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"Uh, so all this time, you've just been flying planes and pining over her while she raised your kid?"
"Basically."
He sits forward on the couch, turning toward me, "what do you plan on doing?"
Good question, I think to myself.
"I don't know. There's not much I can do."
He shakes his head, "Damn, I thought Cuddy would be the first to knock someone up. You beat us all and didn't even know."
I slink back into my chair, thinking about my next move. Do I call Hanna and set up a time to talk? Do I get to see Ellie? Would Ellie even want to see me?
No, probably not. I'm just some stranger to her.
I know Hanna. She isn't going to want me around Ellie any more than absolutely necessary. I can't say I blame her after everything I said to her the last time I saw her, over six years ago.
"Jamo?"
"Yeah, sorry," I flick my eyes to him and try to pull myself out of my head.
"Are you gonna be okay?"
"Yeah, man. I'm alright."
He asks if I'm okay, but he really means, do I need to hide the liquor? The answer to that question is, maybe. I'd like to think I've made progress over the past 3 years, but if there's anything that would call for a drink, it's this. The thing is, It wouldn't be just one drink. It never is. Hence, why I quit.
The morning comes too quickly, and I feel like I barely slept at all. Our day starts at 4:45am due to lack of airspace, and briefing takes about an hour before I'm finally doing a walk around my plane. Today's mission should be easy. We're just working on basic fighter maneuvers, trying to get some of the rest of the squadron on par with us. Dogfighting usually burns fuel rather quickly, so a quick twenty minutes and we'll be back and ready for a fucking four-hour debriefing on the 10 percent that didn't go according to plan.
I slip into my plane and check all my systems, making sure everything is functional before taxying down the runway. We'll have to sit here for a few minutes before we take off. We won't get the okay to take off even a minute before our scheduled time. Like I said, air space.
"Jamo!" The voice in my ear literally screeches on the other end.
"What?"
"Are you even in that plane, man? What the hell is wrong with you!"
Have you ever been driving, and your head is somewhere else? Like you are just absent from your body, and before you know it, you are at your destination with no recollection of how you got there?
That is what just happened, except I'm in an aircraft that goes faster than the speed of sound, no big deal.
After a few minutes, we head back to base and land. Everything is recorded inside the plane, so I'm sure my lack of attention will be ripped to shreds.
It takes about an hour or so for those tapes to upload, so I take off all my flight gear and grab a granola bar from my backpack, and Dojo stomps furiously into the room.
"You shouldn't have flown today," he barks, slinging his helmet into his locker. "You could've got someone killed. Me in particular."
He's not wrong. I shouldn't have been up there.
"I know, I just..."
"Save it," he interrupts, "I want to rip your throat out right now. So just shut the fuck up."
My commander stands in the doorway, silent. His eyes searing into me, a glare of anger that I know isn't going to end well.
I fucked up.
Other guys have issues with outside problems affecting their flying but not me, never me.
Not until today.
