by Ann, Natalie
“Yes, you can.” She held her ground, showing no indication of backing down, but he wasn’t going to either.
“Stop telling me what I can and can’t do and get the hell out of my way.”
“No. I’m not leaving you. I’m not letting you wallow in some misplaced guilt that someone else is piling on you. I love you, and I refuse to watch part of you die from the inside out because you won’t let go.”
He was taken back. First, for the words he had been waiting to hear. But mostly from her last statement. And he spoke without thought. “You think you are the only one who lost a loved one by their own hand? The only one who was responsible for another person and failed?” She stilled, opened her mouth, then closed it without uttering a word. “What’s the matter, Presley? I thought you wanted to hear this,” he challenged.
“I do. I want you to tell me. You need to tell me,” she begged him.
“No one can know.”
“I won’t tell anyone, Ben. But you have to tell me. You have to, or you will never heal,” she told him, tears shining in her eyes.
He ran his hands through his hair, went back to the tree and sat down. He rubbed his face a bit more and just started to talk, rambling on about things. “I knew something was wrong with him, Presley. I could have done more to help. I tried, but it wasn’t enough. It was my job and my responsibility to see the signs. Not because Patty made me promise. But because I was the commanding officer and it was my job to know what was going on with my men.”
Sitting next to him, she put her arm around his shoulder and pulled him close, then stroked his neck, his back, and his arms, much like he did to her weeks ago. “Just talk to me, Ben. It doesn’t need to make sense. Just talk and whatever you say goes no further. I promise.”
He was tired of fighting. Fighting himself, Patty, the truth and the secret, the pain, the grief and the guilt. It was eating him alive. “Trent started to change. I don’t know when it happened or what exactly happened or caused it. But he wasn’t the same carefree, happy guy he used to be. He was always laughing and smiling, always joking. Everything was a joke to him. We made jokes out of training at times. Mainly, it was the only thing that got us through, the laughter. Somewhere along the line, about four months before he died, there was less and less laughter.”
He leaned into her more, needing her strength and reassurance—he was man enough to admit that to himself—and started talking again. “The first time I realized something was wrong, I had woken up in the middle of the night. He was nowhere to be found. He always had a problem staying awake, so I took that duty. I never left it to him. He couldn’t do it. But there was no reason for either of us to be awake that night. We weren’t on a mission. But I woke up anyway. Something wasn’t right and I couldn’t put my finger on it, but I felt it. I went from room to room and finally found him sitting in the dark. I was afraid to turn the light on, but there was enough moonlight coming through the window and I could see he was holding his gun with a dazed look in his eye, staring ahead at nothing. It was like no one was home up here,” he said, tapping his head.
“What did you do?”
“Nothing at first. I didn’t want to spook him. So I waited, and I watched, and slowly he shook his head, then life came back into his eyes. He looked down and seemed startled to find the gun in his hands, got a confused look on his face, then stood up and went back to his room. He never saw me there. I never spoke of it and neither did he.”
“I don’t understand. Why wouldn’t you ask him what happened?”
He sighed, she wouldn’t understand. “You just don’t ask. Presley, war does some crazy things to people. It plays with their heads, and messes up their minds. We’ve all had moments, maybe not like that, but still, moments. And we try to let them go unless that person volunteers to talk about it. He didn’t and I didn’t push it. I thought it was a moment. Looking back, I shouldn’t have brushed it off.”
“So there was just that one moment?”
“No. There were lots of things after that. He started to take more risks in missions, like he had a death wish or something. At first I thought he was trying to be the hero. We were always one-two in everything, with me being one and him being two. I just thought he was trying to be the first. But again, I was wrong.”
He laid his head on her shoulder. “I shouldn’t tell you this, Presley. I don’t want you to relive it.”
“Don’t worry about me, Ben. I’m more worried about you. Keep going. I’ll be fine, but you won’t if you don’t keep going.”
“Don’t say I didn’t warn you.” But he put his arms around her and held on, just in case what he had to say caused her to pass out. “A week before he died we were on a mission, bringing down a cartel that was smuggling in a shipment of assault weapons. It was a simple enough mission. We had done our homework. We were prepared and knew what was going down and when. We had plenty of time.”
She was stroking his arm, letting him know she was listening, and was okay so far, even though he could hear the beating of her heart under his ear. “Trent and I were off to the side. I was watching what was going on and getting ready to give the signal. I heard a noise, and before I could pull my gun and turn, there was a gun at the back of my head.” He stopped and waited to see how she would react. Her heart was racing faster, there were goosebumps on her arms and he could feel her shaking, her breath coming in short gasps.
“Don’t stop. I’m good,” she said in between deep breaths when he paused.
He was starting to feel the same as her, his own heart racing, almost reliving the moment again. “Scenarios were running through my head. How did someone sneak up on me? Where did he come from? Where was Trent? I kept thinking something had to have happened to Trent. He was right there by me, so how did he let this happen? He was supposed to have my back, the same as I had his, and it made he think he was hurt, or worse, dead.”
“What happened? Tell me, Ben,” Presley asked after he stopped talking completely.
