by Abby Brooks
This isn’t a real goodbye…
Emotion threatens to overwhelm me but I lock that shit up tight and swallow the key. I have a duty to perform, a job to do. I am not the only Marine to have to say goodbye to his family. Men do it every day. Every damn day. And that doesn’t stop them from pulling themselves together and doing what needs done. This is my life. This is who I am. I am a Marine and a damn good one at that. My men need me to be operating at peak efficiency and that isn’t going to happen if I let my emotions rule me.
The past is over and the future is uncertain. What matters is now. My mission. My men. Going over there to do whatever it is that needs done to make sure the people we love the most are safe and then getting our happy asses back home to enjoy the fruits of our labor.
This is the way of it. The way it’s been and the way it will be. No one told me being a Marine would be easy. Shit, I signed up because I knew it was a challenge most men couldn’t live up to. I wanted to prove I didn’t have a limit. That I could push myself above and beyond and then above and beyond again in order to do the things that need done.
I stride through the front doors of the airport and out to the parking lot, my boots striking a heavy staccato rhythm on the pavement, my hands fisted, my chin lifted. The more I try to convince myself that I’m limitless, the more I question if it’s true because, damn it, leaving Lexi and Gabe sure as hell feels like a limit to me.
LEXI
The very first thing I do when we land is pull out my phone and tap out an email to Ty. It’s the one form of communication he’s guaranteed to receive.
Ty-
I know you won’t get this for hours still because you’re in the air, but I want you to know that we’re safe on the ground and my heart is with you. I haven’t stopped thinking of you since we left. I love you. I miss you.
All of me is for you,
Lexi
The words fall so short of describing how I’m feeling, but I don’t think I could ever express the aching sadness weighing on my shoulders and spinning in my stomach.
Bailey and Michelle meet me at baggage claim. I take one look at them and my chin starts wobbling, but I swallow back the tears and force a smile. I don’t want to cry in front of Gabe. I want to be strong for him so he doesn’t worry; the boy worries enough about me as it is. Tears gleam in Michelle’s eyes as she reaches for me and Bailey smiles sadly down at my son.
“Hey,” I manage, as I hug first Michelle and then Bailey. “Surprise.” I try to add humor to the word, but my voice breaks, ruining the effect.
Bay takes my hand. “Come on,” she says. “Let’s get you home.”
My heart clenches at the word. Home. What does that even mean anymore? Home isn’t my little house in Brookside any more than it’s Ty’s house in Hawaii. Home is probably on an airplane by now, on his way to a bad place filled with bad people who want to do bad things. A sob wrenches past my lips before I can clamp down on it.
Gabe leans into me. “It’s okay, Mom. Ty’s been fighting bad guys for all of my life, right? He knows what he’s doing. He’ll be back. He promised.”
I put a hand on his head and run my fingers through his hair. “He did promise and you’re right. He’ll be back. I just miss him and that makes me sad, that’s all.”
We pile into Bailey’s truck and she drives us home. They fill me in on what’s happened in the week I’ve been gone, but it all boils down to a whole lot of not much. It’s only been a week after all, and while my entire life has changed so much it’s barely recognizable, the rest of the world has kept on keeping on. When we get home, my house seems small and cold. I stand in the living room with my friends and my shoulders slump while I take in all the things I used to love but now seem worthless. The pictures hanging on the walls are impersonal and cheap. The bright paint colors are oppressive and fake. There’s nothing to welcome me here, now that Ty is gone.
I need to talk to my friends and I need to get really emotionally honest with them because there’s no way I can work through this confusion on my own. But I can’t do that in front of Gabe. How can I talk about everything swirling around in my heart and mind with him standing right next to me?
I put a hand on his head. “Why don’t you go into your room and play,” I say.
He nods and then takes off down the hallway, pausing to turn back, a smile lifting his face. “I’m gonna work on that house Ty built for me. I want to show him I can do it by myself when he comes back,” he says and then disappears into his room.
The luggage can hang out here in the living room for a while. As Gabe closes his bedroom door, I let the bags fall from my shoulder and they hit the floor with a thud. I lean the larger suitcases against the wall and lead Bailey and Michelle into the kitchen.
“You guys want to sit?” I gesture at my kitchen table. “I’ll make drinks.”
Bailey pulls out a chair and leads me to it. “How about you sit down and I’ll make drinks.” She goes to the cabinet and pulls out the Don Juan Margaritas.
“How long until you hear from Ty?” Michelle asks while Bailey pours three glasses.
I shrug. “I don’t really know. He said he’d send an email when he landed, but who knows when he’ll be able to call.” I run my hands up into my hair. “I have no idea what to expect and it really sucks.” I wonder if I would have been better off to stay on base where I’d be surrounded by people like Tara who understand what I’m going through, but don’t voice that thought out loud.
Michelle nods. “I’m so sorry,” she says at the same time Bailey says, “This really does suck.”
Bailey brings me my margarita and I take a long drink. The taste reminds me of the first night Ty was here with me.
“I still have two weeks of vacation left and I have no idea what I’m going to do with them other than miss Ty.” I smile weakly as tears brim in my eyes. I swipe them away but damn it, they just keep falling.
