I just need to settle my heart down because it’s starting to beat a lot faster than usual.
“Whiskey Sierra, Whiskey Sierra, this is Delta One. How’s copy?”
I clear my throat and then speak into the microphone. “Uhh, that’s a good copy, Delta One. Lima Charlie.” My voice doesn’t sound normal. Maybe it’s because I have the headphones on, but it sounds weaker. It’s ragged and strained.
“Roger that. Alright, Whiskey Sierra, you are cleared for takeoff. Please ascend to twelve hundred feet about the drop zone. Radio back once you’ve reached jump altitude.”
“Copy that, Delta One. Headed to the drop zone.” I wrap my hands around the controls for the first time, and before I pull up, I have to take another deep breath. This time, I close my eyes and count to five. By the time I’ve reached five, I feel better. Not great, but good enough to pull the stick back and lift the chopper off the ground.