“Then I heard a chuckle and couldn’t believe it. It couldn’t be. And then I just reacted, turned quickly, took him down, and turned the gun on him. It was Trent. That was how I didn’t know, or didn’t hear. There was no one else. It was Trent the whole time. He’d moved to the side and put his gun to the back of my head.”
“He was going to kill you?” she asked, alarmed.
“No. Not at all. He was joking. Thought he was being funny. I was livid. And he knew it. We got through the mission just as easily as I knew we would. But back at the room that night, we fought. Physically. The minute we were in the room, I decked him and knocked him right to the ground. He was bigger than me, stronger than me, but I was faster, and I caught him unaware.”
He was stroking her arm now, trying to reassure her he was okay, he was there and nothing had happened to him. “We beat on each other pretty good that night. I asked him what the hell he was thinking.” Ben stopped and shook his head, almost trying to clear the memories, not even believing what he was saying but knowing it was true.
“What did he say?”
“He asked me if I ever wanted to end it. I didn’t know what he was talking about. But deep down, I knew. Looking back, I knew. He said sometimes he woke up and thought he needed to end it. That he didn’t like the thoughts running through his head, or the demons in his nightmares. He asked how I dealt with it, how I couldn’t feel the same way he did.”
“How did you deal with it?” she asked, and he could see she was holding her breath and waiting for his answer. The way he answered might have an impact on the rest of their lives, he knew that.
“I don’t know. I just did. I’m not saying it didn’t affect me, because that would be a lie. But I never once had those thoughts that he did.” He wanted her to believe him, needed her to believe him. “I told him he needed help. That I would get him help, and I was taking him off the next mission. But he said it was a moment. Just a moment. Nothing more. And that we all got them. And we did, so I let it
go.” He shook his head sadly, a lone tear forming. “I wanted him to be fine, so I believed what he told me.”
He looked into her eyes. “That is my fault, Presley. I let it go and I shouldn’t have. I should have known better. I should have known he wasn’t well, but I didn’t want to believe that of him. I didn’t want to believe that my best friend, the man that was so much like me, was having these thoughts, having these demons.”
“I don’t understand then. Did he commit suicide because you took him off the mission?”
“No. I took him off and required him to take a psych exam before he could get back on. He wasn’t happy with me. Was downright livid, actually, and didn’t speak to me for days. But to my surprise, he passed it and I was overruled. He was back on the mission. I was told there wasn’t time to bring someone else in. My hands were tied.”
“It wasn’t your fault, Ben. You did everything you could have. It sounds like you did what was ordered.”
“It’s still my fault. I could have pushed harder and I didn’t.”
“Then what happened if he was cleared?”
“It was another mission, similar to the other one, stopping the shipment of illegal weapons. We were hiding and moving in on them. Someone tipped the cartel off and shots were fired. But it was under control. We had it handled. I had it handled. They were outnumbered. We just had to bide our time.”
He started to have flashbacks of that day. Wanting Trent by his side, close enough to keep an eye on him, not trusting him, his gut not completely convinced Trent was okay. And he needed to make sure for himself that everything was good from start to finish.
“The gunfire stopped, and we were moving in some more… and then out of nowhere, Trent looks over at me and sends me one of his smiles. For a moment I thought the old him was back, and I breathed a sigh of relief. But just as suddenly, he mouthed the word ‘goodbye’ and before I could do anything, because I knew—right at that moment everything flashed before me, and I knew—he stood up from behind his shield and was shot. It didn’t matter he had a vest on. It only takes one shot, Presley, and it was in the neck.”
“So he didn’t kill himself then?”
“Not on record, no. But I knew. And I could have stopped it. He always joked about being a hero and that if anything ever happened to him, he better go out being a hero. I guess in his warped sense of mind, he went out that way.”
Ring
Presley walked back to Patty’s shortly after. Ben had said he needed to be alone, and she suspected he had to say his last goodbye. She knew deep down this was the final goodbye. To Patty and to Trent.
Driving back to the hotel room alone, she thought back to everything Ben had told her. She couldn’t conceive the guilt and grief he lived with all this time, all by himself. Watching your best friend die right in front of you and being helpless to do anything about it. Then shouldering the blame for it all along. Not to mention Patty piling even more blame on his shoulders. It was no wonder he had nightmares all the time.
She hadn’t wanted to take the car back to the hotel, but he insisted, and told her not to worry, that he would meet back with her. There were a few things he needed to do, and he would rather be alone.
In the end, she hadn’t argued. She’d pushed him enough today, even more than he had her. Now she wasn’t so sure it was the right decision to let him be alone, but she couldn’t take that decision back. It was done and over with.
For the life of her, she couldn’t believe she finally told him she loved him. Of all the places—to shout it at him in a cemetery. No wonder he hadn’t said anything about it.
When she was getting ready for bed and he still hadn’t returned, she started to get worried and tried to call him, but it went straight to voicemail. He did send her a text that he was okay and would be back shortly and to not wait up for him. At least he was considerate enough to do that.
