Promise to Protect: Military Second Chance Romance Page 8

  There had been a strange amount of sticks pointing straight up from the ground when I arrived and left this morning, but knowing Brian, he cheated more than he's admitting to. But Matt is smirking and nearly patting himself on the back, so at the very least, Brian convinced him that they were just extraordinarily clever.

  "We're first, right?" he asks.

  "Yeah," I say. "So, it's down to my sister or your angry yuppies."

  "I'll bet on your sister," Brian says. "I'm sure Diana Rolland will be busy burying Tina Pryce's body, so she has at least an extra hour or two."

  As Matt takes off his coat, shaking the water off it, something behind him catches my eye. It's the UTV I gave Emma the key to, but it's not Emma in the driver's seat. It's Hannah's boyfriend. I take a step to the right. Where is she?

  I'm uncertain if I'm thinking of Hannah or Emma.

  The boyfriend parks the UTV about four feet away from the rest of us. He turns it off and jumps out, approaching us slowly. He stops a foot away, running his hand through his hair, leaving it slick from the rain.

  "Hey," he says. "Uh, I guess I fail if I don't have my partner, huh?"

  "Where is Hannah?" I ask, taking a step closer to him. He takes two quick steps back.

  "Emma went looking for her."

  "Why would she need to look for her?"

  "It's not my fault," he says, the last word coming out like he's pinched a nerve.

  "What isn't your fault? Where the hell are both of them?"

  "I don't know."

  If Diana Rolland and Tina Pryce weren't walking toward us— both looking completely capable of murder, but at least they're together— I would strangle him.

  "Where did they disappear?" I ask, trying to keep my voice level. Hannah's boyfriend looks like a small rabbit, ready to sprint back to a burrow.

  "Hannah went upward— I guess, north— from our camp. Emma went looking for her, so she went in the same direction."

  Just as Rolland and Pryce stop beside the group, I move past Hannah's boyfriend. He flinches, but my focus is on the UTV. I'll mostly be able to follow the tire tracks back to his camp, but even if I can't, I was the one who told Emma where to drop them off. After that, I'll have to use my own tactics to find Emma and Hannah.

  The river has turned brown from the mud. I stop the UTV near the edge, where the water is starting to gush over, leaving puddles around the trees. A few yards ahead of me, a tree has fallen over the river, its large roots keeping one side firmly planted while the tip of the tree is secured against a tree on the other side. It's creating a dam of branches and small sticks as the river forces every piece of debris into it.

  It's not good. It will likely end up flooding the whole area, and if any other trees have fallen it increases the chance that Emma and Hannah are in danger. Together, I'd hope they'd have the common sense to get to higher ground, but they're both headstrong. They might be determined to get back to the main camp instead of prioritizing their safety.

  Prioritizing safety. The last thing I'd seriously talked to Emma about. I'll need to make amends. I can't let our grief make puppets out of us.

  I keep driving. Sticks and twigs fall onto the roof as the wind whips through the trees. As I reach the camp, my heart calms as I see the blonde hair of my sister. She waves at me as I park a few inches away from her.

  "Hey, stranger," she says. "Where have you been?"

  "Where have I been?" I ask. "You're the one who's been missing."

  She frowns. "Yeah, I figured Emma came by and found out I was gone, but since you're here, you must have known I'd come back. You know the worst thing for a lost person to do is wander around."

  It was a lesson she had to learn twice at the mall— she was easily distracted and easily enticed. It explained her relationship with her boyfriend.

  "Have you seen Emma?" I ask her as she pulls herself up into the UTV. She squeezes the water out of her hair.

  "Emma?" she asks. "She didn't drive back?"

  "No, she went looking for you. She gave your boyfriend this UTV. You haven't seen her?"

  She shakes her head, jumping back out into the rain. She indicates toward the northwest. "If she was trying to follow me, the path isn't wide enough for this UTV. We'll have to go by foot."

  "No." I step out of the vehicle. "You take the UTV and drive back to camp. Just keep going east and you should eventually reach an open area. Go south after that and you'll reach the main camp."

  "Shane..."

  "Hannah," I cut her off. "Look around you. This area is going to flood. The sun is going to be setting by the time you get back anyway. It's only helpful to have more than one person searching if I'm not worried about the other person. You'll be helping me if you go back home and I don't have to worry about you. Somebody needs to be at the main camp to tell people where to look for us if we're not back by tomorrow morning."

  She crosses her arms over her chest, the rain pounding down on her so hard that her clothes are already soaked. She looks like a snake, ready to strike back at me, but it's all an act. She had to act tough in front of our father, but underneath all that scaly skin is someone who is so desperate for approval, it would give any older brother heart failure.

  "Fine," she says. "But if you're not back by tomorrow morning, I'm dragging you back to camp myself."

  "Sure," I say. "Make sure to punch your boyfriend for me."

  "Ex-boyfriend," she mutters, clambering into the driver's seat of the UTV. I head toward the northwestern part of the camp. There are a few branches that have been broken, all in the same place, but the inside of them are still green. Emma must have broken them so she could find her way back.

