Page 27 of Chasing Amanda

He looked down almost fast enough to hide his smile, maybe reading her mind. “Anyway, none of them—Dad, my uncle, Grandpa—none of them talked about the battles they fought. Even when they didn’t know I was listening—I was bad about pretending to go to bed but listening on the stairs.” He lifted his shoulders in a little self-effacing shrug. “I guess I was nosy.”

She imagined a smaller version of Mark, eavesdropping on the grownups, and smiled.

“Even when they were alone,” he continued, “they’d trade funny stories about their time overseas, but never anything serious. Not that I realized it. But when I was in high school, my history teacher showed a video of the liberation of Dachau. At first I was searching the soldiers’ faces for my grandfather. And then, I saw the prisoners, and I was…” He swallowed and stared out at the mall. “All those people. Innocent men and women. Children. Nothing but skin and bones. Most of them had no clothes. They were treated like animals, and I just…I thought there could be no more noble pursuit than to fight for people who couldn’t fight for themselves.”

Wow.

He kept surprising her, this man. The more she knew about him, the more she loved him. “That’s amazing.”

He faced her. “Not really. You know how idealistic kids can be.”

“I have a feeling you’re no less idealistic today. You just hide it better.”

He didn’t argue, just sipped his drink. “My mother wanted me to go to Princeton, her alma mater. I applied and got accepted. I didn’t even tell her I was applying to the Academy at first. She was…” His lips tightened into a thin line. “Disappointed.”

Amanda wondered what it would be like to have parents like that. “You’d think she’d have been proud.”

He lifted a single eyebrow. “Only if you’d never met her.”

Amanda would’ve laughed if not for his dead-serious tone. “But she married a soldier. She must’ve thought that was noble enough at the time.”

“I was almost nine pounds when I was born…six months after the wedding.”

“Nine pounds?” Yikes. And then the rest of what he’d said registered. “Oooh.”

“Dad had just returned from Vietnam, Mom was in her probably five-minute rebellious stage. It was the seventies.”

What a messy family. She hated that for Mark. Yet, look how well he’d turned out. Noble and brave and kind.

People walked by as if it were any normal Saturday. Teenagers flirting and giggling. Old folks in sneakers, getting their exercise.

But this man would be at war, like his father before him. What would he endure? Would it be so awful that he’d avoid talking about it, even with other veterans? Would he keep it from her?

Amanda didn’t want to think about it. She didn’t want to consider him leaving for Afghanistan. She didn’t want to think about the enemies he’d face over there.

He dropped his foot on the floor and leaned toward her. “What is it?”

“Nothing.”

With his thumb, he rubbed the space between her eyebrows. “Tell me, please.”

“I don’t want you to go.”

He dropped his hand to his lap. “Ah.”

“You want to go, though.”

“I did. I do.” He faced forward again. “It’s what I’ve trained for, what I’ve waited my whole life to do.” The way his lips turned down at the corners told a different story.

She wanted to press him, to get him to tell her what he was really thinking. Instead, she asked, “How long?”

“At least a year.”

“I can handle a year.”

He shrugged as if it didn’t matter. “Probably two, maybe more. And anyway, I’m based at Pendleton, in San Diego. By the time I get back, you’ll have forgotten all about me.”

Forget about him? And here he’d claimed he could read her like a book.