Until We Fall

by Jessica Scott

  “Not really. Every day it’s a battle to get out of bed and not grab a drink. I’ve thought about taking up heroin as a hobby to take my mind off the constant fucking craving.”

  “Heroin is a hell of a drug.”

  He glances over at me, one edge of his mouth curling slightly. “Was that a Chappelle Show reference?”

  “Maybe. Depends on whether you approve or not.”

  He shifts, then angles his body toward mine. “Oh, I approve. I definitely approve. Especially of the subject change.”

  “Yeah, well, one can only handle so much personal pain and suffering before we shift back to more pleasant things.”

  “Like what?” His voice is low, his lips parted. There’s something erotic about sitting in the dark next to a man who radiates both power and vulnerability.

  “Like what’s your favorite thing to do when you can’t sleep?” His mouth is there, just there, a breath from mine.

  “Read.”

  “Jesus take the wheel. You’re a fucking unicorn.”

  His mouth twists sideways. “What do you mean?”

  “You like filthy comedy. You read. If you tell me you like cunnilingus, we’re getting married.”

  He chokes and breaks out into a full-bodied laugh. It looks like the laughter has caught him off guard, as though he’s not used to the sensation.

  “I’m not sure…what to say to that,” he says after a moment. He leans his head back against the wall and closes his eyes. “There’s really only one right answer, right?”

  “Well, I’m sure there are a bunch of different ways you could answer that. But about half of them make this situation tremendously awkward.”

  He makes a noise deep in his chest. “We’re already way past awkward, honey.”

  I rest my elbow on one knee, watching the flame in front of us, mirroring his position. Wishing we were in some other place and time and space. Letting his response hang between us. Letting it fill the silence and seeing where it takes us.

  Silence can say so much more than words.

  “So how did you get started doing yoga?” He hasn’t moved from where his head is resting on the wall. His lips are parted, like he’s trying hard to breathe deeply without me seeing.

  “My paternal grandmother was a child of the sixties. She studied under B.K.S. Iyengar in India. My dad met my mom in college. She’s a computer programmer. He’s a psychologist. I grew up splitting time between the U.S. and summers in India.” I pause, hesitating to admit how awful West Point was for me. “I didn’t realize how homesick I would be at West Point. I started doing yoga again while I was there because it helped me feel connected with Hinduism, even a little bit. It grew for me from there. After I came home from Syria and got out of the Army, I took some time and studied there myself. It was…it was time I needed.”

  He rolls his head on the wall and glances over at me. “I’ve heard of Castle Grayskull triggering some life-altering events in people but I’ve never heard of it being responsible for someone finding a new connection to their family.”

  “The Army changed a lot of things for me. Yoga was one of those things.”

  He’s watching me. Slowly. Intently. It’s so strange to see someone look so completely absorbed in what I’m saying. “What else changed?” A whispered question.

  It’s my turn to breathe in deeply, using the ujjayi breathing technique to calm the burst of nerves tangled in my chest. Restricting my breathing, I slow it down…deep and slow.

  “I was working on a reconstruction project at an elementary school in Syria with the state department. I was attached to State as a military liaison. I was working on a counter intelligence operation under the guise of rebuilding the school...” My throat closes off, the memory of fear and anger and hatred burning through me like they did that day. It hasn’t been nearly long enough ago for the heat and fear of that day to have faded. “Isis attacked the school. I got blown up in the process. When I got home, I needed some way to…heal. To unpack everything.” This is all I can manage to push out past the blockage in my throat.

  He’s there then. Reaching for me. Pulling me close in a way that I haven’t experienced in far, far too long.

  And I let him, resting my head against his shoulder and sinking into the solid wall of strength and warmth that surrounds me. Some part of my brain recognizes that we’ve been in the basement long enough for his shirt to dry.

  And still the storm is raging overhead.

  Despite three years of work and of trying to accept what happened that day, there is still a part of me trapped in the past. Unable to let go of the certainty that I am somehow less than the woman I was before I went to war. That the scars burned into my body have seared a permanent place on my soul.

  His palm is warm on my cheek, his whisper a caress across my skin. “I’m sorry. I didn’t know. You don’t have to say anything else.”

  This man is complicated. There is darkness in him. I know this. I can feel it in the shared memories each of us is terrified to reveal.

  But that darkness is what draws me to him. What urges me to cross the space between us and press my lips to his. A gentle kiss. Meant to be more a balm than anything else.

  It is anything but.

  5

  Caleb

  I don’t know how to kiss a woman.

  At least, I don’t know how to do it sober. I’m desperately afraid of screwing this up. Of pushing her away.

  I only meant to offer comfort. The decision to pull her close was made out of pure instinct, something I wish someone had done for me all those years ago when I lost my mom. Maybe if someone in my life had taken the time to just hold the boy I’d been, I wouldn’t have lost fifteen years of my life to destroying every good thing around me.

  But the moment her lips touch mine something clicks into place inside me. Something intense and bright. Something that just fits. I open beneath her touch, flicking my tongue out to touch hers gently. Hesitant. Seeking connection.

