by Jess Bentley
I hadn’t been in Coronado for more than six hours when Wallace cornered me in the mess hall and told me he was going to break me like a horse. I fought him like the bastard I was, but by the time we got to Hell Week, half way through Phase One of physical conditioning, he could have saddled me up and ridden me like a pony. I tried to quit on at least seven different occasions. I was pretty fucking close to giving up when, after four hours of sleep, we were forced to lay on our backs in freezing cold water until it felt like we were going to die of hypothermia. But Wallace told me if I could survive Phase 1, I could survive anything. I kept that in my mind, pressing forward, keeping on. I was changing. I needed to change. For my dad. My mom. For Arie. Wallace said it was time for me to stop being a selfish loser. To prove I was more than the sum of my privileged parts, and commit to a greater whole.
In the middle of the shivering, so hard I thought I was going to die, something clicked. Wallace was right. Only a fourth of the people that come into BUD/S actually finish, and I wasn’t about to scrub out. I wasn’t going to quit or fail at something again, like so many other times in my life. After that, the next seventeen weeks flew by, as I trained in undersea and land warfare, learning how to engage in hand-to-hand combat underwater, or how to rappel silently in a small brush of trees. At the end of it all, I was standing in front of my friends and family in my Navy Uniform, graduating from the program and meeting the teammates who would have my ass in the SEALs for years to come.
The next day, I was given my assignment. I’ve been bouncing from location to location since then. It’s the only thing I’ve ever been successful at. Sometimes I think it could be the thing that changes me for good, that leads me back to Arie. But that’s all wishful thinking. The humiliation on her face is still crystal clear in my mind after all this time.
Tonight, I have no idea where we are. Once we left the airspace above Bahrain, we could have been anywhere. They usually don’t give us full mission details until we’re airborne, but tonight seems especially covert, which means it’s likely a high-stakes situation. Our mission leader, Daniels, is focusing exclusively on his briefing packet, and isn’t paying any attention to us, so we’re all trying to get in the right headspace for whatever may be lying ahead. There is no question that we’re nervous, but part of being a SEAL is shoving down those nerves and choosing instead to run on pure adrenaline. At the moment, I’m having trouble accessing the adrenaline, so it helps when Daniels finally looks up and addresses us.
“All right, guys. Time to rally. ETA to destination, ten minutes. We’re going to enter the facility from the water underneath. Giles, you’re on demolition. You’ll be blowing the gate blocking our entrance. Minimal noise if we can help it. Want to stay as stealth as possible. Cochran, you’re on mapping. Coordinates have already been uploaded to your tracking device. Once Giles blows the entrance, we’re going to follow you in. You have ten minutes to full prep. I’m sorry for the last minute debriefing, but nothing about this was planned.”
Giles straightens her shoulders and leans forward. “Sir, what exactly are we after tonight?”
Daniels turns around his tablet and shows us a photo of a well-dressed man standing next to a fireplace. He’s also American, which gives all of us pause. You can feel the mood in the Nightstalker change.
“This is Foreign Minister Archibald. According to our intel, Archibald has been using his position as a government ambassador to broker arms deals with some very bad people. All you need to know is that it is our job to get into this manufacturing plant and stop him from completing his latest deal. If we can snatch and grab without running into anyone else, all the better. If not, so be it. But our mission is to get Archibald, and bring him back to the good old USA to answer for his crimes. Understood?”
“Sir, yes sir!” we all respond in unison. Everyone goes quiet again as we begin to read over the details of the plan. Odds are good that this plan has been carefully staged down to the last possible eventuality, but it’s not normal for us to be kept out of the loop until the final moments like this. That makes me uncomfortable. But when the helicopter begins hovering over the water a solid half mile from our destination, my feelings don’t matter anymore. It’s time to suit up, jump out of the idling bird, and swim the rest of the way to the arms facility, all the while hoping no one sees us approach.