She never heard him come into the hotel room. She didn’t even know when he did, only that she woke up the next morning to see him sitting in the chair looking out the window, still dressed. “Did you sleep at all?” She knew the answer and really didn’t even need to ask.
“I’m good,” he told her, completely ignoring her question.
Hours later they were on the plane back home. They communicated very little. He needed to be alone with his thoughts, and she did, too. Instead she reached for his right hand, laced her fingers through his and froze. Picking up his hand, she noticed his ring was gone. Looking up, she caught his expression and the shake of his head, so she held her tongue.
***
Later that night back at his house, she was cooking dinner while he sat at the table drinking a beer. She had really hoped he would tell her where the ring was, but he hadn’t, and she didn’t feel right about bringing it up. Not yet. It seemed to be an off-the-table conversation. “Dinner shouldn’t be much longer,” she said, placing a salad in front of him. “You can start on this if you want.”
He wrinkled his nose at her. She wasn’t surprised, but she liked salad so she made it anyway. “All the more for me then,” she said mischievously. But she opened the fridge and pulled out a plate of cheese she had sliced earlier with some fruit and placed that in front of him.
“Thanks,” he replied, giving her a smile, one that actually reached his eyes, leading her to believe he was getting through it. Slowly, but making his way out just the same.
After the last dish was washed, Ben said, “Let’s watch some TV, if you don’t mind.”
“That’s fine. Anything even on tonight?”
“Probably not. I know you are tired and you have to work tomorrow, so it can be an early night.”
“Whatever you want.”
He laughed. A genuine laugh. “I remember a short time ago you telling me it’s not always what I want.”
She grimaced. “Sorry. I was angry. I shouldn’t have said that.”
“I’m glad you did,” he told her sincerely, running his hand over her head and pulling her close for a hug.
“Really?” she asked, hopeful.
“Yeah. And I commend you for your restraint.”
Dropping her shoulders, she didn’t even bother to deny it. He knew her well. “Will you tell me now?”
“I would like to, yes.” He pulled her next to him on the couch, then shifted her between his legs and placed his hands on her stomach. “I gave the ring to Patty.”
Turning her head sharply, she looked at his face. “Why?”
“I don’t know. It seemed like the thing to do. When I got back to her house, I hadn’t planned on going in, but something drew me there. I knew it was going to be the last time I visited. It has to be. But I couldn’t leave, not without saying goodbye. That wouldn’t be right, regardless of how she treated me, or made me feel.”
“Does she know you won’t return?”
“No. There was no use telling her. I just walked in, slid the ring off my hand and placed on the table. She jumped to the conclusion it was Trent’s and I let her believe it. No use telling her otherwise.”
“You never told me the story behind the rings.”
He chuckled, and it made her grin. “Trent was a bit corny at times. He had too much to drink one night and had this brainy idea we should get matching rings. He talked me into it, but I refused to wear mine. He had his on all the time and was buried in it. I never put mine on until the day of his funeral.”
“What made you take it off?” she asked, running her finger around the grooves in his skin where the marks from the ring remained.
“I realized that I only wore it out of guilt. I never needed it to feel like we were brothers. It was only for him, or more for him. When he died, I felt I had to wear it to honor him. But it ended up being a reminder of where I failed. How I had failed him, how I never wore it when he was alive, so now I had to wear it with him gone.”
“I guess that makes sense. What changed your mind about it?”
“You. Our fight. Everything you said. I do
n’t need a ring to remember the good times. That ring became a reminder of the bad—why I had it on. I only put it on when he died. So it became this crutch, and anytime I was anxious I would look down and see it. And the guilt, the grief and the blame all came rushing back to me. Why was I okay? Why didn’t any of those things we’d witnessed affect me the way they did him?”
“Maybe because you were stronger than him.”
“Maybe. Either way, I didn’t need the crutch any longer. I can move on, and move past it.”
“I’m glad. Glad that you feel you can move on. It’s going to take time, Ben. You know it won’t just stop overnight. You’re still going to have moments.”
“I know, but I can deal with them. More so with you by my side,” he said with a grin and quick kiss. “Especially since I know you love me. You even told me so.”
Her heart started to race again. Her voice took on the raspy tone that was always more predominant when she was emotional. “I did tell you that. And it seemed to be one sided.”
“No. Not at all. Didn’t you tell me it couldn’t be all of you and none of me?”
“Yes, I recall saying that.”
“Good, because it’s going to be all of you and all of me. All or nothing, right?”
She thought back to months ago, when she felt so foolish for thinking that. That she wanted someone in her life that would give her all, or nothing at all. She’d tried to tell herself it didn’t exist, but she was wrong. So very wrong. “That’s right. All or nothing.”
“I love you, Presley.”
She snuggled in closer to his chest. He hugged her a little tighter. “And I love you, Ben.”
Epilogue
“Does your family do this often?” Presley asked en route to his sister’s house.
“What?” He looked over and saw her disgruntled look and fought not to chuckle, then gave in and did it anyway knowing it would only annoy her. She didn’t disappoint when she rolled her eyes.