  Her tongue slides against mine —a tease, testing the space between us. It’s as intense as it is needy and questioning. Her palms cup my face; her lips part against mine as she slips her tongue against mine. She’s warm and slick and wet and utterly erotic as she touches a part of me that hasn’t been touched in… I can’t remember the last time I simply lost myself in the sensual pleasure of kissing a woman that wasn’t twisted up with too much alcohol.

  I don’t think I ever have.

  I stroke her tongue with mine, sucking gently on hers, drawing her closer, mimicking what I’d like to do to her body if she’d let me. Her crack about cunnilingus went straight to the juvenile delinquent part of my brain and I’m still wrapping my brain around the idea of her spread before me, her body laid out like a feast.

  She makes a noise deep in her throat, something that sounds like the purr of a demanding kitten.

  I ease back a little, nipping on her bottom lip, licking her gently to take the sting away from the bite. “That’s…a good distraction technique you’ve got there,” I whisper against her lips.

  She smiles and it’s warm and rich and melts me a little more. “I’m good at distractions.”

  “Yeah, you really are. I’ve —” I look away, realizing how fucked up it sounds to admit it—“I’ve never done this sober.”

  She narrows her eyes slightly, her lips curled faintly at the edges. “I feel like this is a really good opportunity to define our terms. Done what, exactly?”

  “Kiss. Fuck. Be around a woman without being a total fucking asshole. How’s that for starters?” The irritation snaps out of me before I can stop it. Before I can lash it back and keep it from crashing into the space between us and ruining the moment.

  But she doesn’t pull away. Doesn’t even flinch at the venom in my voice or at the violence underlying it.

  Her palm is cool where it lays against my cheek. Cool and soft, her fingers press against my skin. If I close my eyes, I can feel her heart beating through her fingertips.
“You could have fooled me,” she whispers.

  “You’re a very good liar.”

  She smiles against my mouth. “A cadet will not lie, steal, nor cheat.”

  “Yeah, well, you’re not a cadet anymore.”

  “I still try to live up to that impossible ideal, even though I fail badly most of the time.”

  “Wow, talk about the biggest buzzkill in the entire world.” I can’t help myself from making the terrible joke.

  She laughs. I’m starting to like the sound. It’s something I’m completely unfamiliar with. Kind of like this ability to make someone smile.

  I haven’t done enough of that, either.

  I’m usually on the other end of the spectrum when it comes to emotions. Usually, I’m doing or causing anger and frustration, coalescing somewhere near destruction.

  Because I can’t help the direction of my thoughts, because she is my confessor and my saving grace, I lower my head to hers. “Sorry,” I whisper.

  “For what?”

  “Just…being entirely too awkward.”

  “Guys like you tend to have the opposite problem.”

  I stiffen. It’s an automatic response, one I can’t help. “What do you mean?”

  She doesn’t pull away. Her breath mingles with mine as she speaks. “You have all this hair and this scruff. Tattoos. All you need is a flannel shirt and some BCGs worn out of pure irony to be a hipster girl’s wet dream.”

  “You find that nerdy hipster look attractive?” I might have to let the beard keep growing. And I bet I can find some damn glasses somewhere. Anything to keep the arousing feel of her fingers sliding along my jaw.

  “I don’t really have a type.”

  “Bullshit.” A word without malice. “Everyone has a type. Or at least a type they think they have.”

  “And you’re a master at this sort of thing because…?”

  “I have spent the last fifteen years of my life in and around bars. I know the type of behavior that the female of the species exhibits.”

  “Correction. You know what the female of the species who frequents bars exhibits.” She shifts away, resting against the wall so that her shoulder presses against mine once more. “You’ve got a selection bias in your sample, my friend.”

  “I don’t even know what ‘selection bias’ is, but it sounds like something sexy when you say it.” I lean back against the wall, too, pressing close to the warmth of her shoulder. “I’m dying to learn more.”

  The little flame has burned a crater in the middle of the candle’s pale orange wax. I close my eyes for a moment, letting the sounds around us, and the conflicting sensations inside me, wash over me. Feel the cold of the stone behind me. The warmth of her shoulder against mine.

  “Do you have a type?” she asks after a moment.

  “I don’t have a good way to answer that,” I say softly. “Drunk me would pretty much go home with anyone who’d take me and wow, does that sound a lot more horrible when I say it out loud.” I cover my mouth with my hand. Cold shame washes over me like the pin pricks of a thousand tattoo needles all at once. “I guess this is the part where I say I was always careful and have recently gotten all my shots?”

  She makes a noise. “Good to know you’re green on medical,” she says. “I never in a million years would have thought that the Army’s medical management system could ever be made to sound sexy.” The ease in her voice is nice. Relaxing. I could listen to her reading a cereal box at this point and die happy.

  “Clearly you didn’t spend your deployment with the right people. We could make emergency nine-line MEDEVACs sound sexy by the time we were done.” I laugh, thinking of all the horrible pranks the guys used to play on each other.

  “That’s a power I could never have. The guys I deployed with were much more mature, at least in public.” She smiles in the dark. “And yet somehow there was Letters to Penthouse-quality stuff written on the porta potty walls. Couldn’t figure out how all the stuffed shirts at State could have such filthy minds.”