  It's reassuring that she's smart enough to do that. It's less reassuring that she hasn't found her way back yet.

  Chapter Fifteen

  Emma

  The sound of the river is a reminder of how formidable nature can be. I can still feel Shane's body so close to mine and his mouth setting my skin on fire when we were swimming together in it, and now I wouldn't be able to dip my foot into it. It's like the river is trying to wash away the memory or remind me that physical attraction can be just as formidable.

  I sit down underneath a large pine tree. It might be a white fir— if I survive this, I should learn about all of the flora. I look out. The rain makes the whole forest look glossy. For a while, I thought I'd been on the right path to find Hannah, but signs of her walking through a trail had disappeared. She could have doubled back. She could have wandered off the path to an area where the leaves make it too difficult to figure out where she was heading.

  I need to find her. The last thing I want is for Shane to look at me and see a reminder of his deceased best friend and his lost sister. But my feet are so tired and caked with so much mud that it feels like I'm carrying around an extra five pounds.

  I pull off my book bag and take out one of the water bottles. I take a deep drink from it before sticking it out in front of me, watching a few raindrops plop into it.

  In the first class with Dr. Shepherd, we played two truths and a lie. I said that I was born in Denver, that I had recently decided to become a social worker, and that I loved getting pedicures. I meant the last one to be my lie, but I know now they were all lies. I was born in Idaho Springs, a small town outside of Denver. I had floated the idea of wanting to be a social worker to my college advisor, but it was solely because he expected me to know what I wanted. It was an expected answer from a woman that always rebounded from what she wanted.

  Now, I know two truths: I'm not going to find Hannah, and Shane is always going to be the person I rebound away from because I'm desperate to deny myself what I want. I've found that loss is the only possible conclusion after someone makes a home in your life.

  God, remembering David is like trying to think about all the horrific things that happen in life except it's in explosive detail. Whenever I try to think of him, my mind wanders to his last moment, then recoils away from any thought of him. It's men
tally impossible for me to think about him. It's like being told not to blink when you hear a gunshot. And I always hear gunshots when I think of David.

  I open my book bag again. David's journal is tucked in the back behind all of the emergency supplies. I pull it out. My hand glides over the leather cover. He had left it under my pillow the day he killed himself. I found it that night— after I had already learned what he did. It seemed like a brutal retaliation, but I couldn't quite figure out what I had done to deserve the punishment. I had some decent guesses, but I didn't want to know the truth. I didn't want him to spell it out for me, so I never read a single word.

  I cling to the edges of the book. I take a deep breath, then another one. I can't be a coward forever. If I'm being punished for something, I should know what it is. If I know the specifics, at least my repentance will be more precise.

  I flip open the journal. The first page is blank except for two words: For Emma.

  I run my finger over his writing. He wrote it slowly— I know because it's legible. I turn over the page.

  Emma told me to start a journal, so here it goes.

  I am expected

  The next few lines are scratched out.

  to know too much and express it in simple words. It won't happen, but I am willing to try anything now.

  Shane deals with bullshit by piling on responsibility. He enjoys simple burdens because they mask the weight of the more serious burdens.

  Brian deals with it by pretending to be someone else— the few times I have seen the real him, I can see he is seconds away from breaking. He is the same as me, but he is unwilling to acknowledge who he is.

  I keep reading, his writing seeping into me, making me colder than the rain.

  I slam my head against the wall, acting like I feel like everyone else. Everyone I love is a chain link, and I am the anchor at the bottom that they are foolish enough to attempt to pull up. One day, my head will crack open and it will be a relief. One day, the chain will break and I will land on the ocean floor— gone into the darkness and unknown.

  There is so much good in my life, but I am so fucking weak. It's pathetic. I should be happy. I am alive, I have all my limbs, and I have two friends that went through similar things as me, but they are striding through life like they gained strength from overseas instead of weakness. They are better than me, and I have just been unwilling to admit it because it's just a reflection of something I can never be.

  I know time is passing by— my chance of survival dwindling as the rain continues to pour down— but I can't stop reading. He only wrote in the first dozen or so pages, and it's not until one of the last few pages that he mentions me.

  I am a coward. I'm terrified of everything— I'm afraid that if I go talk to a therapist, they will speak platitudes to me, talk shit about me as soon as I leave, and in the end, I will have wasted hundreds of dollars on someone who gives me their counterfeit sympathy. I'm afraid of opening up to anyone else too. I am certain that Emma would comfort me, reassure me everything will one day be better, and I would feel obligated to appear better and brighter every day in order to not disappoint her. I'm afraid that I will spend the rest of my life rehearsing everything that happened over there and I will never be able to be truly close to a wonderful woman, who will love me despite my flaws. I can't even open up to Shane. We have been best friends since we were 11, and I can't even disclose these thoughts to him.

  I flip to the next page. My breathing feels shallow. Through his words, I can feel the depression pressing down on him. The walls are closing in, and there's nothing I can do about it. I know the end of this narrative. I know it ends abruptly, breaking through everything else like a gunshot.

