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“What made her stop?”
“Shit.” I give a bitter laugh. “Suffering six years of assholishness.”
“Her last letter was three ago? Why pursue her now?”
“Remember the journalist we rescued in Iran six months ago?”
“Yeah.” Cabby fell silent. We’d found her in the desert rail thin, beaten on nearly every part of her body below the chin. The internal wounds weren’t visible, but we all knew they existed. “She broke Ford. He’s never been the same.”
Ford was a team member that moved on to DEVGRU, an elite counter-terrorist joint task force. He was the teammate that looked at me in disgust when I told him the girl I loved was alive and well. Cabby was right, though. Saving her turned him mean and hard and full of regret because he’d been on a team that tried and failed to rescue her six months earlier. If he went on to save a hundred more people, he’d still fault himself for failing that first time.
“I told her she was the bravest person I’d met. She pinned me to the side of the helicopter with those pale green eyes of hers and said that just getting up and facing tomorrow was the biggest act of bravery for many people and that it would be her hardest challenge. Surviving wasn’t brave, she said. It was living that was brave.”
“I tried to leave Charlotte alone, but I can’t. I’m not good enough. Or I’m too damn selfish. I don’t even know how to begin making it up to her, but this half-life I’ve been functioning with just isn’t worth it. I’m putting everything I have into winning her back. If I fail, at least I can comfort myself that I tried when I’m old and alone.”
I fall silent, exhausted from my confessions. The waitress brings out two cocktails and not the check as I’d thought.
Cabby glares at them. “They’re having the longest lunch in mankind just to fuck with us.” He’s probably right. “I can tell you what I won’t be doing when I’m out.”
“What’s that?”
“Cop work. This is boring as hell, and I’m even somewhat entertained by the soap opera of your life. It’s like Shakespeare threw up all over you.”
“You always surprise me when you pretend like you read.”
He flicks me off. Cabby’s mom is an English teacher and he’s better read than most of the officers on the team. The man likes fucking poetry.
They linger over their drinks, completely trolling Cab and I. Finally, when it’s almost time for the dinner crowd to show up, they climb into his fancy car again and speed off to Fashion Valley, the mall where I’d stopped to look at wedding rings.
“In or out?”
I grunt. “Not shopping. We’ll wait.”
But Cabby gets out of the Jeep anyway.
“Where are you going?” I call after him.
“I’m here. Might as well pick up some stuff.”
Cursing, I jump out and race to catch up. I don’t want to take the chance that he’s going to approach Charlotte and screw things up for me.
We go into a men’s store, and Cab starts talking up a sales clerk while I stand at the door looking for Charlotte. Much to my surprise she comes barreling toward me, carrying a package and a fierce expression.
“Here. You want to see me again?”
I take the package. “You know I do.”
“You owe me nine years of letters. Get writing.”
She stomps off to where her friend is waiting for her, threads her arm through his elbow, and they disappear into the crowd. I’m stunned motionless.
“What you got there?” Cabby asks.
I look in my hands. It’s a box of . . . stationary? She bought me a box of heavy paper edged in navy blue. And I start laughing. It’s either that or cry, and SEALs do not cry.
I howl as Cabby leads me out of the store and out of the outdoor shopping complex. I’m still howling when he shoves me into my Jeep. “You keep up that creepy ass laugh and I’m going to punch you in the face.”
Wiping away the moisture my laughter has generated in my eyes, I direct Cab home.
“You giving up on her?”
“Nope. She gave me an opening, and I’m busting through.”
* * *
Dear Charlotte,
Basic is about tearing you down until you’re in pieces so they can rebuild you into the machine they want you to be. The machine obeys orders without thinking. The machine can pick up and assemble its gun in under ten seconds. The machine can stay awake and be observant for more than forty-eight hours. The machine can trek twenty miles carrying a pack of one hundred and fifty pounds. A machine feels only for his fellow machines and no one else.
BUD/S training takes it even farther. BUD/S stands for Basic Underwater Demolition/SEAL training. SEAL is always in all caps or everyone on my side of the wall believes you are talking about the slimy flipper set. BUD/S is a six month course where older SEALs try to kill you. The easiest parts of training are when you’re underwater, with your hands and feet restrained, while you pick something up with your teeth. It’s the easiest because no one is yelling that you’re a shitstain motherfucker who is letting your teammates down. They actually are yelling, but you can’t hear them under the water. It’s when you break the surface that their glorious words of encouragement pound into your head.