“It’s okay to cry.” Bailey puts a hand on mine. “And it’s okay to miss him.”
I run a hand over my mouth and swallow back the tears. “I love him. Like, really, truly, honestly, super-duper love him.” I take a long breath and look at each of my friends in turn. “I was starting to think there’s a chance I might move in with him. Like, I really want to move in with him.”
Michelle’s eyes go wide. “Really? That’s amazing, Lex. I’m so happy for you...” She smiles, but it’s short lived as she realizes that the love of my life is flying into a war zone.
I bob my head and smile weakly. “I think what Ty and I have is the real deal. Like the kind of love you would lay down your whole life for.”
“The timing of this deployment couldn’t be worse.” Michelle folds her arms on the table and meets my eyes. “I hate that you have to go through this.”
Bailey wraps her hands around her glass. “We’re here for you, you know that, right?”
“I do. I don’t know what I would do without the two of you.” I look from Bailey to Michelle and give them a watery smile. “I feel like I’m losing my mind here,” I say, my voice quavering. “Like up is down and right is left and good is bad and nothing I thought I knew about myself and the way I fit in this world is right anymore.”
Bailey leans forward. “Maybe you can make the best of a bad situation and use this time apart to make sense of everything.” She gives me an apologetic look.
I sit back in my chair with a sigh. “That’s just it. Things are starting to make sense and I’m realizing that I have done nothing but make a string of bad decisions. When I found out I was pregnant, I thought I was doing the right thing by keeping Ty out of it. I was so sure he wouldn’t care, that he’d rather live his life without trying to figure out how to be a dad or be connected to some woman he barely even knew. But I was wrong not to tell him. My God, was I ever wrong. And then, when he showed back up in Brookside, I honestly thought the right answer was to refuse to let him see Gabe. That wasn’t right, either. That was me being a selfish bitch, thinking
my way was the only way. But now, after seeing the way Ty is with Gabe, how good he is for our son—our son, not just my son—to have a father in his life…” I hang my head. “I haven’t made one right decision. Not one.”
“You did what you thought was right at the time,” Bailey says before taking a sip of her drink and setting it back down on the table.
“And that’s exactly the problem,” I say, decisively. “When Ty asked me to live with him, I thought the right answer was to turn him down because who in their right mind uproots their entire life for someone they’ve only just met?”
“Lex…” Michelle tries to interrupt but I ignore her.
“But then, I spend one week in Hawaii with him and now I’m ready to go crazy and move halfway around the world only for his life to do the very thing I was afraid it was going to do and throw everything into chaos.”
Michelle leans forward. “Lex…”
I run my hands up into my hair and rest my elbows on the table. “What’s wrong with me? Why is this all so confusing?”
Michelle drops her hand on the table and Bailey and I jump. “Damn it, Lexi! Would you shut up for a second and let me talk?”
Bailey shakes her head as she widens her eyes at me. “I don’t know what to make of this new, forceful version of her.”
“I think I like it,” I say before turning to Michelle. “I’m sorry, Mish. I’m listening.”
“Thank you.” Michelle sits back with a little nod of her chin. “All those questions you keep asking?” she says. “All the confusion? Maybe Bailey’s right. Maybe you can use this as a chance to let things settle down so it all has time to come together in your mind. I said it before and I’ll say it again, you and Tyler are good together. Really, really good. But if all you have are questions, then you need to slow down until you find the answers.”
“I don’t want to slow down. That’s the thing. I want to fast forward until we’re together again because nothing feels right unless I’m at his side.” Tears burn in my eyes and I swipe them away. “What would you do if you were me?” I ask the two people in my world whose opinions matter the most.
Bailey takes my hand. “What you and Ty have is worth fighting for. It’s worth moving to Hawaii for. It’s worth changing your life for.”
“It really is,” says Michelle. “When you find true love, you have to fight for it tooth and nail, even if it means life doesn’t end up the way you planned. I promise you, it’s worth it.”
“As for now?” Bailey smooths a strand of loose hair out of my face. “You have us. We’re here for you, in any way you need us to be,” she says as Michelle nods.
“Thank you,” I say. “I’d be lost without the two of you.” I try to smile and then drop my gaze to my lap. “And I’m going to need you girls to help me through the next couple of days because I’m pretty sure my whole world is falling apart.”
LEXI
Later that night, Ty sends me an email to say his plane landed and that he misses me and loves me, but won’t be able to talk until later. I stay up as late as I can, but finally fall asleep around five in the morning. Between the crying and the change in time zones, I’m pretty sure sleep is nothing but a pipe dream for the next couple days. When I wake, my eyes are red and puffy from all the tears, but joy sweeps through my heart when I find a message from him waiting for me.
Lexi-
I know it’s late and you’re probably asleep but I just now found a quiet moment and I had to tell you that you mean the world to me. I’ve never minded being sent overseas, but damn Lex. It’s hard this time. I feel like I left most of myself with you. Like I’m only barely here. I can’t focus on anything but the absence of you. I feel it as acutely as if I’m missing a limb. I love you. Don’t forget that.