  When I finish the journal, I'm surprised to see everything looks the same. It's still raining. It's a few shades darker, but the trees look nearly the same. I stare out at another white fir, trying to organize my thoughts when I see something moving through the trees. For a split second, from the distance, it looks like a bear. But the movements are too human, and I know those movements like I know my own heart.

  I stand up. I wave my arms. Even through the hood of his raincoat, the water dripping down it, he sees me and waves back. His movements become swifter. I watch him, clinging to David's journal.

  From the way he lurches toward me, I expect him to embrace me, but he grabs me by the arms.

  "Why would you go off like that?" he explodes. "Why wouldn't you turn around? Why wouldn't you return to the main camp and call me before going out into the woods? We could have formed a search party."

  "Did you find Hannah?" I ask, ignoring the pain in my arms. He lets me go, jerking his hood off.

  "Yeah. She returned to the camp. Like you should have."

  I nod. He looks at me, his expression slowly getting softer.

  "I was worried," he states.

  "I know."

  "I thought… we were going to fight again."

  I shrug. "I don't want to fight anymore."

  I raise up David's journal.

  "You read it?" he asks me. I nod.

  "There's a part of it I think you should read."

  "We need to get to higher ground first. We're not going to get out of the woods before nighttime now. We'll have to build a camp."

  I don't want to wait. I have a lot to say, boiling up inside me. But he's the one with all of the discipline and control and in times like these, I know I need to follow his lead.

  "Okay," I say. "Let's go."

  His eyebrows raise for a split second, but he pivots and starts leading us farther north. I shove David's journal back into my bag, zipping it up tight before following Shane. Everything is being washed away, but that just means I can see everything clearer now.

  Shane built a massive fire. If I couldn't still feel the moisture in the air, I'd be terrified it would burn down the whole forest. The flames wobble in front of me. As Shane sets more branches on the fire, the fire hisses from the water on the wood turning to steam. He sits down next to me.

  "You getting warm?" he asks. I nod.

  "Yeah. Thanks."

  I look up, where we'd tethered our raincoats to the branches using the straps from my book bag to protect our heads from future rain. It doesn't leave us a lot of area to stay out of the rain, but I don't mind having Shane close.

  "You wanted to show me something in David's journal," he reminds me. I nod again, grabbing what remained of my book bag. I take out David's journal and flip to one of his last entries. I show it to Shane, pointing to it. He takes it from me, the fire giving off enough of a glow to be able to read from it. I read along with him.

  After a birthday dinner for Imposter David-- this fake who is happy and grateful for everything God has granted him instead of a greedy ass who is constantly craving to feel something more-- I am back home alone. While I didn't feel the need to monopolize the conversation, I noticed that Emma and Shane seem to be involved in a strange dance. They move around each other, perfectly choreographed. I think they used to date. Shane is trouble and controlled chaos, but I find that I am not overly concerned about him being with Emma. He's got bigger flaws than Judas, but he protects those he cares about, and she will remind him that it's not his responsibility to carry the world on his shoulders. It's not his responsibility to save every civilian.

  "So, he knew," Shane states.

  "No. I mean, yes, he knew," I take a deep breath. "But I always suspected that he knew and… I thought he hated it. I thought he felt like I had stolen you from him, which made him feel more isolated. You two were best friends for a long time, and when we started dating… especially after he died, I thought I had taken his best friend and turned you into my boyfriend. I convinced myself that I hated you for influencing David into joining the Marines, but I… I just felt like being together caused him to feel more alone. Like the fact that we had been together meant he couldn't talk to you about certain things because he thought you'd tell me or that he couldn't tell me certain things because he t
hought I'd tell you. I knew he was depressed and it… I wanted him to have his sister and his best friend back instead of his sister's boyfriend and his best friend's girlfriend."

  "You know we all felt guilty about David's death," he says.

  "I know, but I was so sure he resented us."

  Shane rubs his bottom lip. "I lied to you before. When I told you that I knew you had the journal because David told me he was going to give it to you. I talked to him the afternoon before he died. He told me he had already given it to you. I could tell he was acting differently and I could tell that something dark was going on inside his head. I convinced myself that the two of us having a beer together and him having a couple of nights to gain a new perspective... I thought it would help him. I thought that, at worse, he would get wasted and end up crying at my apartment. I didn't even try to think of any other alternatives about what could be going on inside his head. No matter how responsible you feel, I should have known better. I'd heard the endless monologues about the obstacles veterans go through. I should have done more. He was a fellow soldier and my best friend. He was my responsibility."

  The way Shane's guilt pairs so perfectly with how David knew he would feel sears into me-- almost as if I had gotten too close to the fire. The pain ricochets in my chest like there's a hummingbird locked inside me. Or maybe it's my heart, beating so fast that the rhythm must be invisible to the eye.

  When I lean forward, I think about Shane's controlled chaos. I think about how well David knew us all— observing us from his darkness— and how well we could have known him if he were still around. But as my lips touch Shane's, I stop thinking about control, or about David. I just feel like steam— torrid, humid and rising above this.