  “This is one of the strangest conversations I’ve ever had.” I make a noise in the dark. “I’m enjoying it. Despite, you know, the threat of death from storm and all.”

  She smiles, resting her head against her knee, watching me warmly, the storm overhead forgotten, the storm between us simmering, just below a boil.

  * * *

  Nalini

  It’s easy to smile with him. “You can’t explain why things like that are so funny to people who have never served.”

  He makes that noise again. That warm sound that comes from somewhere deep in his chest. “It’s definitely something most folks don’t understand.”

  He stills next to me but it’s a comfortable stillness. I can’t explain why I am so at ease with this man. I can’t explain why the universe sent him into my studio at the earliest hours of the morning.

  But I am grateful I am not alone. The dark, combined with the storm outside and the potential for fire… I’m not sure I’d walk away from all of this without a break in my view of reality if I were here by myself.

  I’m long past questioning the way the universe works. And even though I haven’t made my peace with what happened to me downrange, I’m working on it.

  Working on finding meaning in hurt and the dark.

  “After I got arrested, I thought for sure my military career was over. The Commandant looked at me and told me I wasn’t West Point material. That I was a disgrace to the Long Gray Line,” he says, not looking at me.

  “Just for getting arrested?”

  He lifts one eyebrow. “Um, you clearly went to a different institution than I did. Getting arrested was a cardinal sin to some of our peers. The minute I got in trouble, I was a pariah. Called a scumbag and told I didn’t belong by my cadet chain of command.”

  “Yeah, some cadets aren’t very forgiving when people make mistakes. But the best teacher is failure.”

  He makes a rough noise. “But the Supe…for some reason, the Supe gave me a second chance. I was a full year turn back.”

  “You had to do an extra year at Castle Grayskull? How did you survive?”

  “I kept in touch with Eli. I tried to focus on not drinking as much so I wouldn’t get caught. I didn’t get sober but I kept it controlled and I managed to graduate.” He releases a deep breath. “The Army really screwed up when they ran him out. He really is the best of us.”

  “Yeah, they really did,” I say quietly.

  He frowns and glances over at me. “You know Eli? I thought you said you’d never gone over to The Pint?”

  “I haven’t. Eli was a yearling in my company when I was a firstie.”

  Beside me, he’s watching me intently in the faint candlelight. His eyes are piercing now, intense. Laser focused. “What’s your last name?” His words are tighter than they were a moment ago.

  “King.”

  “Holy. Shit.” His eyes widen and he covers his mouth with his hand. “You were the regimental sergeant major my yearling year.”

  It’s my turn to frown as I try to remember him. I chew on the inside of my bottom lip. “Does it make me a terrible person if I don’t remember you?”

  He curls one edge of his mouth. “Not really. I ran into people who remembered me but I have no idea who they were. There’s only a handful of folks I kept in touch with. And by handful, I mean one in any meaningful way. Eli.”

  I tuck a strand of hair that’s tickling my neck behind my ear. “I hope I wasn’t too much of a jerk when you got in trouble.”

  He straightens one leg and bends the other. “You actually were the only person on the brigade staff to not be an asshole. Even if I did deserve it. I’ve had a pretty big fuck-you chip on my shoulder for a really long time.”

  I watch as he closes his eyes. “I was standing at parade rest outside the Commandant’s office in my full dress uniform. You were arguing with another cadet—the regimental commander. I think his name was Peterson. He called me a piece of shit and you correcte
d him. You were so calm and poised. I remember thinking you were weak for defending me but a part of me was really grateful you stood up for me when no one else did.”

  Recognition dawns on me like the sun rising over the mountains, sliding into my consciousness. “Oh, wow, I remember that now. He was going off about how you were ruining his military grade for the semester and he should beat the shit out of you for being an arrogant little prick.” I narrow my eyes at him. “That was you?”

  He wears a sheepish expression and dear lord the man is sex on a stick. “Does ‘I’m sorry for whatever I said’ count this late after the event?”

  I smile then, the kind of smile that says I’m not holding a grudge. Which is kind of amazing, to be honest. “You were kind of an asshole. You rolled your eyes when I came out to tell you to report to the Comm.” I cup my cheek in one hand, studying him now, looking for the cadet he’d been.

  “I was in charge of a ton of troublemakers my firstie year. You clearly didn’t stick out that much.” I’ve all but forgotten him in the intervening years. “Wow, small world. How did you end up in Durham?”

  “I’ve been avoiding grad school for the last year and a half. My father pulled some strings to get me into the business school here, but I’ve been disappointing him regularly for the last decade or so. No reason to stop now.” He releases a hard breath. “Though, if I’m going to get my shit together, I should probably go see Professor Blake sometime soon and do a metric shit-ton of groveling to see if she’ll let me finish.”

  I shift then, crossing my legs in front of me and folding my hands in my lap. I move the candle a little farther away from us, needing the space from the open flame—a need I’m still pretending doesn’t exist. “Wait. You just woke up after years of hard drinking and just…stopped?” That flies in the face of every bit of research I’ve done on trauma and addiction. “Most people don’t just do that. They can’t. Their habits are encoded too deeply into who they are.”