The swimming is the easy part, despite the chop of the water around us. We stay in a tight formation, ignoring the burning in our lungs, in our muscles, and focusing only on doing our job. After what feels like an hour, we can see the base of the massive building start to come in to view. Giles gestures for us to hang back as she swims onward to set up the underwater charges. Once she gets them in place, she’ll have less than a minute to swim away as fast as her legs can carry her, and this is after the distance we’ve just swum to get to the gate.
Everything happens in an instant. All at once, Giles is swimming double-time back in our direction, and a billowing cloud of water chases after her. All we can do is keep our fingers crossed that the gate isn’t equipped with an alarm. In a single-file line, we swim through the hole that has been blown in the gate, and one-by-one, surface, removing our re-breathers. I reach into the pack on my back and pull out my mapping device. It starts blinking gently, showing us the way through the underground vents we are currently in and up into the room where, apparently, the meet is going down.
I gesture for everyone to follow me forward once we’re properly armed, and we inch through the knee-deep water, step-by-step, until we come to a set of stairs leading up. The door blocking the stairwell is locked, but our newest recruit, Morrison, is on it in a flash, using a handheld blowtorch to destroy the lock. I pull back in front, and we make our way up the stairs, down a series of dimly lit corridors. Everything is quiet as we approach what the map tells me is the main holding area for the weapons facility.
In fact, it’s too quiet.
I barely have time to raise my hand to let the rest of the team know that I want them to retreat before gunfire descends on us from above. It’s an ambush, and whoever gave us the intel for this mission was badly prepared, because Archibald is nowhere in sight. Instead, we are surrounded by men we can’t see, shooting automatic weapons at us faster than we can get out of the way. In my peripheral, I see our second-in-command Amari fall to the ground, and Giles grabs his arms and drags him back into the last corridor we exited. Morrison gives up any guise of stealth and begins yelling for air support, when out of the corner of my eye, I see Archibald, sneaking around a corner and out a back door with a briefcase in his hand.
My instincts kick in, and I make a move to chase after him. Whatever is going on here, I refuse to walk away from this clusterfuck empty-handed. But I don’t make more than a few steps away from my team when I collapse in a heap on the cold cement floor. Nothing makes sense; I can’t seem to separate one flashing light from another. The Nightstalker is outside the building now, firing directly into the catwalk above us where our attackers are stationed. But why am I on the ground?
Why can’t I feel my leg?
Why can’t I move?
The last thing I see before I lapse into unconsciousness is Morrison’s face, and his voice shouting at me, “We’re going to get you out of here man! Just hold tight! Giles! Get me something to stop the bleeding or he’s going to lose the leg before we can get him on the chopper!”
After that, everything is dark.
Arie
New York City, 2016
It’s four in the morning, and I wake up to the sound of crying. Again. Except this time, it isn’t Chloe, my little girl. My own tears stir me from a miserable, nightmare-fueled sleep. For the last view months, I’ve been dealing with horrible stomach and back pains that leave me curled up in a ball on the floor. At first I thought it was the stomach flu, but then I started losing weight and the pains just wouldn’t go away. It’s been steadily getting worse, but between trying to take care of Chloe and working at the garage full-time, I’v
e done my best to ignore it.
I can’t ignore it anymore.
I get out of bed and check on Chloe, who is sleeping peacefully in her crib next to me. We live in a studio apartment, so I have to tip-toe to the kitchen to avoid waking her up. As has become my ritual, I drink down half of a bottle of goopy pink stomach medicine to try and combat the pain. But the vile liquid stopped working a while ago, so I’m not sure why I even bother.
When Chloe was born, my family didn’t understand why I refused to tell Pierce about her. I’m not sure why they were confused. Pierce can barely take care of himself, so I knew telling him about the baby would just add a whole lot more drama to both of our lives. Besides, she’s my responsibility, and he’s away with the SEALs, which is exactly where he needs to be to take care of his responsibilities. I vowed to raise her myself — whatever it took. Yet now, as I lay on the cold tile floor of the kitchen, I can’t help but wish I had backup, someone to help me as I try to deal with my body betraying me to this misery.
