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“As I was saying,” Carter picks back up, annoyance in his voice. “I know what I did was all kinds of wrong, but can we try to have an adult conversation about all this? I mean, I’ve never seen you act like this. This isn’t you,” he declares, waving a hand in my direction.
“Actually, it is,” Granna corrects him calmly as she strolls into the room with my duffel hanging off one shoulder, a suitcase trailing behind her, and a shoe box tucked under her arm. “Luna is being herself for the first time since she met you,” she informs Carter.
A brief flash of surprise passes over his face before he juts his chin in her direction. “Who asked you?”
“I did,” I snap, getting immediately protective, even though it takes a lot to freak out my Granna.
“And she can sue you for not only meddling with her mail, but forgery on behalf of an accredited institute,” Granna continues on. “But lucky for you, we were able to contact the admissions office at NICA and her acceptance still stands. There’s a place for her starting in the fall semester, so my good-hearted granddaughter is content to simply remove herself from this toxic situation so that you can both move on.”
“Please, she’s not even your real granddaughter,” Carter splutters, hitting below the belt in reference to my adoption on my dad’s side. He’s grasping at straws.
“I’ve been helping to raise her for most of her formative years, and we share a last name,” Granna calmly defends. “That’s as real as it gets.”
God, I love her.
The thing is, Granna is a psychologist, and the first couple of times she heard me talk about Carter and how he’d do things like come to my dorm with scones from my favorite bakery and walk me to my first class, or how often he would text to see what I was up to and tell me he was thinking about me… I can tell now that at the time she was trying to be happy for me and not jump to conclusions. But after meeting him a couple of times and hearing more about how he’d show up to my pottery class to see what I made that day, and all the things he’d say and do, she voiced her concerns that he was love bombing. I didn’t want to believe that of someone who was being so sweet to me, but here we are.
Finally satisfied that he had me where he wanted me, Carter started to show me his ugly side, just a little bit at a time. Before I knew it, I was walking on eggshells trying not to upset him, and if I dared go anywhere without him, he would text me incessantly, making sure my attention still stayed on him in some way, and getting irritated when I wouldn’t respond fast enough.
For the next couple of weeks, I didn’t act on anything but I kept my eyes open. And then I found the letter. And now, I’m taking my life back.
I draw in one more long breath, and look the guy straight in the eye. “Goodbye, Carter,” I say calmly and move to walk around him, hauling my huge art bag and my box, but he steps in front of me.
“Luna, stop. You’ve got to–”
“Step out of my way and let me leave Carter, or I’ll call the cops to have them come do a civil standby.” That’s right, I did my research and came prepared. “And I’ll follow through with telling them about your federal offense while they’re here,” I lay out for him, firm and simple.
My ultimatum is met with a look of malicious fury blazing in Carter’s eyes, and though I keep my chin tilted high, I’m shaking in my shoes. Just when I thought I’d seen every face he had…
* * *
“Well done, my girl,”Granna congratulates me as I flop back against the passenger seat, blowing out a breath that I must have been holding way down at the bottom of my lungs. “I mean it, you did good,” she adds, and I absently raise my hand up to her and she claps it with her own before pulling down her seatbelt.
“Thanks, Granna,” I murmur, still trying to decompress. Carter was angrier than I’d ever seen him, and clearly, he was trying to intimidate me. But it turned out he truly was more afraid of what I had to offer than I was afraid of him. And as we left, my petty ass might have thrown in how dim he was to hide the letter in one of his Ammo magazines and forget about it so that I could find it one day.
“Now,” she begins and puts her game face on as she turns the engine over. “Let’s get you back to your life.”
9
KALEB, AGE 21
“Congratulations, Corporal,” Alex murmurs, as he pins my new rank insignia to my uniform. “I’m sorry it’s me and not Pops,” he adds somberly for only my ears before saluting me. Ramrod straight, I return the sharp movement before he falls in beside me.
I don’t react, taking my role seriously in front of our superiors as I’m handed my certificate and snap off another salute to my unit commander. Stone-cold, staring straight ahead.
Over the last three years, I’ve erected a steel fortress around my heart and soul. I haven’t become an emotionless machine or anything, but I can compartmentalize like a motherfucker.
I miss Pops to the point of aching, but I don’t let it weaken me. Instead, I envision that ache as a fire that only reinforces my protective armor. The fire had been steadily burning low all my life, occasionally stoked and fueled with surfacing memories of my father. Then the first pound of the hammer came when I blew my relationship with Luna. Then another when I found out Pops was gone from hundreds of miles away while stationed in Oklahoma. Several harder hits when I found out it was from a heart attack in his shop and he wasn’t found until the next morning by Jackson, his assistant manager.
Pops had no one in this world to try to save him but me, and while my brain knows perfectly well that it wasn’t my fault, my heart blazed hotter, pounding away at more steel to make me stronger. Both knew that the tragedies in my life could easily be my downfall, and worked together to make me stand stronger against them.
So I buried Pops in the town cemetery with a handful of people from around Coyote Creek in attendance, including the firefighters from one of the two stations in town who dressed in their official uniforms to send him off. They were grateful for the few years Pops volunteered before his asshole son showed up on his step with his grandson. Speaking of the dick, I thank my lucky stars that he didn’t show up. The loser probably had no way of finding out, or better yet, is dead himself.
In fact, the biggest worry I have is that he is still alive, as that poses something of a problem with Pops gone now. It makes Rick Shane officially my next of kin.
“Ready for the flight out tomorrow?” Alex asks as the ceremony concludes and we start heading in the direction of our barracks.
“Hell yeah,” I exhale heavily as we go. We’ve spent the last couple of years stationed here, training for our impending roles as gunners on the infamous Blackhawks. And now the time has come. In three weeks’ time, we ship out to fulfill the duty we’ve been training for. In the meantime, we get to head back home to be with our families, not that I have any to speak of anymore. But I do have the house, left to me by Pops in his will, as well as the repair shop that I need to check in on. I’m actually looking forward to checking in on things with Shane Automotive to see how Jackson is doing running the place until we can find someone with more time and energy, and fixing up things around the house like Pops taught me before I leave for my year-long tour. It will be peaceful and satisfying and just the right reset. Add in blowing off some steam with a few beers and maybe a good lay, and I’ll be good to go.
