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It’s a blistering evening one week before our return date when we get the news that we have a mission. In less than four hours, we’ll be delivering supplies to a location two hours from base. Forgoing sleep, we pack the trucks and prepare according to our orders at the briefing. There isn’t time to think about it. We’ve done this hundreds of times before. But tonight, I can see the concern etched into Adler’s face as we load up. He looks at me, and it’s as if he feels what I feel in my gut. We’re so fucking close to getting out of here. Kelly jokes that it’s the same nerves inmates must get as they’re staring down freedom outside those wire gates. The warden’s standing there, and you have your orders to go, but there’s still that question in your mind. Will he let me? In this case, the warden is the war, and we all know too well that war never lets everyone go freely.
“Let’s get this over with.” I nod to Adler. “Then you can take a breath, unwind, and figure out the first thing you’re going to do when you see your daughter.”
He nods back, emotion making his jaw tight. We disperse and load up, Kelly and O’Brien going to their assigned vehicle while we take ours. Adler slides into the rear seat on the driver’s side at my insistence because we all know that’s the safest. That first trickle of adrenaline drips into my veins as we roll out. I’m too amped up to strap in, wanting to be ready at a moment’s notice if we have to stop.
The first twenty minutes are always the most tense. Even though these roads have been patrolled hundreds of times, you can never be certain of anything. An hour in, the guys loosen up and talk a little more than we typically would because everyone’s anxious to get home. But nobody takes their eyes from the road or their attention from the job.
“When I get back home, I’m going to spend a full week balls deep in my girl,” Garcia calls down from his position as our gunner on the turret.
“What girl?” Johnson jests. “You don’t have any fucking girl waiting for you.”
“Doesn’t matter,” he says. “It’ll be the first one who will have me. That’s my girl.”
“Yeah, well, tell your fist I said hello,” Johnson fires back from the driver’s seat.
“Fuck off.” Garcia chuckles. “You’re just upset because all you have to go home to is a Fleshlight.”
“What can I say?” Johnson shrugs. “It gives better head than your mom.”
“You’re both fucking deranged,” I mutter under my breath.
“You got that right.” Adler snorts.
The truck in front of us slows, checking for IEDs as we follow the convoy down a familiar road. We’ve driven it so often it feels safer because we know it well. The first few months of patrols were full of restless energy. But after a while, it becomes routine, like everything else, and the tension that once stilted the air in the vehicle has dissipated, leaving room for the offhand joke as we wait to proceed.
“What about you, Keller?” Carson pauses to scan the radar. “You ever gonna tell us who keeps writing you all those letters?”
“No.”
“Come on. You’ve kept us all in suspense for the past eight months. You can’t tell me you’re not going to see her when you get home.”
I don’t reply, but I can feel Adler’s gaze flick to me. He’s the only one who knows I don’t have anything waiting for me back in Texas. While everyone else has been busy planning their homecoming over the past two weeks, we’ve been playing cards and bullshitting. Late one night, when I was deliriously tired, I may have mentioned Bianca. I regretted it almost immediately, certain the whole fucking squad would give me shit about it the next day. But Adler isn’t the gossiping type, thank fuck. Nobody said a word, and he took my lead and never brought it up again.
I try not to think about her. Because when I think about her, it fucks me up all over again. She writes me letters, and I keep them but don’t open them. She sends me care packages, and I do open those, much to the delight of the guys around me. They also benefit from the things she sends when I’m in a sharing mood. As strange as it is, these guys have become like brothers to me. A fucked-up, deviant, smelly pack of brothers. But brothers, nonetheless.
I know all of them have my back, and I have theirs. And when we go home, that’s not going to change. Adler asked a few of us if we wanted to join him on a trip out West while we’re on leave, and we agreed. He wants us to meet Zoe and his mom, which suits me perfectly. Going back home isn’t in the cards for me. Seeing Bianca again is off the table. Because as long as I still think of her, I’ll never be okay with her marrying my brother.