Three days ago, my aunt and uncle forced me to go to the doctor, concerned about my rapid weight loss and the fact that my skin was starting to tinge a strange shade of yellow. They scraped up every penny they could to pay the bill. They even said they’d take care of the bills after that, but that didn’t exactly make me feel better. It’s like they knew something was wrong. Really wrong. The doctor ran all sorts of blood work, then sent me for a CAT scan and a really uncomfortable biopsy. Even though it was all over in the course of a few hours, I knew the medical bills would be obscene. As I leave the doctor, I realize I’m already more terrified about the money than what the results might show.
In four hours, I have to pack up Chloe and all of her things and go back into the city to find out the test results. I can already hear her cooing in her crib, starting to wake up. My favorite part of the day is when she wakes up, all smiling and happy, excited to start the day. I always kiss the inside of her neck, where it smells like sweet milk and baby powder. It always makes her giggle, and she gives me that toothless grin, perfect and pure. It almost makes me forget about the creeping dread I feel at the idea of being sick, at not knowing how we will make rent. She is the only thing that keeps me going.
Should I have told Pierce? No. I’ll never be able to count on him.
Chloe lets out a little whimper, and I drag myself up off the floor to get her morning bottle ready. My pain doesn’t matter. Only Chloe matters, and it’s time to start the day.
* * *
Chloe and I are sitting in a sterile doctor’s office in downtown Manhattan, waiting in silence after a nurse has taken my vitals. The nurse is extremely kind, almost treating me like a China doll, and it makes me nervous. Chloe is on the floor, trying to lift up on her knees and crawl. I take her and sit her up when the door budges, holding her steady. I bend my body in half to keep her steady, ignoring the creeping pain in my body. When Dr. Arnold walks in, he wears a strained smile on his face. He sits on a rolling stool across from me and sets his hands on his knees, making extended eye contact, as if he’s steeling himself for something. My stomach curls into a snake of anxiety.
“Arie, we got your results back yesterday. I’m going to need to refer you to a specialist to confirm, but…”
I feel like I’m going to throw up. For the third time today. “What? Just tell me. I’m a big girl. I can take it.” I smile and shrug, like he’s about to tell me I just have a stomachache.
“Your test results indicate that you have a mass in your pancreas. It’s most likely contained at this point. But the preliminary exam seems to indicate that the tumor is malignant.”
Cancer. He won’t say it. But it’s there, on the tip of his tongue. I can almost see the word hanging in the air between us.
My head starts to swim, and I think there is a very good chance I am going to pass out. I lower myself onto the cool tile floor to sit with Chloe. There’s a very real chance I’ll fall right on top of her from the chair if I’m not sitting right next to her. I focus on her voice.
“Da,” she says. She holds up a piece of a wooden puzzle, as if to show it to the doctor. “Da,” she repeats. “Ta.”
I swallow hard before I speak. “How? Are you sure? What does that mean? What can we do? How much will...”
I know I’m asking more questions than he can answer but I’m afraid if I stop talking, I might replace the words with sobbing. He bends down awkwardly and puts a hand on my shoulder, an action I don’t find remotely comforting.
“Arie, this is why I need to send you to a pancreatic oncologist. You need to have the results confirmed by someone who knows this disease inside and out. I am not that person. I’ve already set an appointment up for you with the best doctor at Sloane-Kettering. You’re seeing her tomorrow.”
I shake my head. “No, I can’t tomorrow. I have to work. I need someone to watch Chloe. Maybe next week. But I can’t go tomorrow.”
He squeezes my knee. “Arie. You can’t wait a week. You have to go tomorrow.”
“What? Why? What are you trying to tell me? How long do I have?”
Dr. Arnold looks down at his feet. “I can’t tell you that with any certainty, Arie. I’m not an oncologist.”
“Bullshit. You’re still a doctor. Tell me how long I have.”
He glances over at Chloe and takes a long, slow breath. “I can absolutely not make estimates in your case. But in the average case of pancreatic cancer, once discovered, the patient survives three to six months with treatment. Could be months. Could be years. There’s no way to know for sure.”