All my love,
Ty
I hold the phone to my chest and smile through my tears. Having his words right there in front of me makes me feel like myself for the first time since I left Hawaii. I tap out a simple message in response.
Me: Just woke up. I miss you, too. What time is it there? Can you talk?
I hit send and check the time. It’s eleven in the morning here which means it’s probably around seven or seven thirty in the evening for him. I panic, worrying that Gabe has been up and alone for hours, but when I check his room, I find him sound asleep under a pile of covers. I carry my phone with me out to the kitchen to make coffee and keep it near me in case Ty texts.
I grab a mug from the cabinet and fill it up, still too tired and distracted with my phone to fully pay attention. I bang the pot on the rim of the mug and coffee sloshes everywhere. I don’t even have enough energy to care. I clean things up and carry my drink to the table where I sit and stare blearily at the sun streaming through the slats in my blinds. As soon as I take my first sip, my phone lights up with an incoming video call from Ty. Relief floods through me and I accept the call and wait impatiently for his face to fill the screen.
“There she is,” he says, his smile even brighter than the sun. “There’s the face I love so much.”
His voice brightens my mood faster than the coffee ever could. “Oh my God, it’s so good to hear your voice. How are you? How was your flight? Is everything okay out there?”
Ty sighs, his shoulders visibly dropping. “All that matters is that I’m so much better now. It killed me not to talk to you last night. It was bad enough not to have you tucked up next to me in bed, but to not even get to see you?” He shakes his head. “Not good, Lex. Not good at all.” The video quality drops and his voice disintegrates a little, but I can still make out what he’s saying.
“I had a hard time falling asleep, too,” I say.
“I bet, what with still being on Hawaii time and all.”
“That. Plus it’s so weird being here. This isn’t home anymore. I mean it is, it’s just…” I close my eyes and let out a long breath. “I miss you and I don’t remember how to be without you.”
Ty smiles, that wonderful smile that lights up his entire face and makes me feel like the whole world was made just for us. “I promise this is only temporary. A bump in the road. As soon as I come home, we can talk about what our life looks like together.” His smile fades and sadness darkens his eyes. It’s a small thing, only there for a moment before something off screen catches his attention and he looks away. “Shit babe,” he says. “I have to go. I’ll text you before I go to sleep.”
I put a finger to the screen, desperate to touch him. “Is it okay if I text you whenever I want? I know you won’t always be able to answer, but will it be a problem if I flood your phone?”
“Not at all. Text. Email. Snail mail. Whatever you want to send me, I’ll be happy to get.”
“Same goes to you, you know. Whatever you want to send me, I’ll be happy to read and reread until I can have you in my arms again.”
A private smile plays across Ty’s lips. “That’s good to know,” he says and then blows me a kiss. “I love you.”
“I love you, too.” Tears well in my eyes when the screen goes black and I feel bereft, empty, sitting alone in my kitchen until Gabe walks in, rubbing sleep out of his bleary eyes.
Two days later, a package arrives at my door. It’s from Ty, but it’s postmarked from Hawaii. I carry it inside, confused. What in the world would he have sent me when I was right there and he could have given it to me before I left? I tear into the box and then sit back, overwhelmed by what I find inside. A single sheet of paper sits on top of what must be hundreds of letters. I pick up the paper and read a note in Ty’s neat block print.
Lexi-
You asked once if you could read the letters I wrote you over the years. I said you couldn’t because there was too much of me in them. Too much raw honesty. Too much of a look at who I really am. I never intended for anyone to read these, least of all you, the woman I spent one night with and then obsessed over for years. But now? Now I want you to know all of me. I want you to see the good and the bad, the dark and the light. I
want you to understand what you mean to me and I think the best way to get there is to share these letters with you. I never knew why I wrote them. I always said you were something beautiful for me to hold onto when things got hard. That was true then, and it’s still true now.
I love you,
Ty
I pull the first letter out of the pile and open it up.
Alexa-
Today was bad. Like, really bad. My friend (Jack … we’ve talked about him before, right?) was in a convoy and damn if they didn’t run into some asshole with a bomb. Dude ran right up to the lead truck and just … boom. Jack’s not hurt, at least not badly, but he’s shaken as all hell. Two other guys? They weren’t so lucky. One’s dead and the other lost his arm. Jack’s going crazy because they cut off access to the internet, which is standard protocol whenever we lose someone. I understand why. Can you imagine how awful it would be if the family found out through a random post on Facebook? But Jack’s raging. He can’t call his wife and he’s shaking and pacing. I keep trying to calm him down, but she’s his rock, you know?
And me? I never take it well when someone dies. I worry about his family. Worry about whether he was able to make peace with himself before he went. Was he scared? Did he know he was going to die or was it just boom. Done. The end. Not even a fade to black. It terrifies me. And the worst part of me, like this awful part deep down, that part is just glad it’s not me. I hate that part. What kind of terrible human being am I to sit here and think such things when there’s a family back home waiting on news about their son and Jack’s wife is alone at home, wondering if her husband made it through the day? And then I wonder how I would act if I knew you were sitting at home waiting for a call from me that never comes. That thought just tears me up…
