Her life had been tough, and she’d grown up in a terrible environment. But she knew she could heal. In the two years since leaving the cult, hiding in the real world, she’d already learned so much about herself.
“How does your arm feel this morning?”
Jump shrugged then rolled his eyes. “I want to say it doesn’t bother me, but it hurts. I hate being hurt. It means I’m put on desk duty or something else like desk duty. I’ll have to sit around and do nothing but paperwork or some other mundane tasks. It’s boring.”
“I’m sorry.”
He grunted. “It’s okay. I’m just being extra about it all. We saved people, and for that, I’m thankful. It was worth it to be injured. I just hate that I need to wait to get back into it.”
“You saved people?”
He nodded. “I can’t talk about what exactly, but yeah. It was a very rewarding trip. I’m thankful we were able to accomplish our task. It wasn’t easy, but it was worth it.”
She moved to the refrigerator and pulled out eggs and bacon. “I’ll fix breakfast.”
“I don’t want you to think you have to do that.”
She shot a pointed look at his arm. “You’re not going to make breakfast with that injury. Besides, I’m happy to do it.”
“But it’s not something you have to do.”
She nodded. “I know I don’t have to make breakfast. You aren’t making me do this.”
“No, I’m not making you do it. I could eat cereal.”
Laughter bubbled up. “You could. And I’m sure at some point you’ll be hungry and I won’t be able to make food. I know this sounds silly, but I learned a lot from watching TV. And from the TV shows and movies I’ve watched, people seem happier when you work together.”
He nodded. “I agree. Sometimes TV and movies get it right, and other times it’s a mess.”
She cracked the eggs into a bowl and searched the cabinets for spices. She didn’t find what she wanted, so she cut up a piece of bacon to fry before adding in the eggs. They’d bought some peppers and onions, so she cut those, too, then started cooking the bacon before turning on the pan for eggs.
As the bacon fried, she spoke. “So there was this one movie I watched that I didn’t know if it was real or fake.”
“Which movie?”
“The Martian. I wasn’t sure because my family always denied the moon landing, saying it was fake. I wasn’t sure. So I had to go down a whole rabbit hole of Mars landers and trying to figure out if it was real.”
Jump chuckled. “Yeah, that movie was very realistic and good. But no, astronauts haven’t made it to Mars. They didmake it to the moon back in the late sixties. And there are more missions planned now. But Mars is too far with the technology we have now.”
She glanced over at him, unsure if he was teasing. It didn’t seem like he was. “There is still so much I don’t know.”
“Hey, while I’m sidelined, how about we go to a few museums? When I was a kid, I went to a bunch of the museums with school.”
“Museums. Interesting. I wasn’t allowed to go to them. I was told they were all fake. That none of the stuff in museums was real. I think I’ll like going to them very much.”
“Good. I have a doctor’s appointment late today, but I’d like to make a list, and we can figure out which ones we want to go to first.”
She took the last piece of bacon out of the pan and focused on the eggs. The small bits of bacon she’d cut up to put into the egg pan were almost cooked. She added the vegetables and stirred. Jump came over and picked up a piece of bacon, snacking on it.
“This is good.”
“I’m an excellent cook. Which may be something I can do for a job, but I don’t want to cook or clean for others. I did that for a bit before moving here, but it’s not what I want to do for the rest of my life.”
“I get that. A lot of retired SEALs end up working for security companies and they end up back in the same places they went while in the military. I’ve had some guys talk about how much they hated it. That it’s a little too close to what they were doing before.”
“Retired. Aren’t they old?”
“No, military retirement is at twenty years served. So I’ll be eligible for retirement at thirty-eight.”