Chloe grabs my finger and shakes it in the air like a toy. I drink in the small sounds she’s making, trying to make a memory of her.
A deep pain grows in my throat. Its taste is acrid and salty all at once. The taste of anger and sadness, and the horror of realizing that if I’m gone now, there’s no way she’ll ever remember me.
Pierce
New York City, 2016
It’s my seventy-seventh morning waking up in my childhood bedroom, and while the pain is getting more bearable. But the indignity being back in my parents’ house is harder to take. I ease up out of my bed, and try to stifle a groan as my leg refuses to straighten, a common occurrence when I get up in the morning. After the raid in the weapons factory that night, I know I’m lucky to have a leg at all. Bullets from an assault rifle tore through my calf muscle, my knee, and my tibia, leaving it with multiple fractures that had be surgically repaired in Germany. Rods, screws, and all manner of other medical devices now fill my leg, and the odds of me ever walking without a limp again are slim-to-none.
One thing I will definitely never be doing again is running missions with the SEALs.
I was given an honorable discharge, a Purple Heart for getting wounded in action, and a pat on the shoulder by the President. Now, I’m back in Manhattan, trying to recuperate — to “focus on healing,” as my mother says. But all I’ve been able to do is wander around the house, missing my teammates. I feel lost, even more lost than I did when I left for training. It wasn’t supposed to be this way. I went from having no purpose, to having the greatest purpose in the world, back to having no purpose again. And I hate the feeling of being useless. My father assures me that as soon as I am able, there is a position waiting for me at CSL. Yet, I can’t help but feel like it’s not enough. Like I was meant to be more. To do more.
I look up at the paint on the ceiling. It’s blue like the sky, but it’s chipping now. I’ve looked at it every day for two months, and it’s starting to drive me insane. I close my eyes and inch myself out of bed, walking slow. I moved off of my cane last week, but on some mornings, I still feel like I need it. The pain grinds in my leg, but I grit my teeth and suck it up. That’s the only thing I can do.
I walk down the spiral staircase, something that takes me a lot longer than it used to, and make my way to the kitchen, where I find Logan making an omelet in his boxers. He’s home on leave, and decided to stay at the house since I’m here. It
feels like we’re both teenagers again, and for a moment, I forget that we’re not.
“Why are you up so early, Lo?” I ask as I hoist myself up onto a bar stool.
He turns with a yawn, then slides the omelet over to me and sets about making himself another one. “You know how it is. Nothing wakes you up earlier than a night of irresponsible partying and promiscuous sex.”
I roll my eyes. My brother is the last person in the world who would ever be irresponsible or promiscuous. That was always my job. “What were you really doing?”
He flips the new omelet in the air and catches it in the pan perfectly. “Blind date. It was a bust. You should have come with me. She had a friend that was… interesting. I really wish you’d come out with me occasionally, Pierce. It wouldn’t kill you to get out of the house.”
I know he’s right, but the truth is, I have almost no interest in going out and partying, even the lame way Logan does it. And it has nothing to do with my leg, or the fact I’ve lost my ability to relate to the average person. It’s because the idea of dating just doesn’t appeal to me anymore. Not since Arie. Not since the way I treated her.
After we broke up, but before I went into BUD/S, I went on a sort of… woman bender. I thought I could fuck Arie out of my system, and I turned it into an Olympic sport. I slept with nearly any woman who would have me, thinking that eventually, I might forget how horrible I’d been to the only woman I’d ever loved. And I had been. An absolute asshole. Not a day goes by where I don’t regret everything that happened between us those days. When I close my eyes each night, I see one of two things: either the flashing of gunfire that ended my Navy career… or the look on Arie’s face when she turned and walked out of the coffee shop.
I’ve thought about looking her up a dozen times, but I can’t imagine a single scenario where she’d want anything to do with me ever again. I was a selfish, arrogant, useless bastard, and she was better off without me then. She is definitely better off without me now.
