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“Every day is dangerous. You don’t know if the villager giving you intel is walking you into a trap, or if the kid asking you for a piece of gum just finished helping his brother plant IEDs along the roadside. And that kid doesn’t know if he’s going to make it back across the street without a stray bullet hitting him. It’s fucked over there.”
“So what happened that made you reenlist?”
“We were in the middle of a bad stretch...Constant bullshit, sniper attacks. One of the men in our unit had both his legs blown off one week, the next week one killed himself after getting dumped by his wife. And when I say men, I’m referring to a nineteen-year-old and a twenty-year-old. So make that boys, not men.
Cooper, the guy who shot himself? He was a good friend of Eli’s and a good friend of mine. We were in his wedding party.” His body tenses beneath mine. “Ridiculous…It was two days before we shipped out to some girl he barely knew.”
“And he was so broken up over it that he killed himself?”
“It was a clusterfuck kind of a week and her letter was the cherry on top of a crap sundae. He just broke.”
“I’m so sorry.”
“The day before he killed himself we got assigned to disrupt a group that had been smuggling weapons. We didn’t suffer any casualties that day but they did. And when we went to inspect their trucks, instead of finding guns we found girls.” I look up at him. “Some as young as ten, locked in the back like cattle on their way to a nearby Taliban camp.”
“Trafficked?”
He nods. “They were dirty, scared, and you could see...Most of them had already been assaulted.”
“Raped.”
“Yes.”
I sit up on the bed, feeling sick to my stomach. “Ten years old. Were they kidnapped?”
“Some were, but some of them were traded. Desperate people do desperate things.”
“Oh my God.”
He gently pulls me back down to rest on his chest. “But I saw that as a huge victory. We saved them, right? I imagined them being sent off to Europe or the states, going to school, on the path to a better life. And maybe I was being a little pie in the sky about the whole thing, but Eli and a few of the others saw that day as a final confirmation of how fruitless our efforts were over there. That we were doomed, same as those girls, and nothing would ever change.”
“How do you see it now?”
“I don’t feel as strong in my convictions as I used to. I don’t know if we’re helping those people or if they even want our help. I still believe I’m defending something worthwhile, but I’d be lying if I told you I’m still a true blue patriot.”
“Questioning your purpose doesn’t make you unpatriotic.”
“I know.” Damien situates me up so that I’m resting on top of him chin to toes. “I’m just feeling sorry for myself. Going to miss this when I’m gone. I’m going to miss you, Grace.”
I dig deep and muster up some courage. “What I said before?”
“What?”
“Idowant to see you when you come home,” I tell him. “Promise me, ok?”
He rubs his nose against mine and whispers, “I promise.”
Chapter Eleven
Damien
This girl sleeps like the dead.
I smile to myself as I ease out of the bed, and then look down at her sleeping peacefully as I dress. She doesn’t stir. Her sleep is deep and sound. I envy her that.
I don’t think I’ve had a good night’s sleep in years. Not since my mother got sick. Since then I’ve always had something or someone to worry about. If it wasn’t my mother it was my father, then it was the men in my unit and now it’s Eli in particular. And I worry about Grace.
She’s not in danger but I worry about her nonetheless. I worry that she’ll get mugged walking home from the library late at night, or get attacked coming home from a bar even though she lives in a relatively safe community. I worry that she won’t be able to defend herself when I’m not around. It’s a baseless fear, I know that, but I’ve been conditioned to expect the worst.
