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Even just hearing him talk about it is sending me back there. I can feel the sweat dripping down my spine and stinging my eyes, the sand blowing against my face and sinking beneath me with each step. That familiar level of awareness and adrenaline slams into me, and I’m instantly on guard.
“I don’t know how it happened. I didn’t even see it coming. One minute, I’m walking, following after Nell, and the next, a damn mortar is going off, and I’m lying in the dirt, bleeding out.”
“It’s going to be alright. You’re still here; you’re still alive,” I tell him, leaning forward and squeezing his shoulder.
“Nell isn’t,” he chokes out, and tears spill over onto my cheeks.
I know what he’s going through. I’ve watched more friends than I’d like to remember die right in front of me. It’s not something that you get over. Not completely.
We sit in silence, both of us lost in our own thoughts. I’ve been able to keep the flashbacks to a minimum since moving back to Tennessee, but I feel my mind slipping back there, back to the violence, the screams, the symphony of mortars and machine guns.
Reality blinks in and out of my vision. One minute I’m in the hospital with my friend and the next, I’m ducking for cover as another bomb explodes. Someone falls to the ground with a sickening thud next to me, and I watch blood trickle down their forehead as the life drains from their eyes.
A nurse knocks on the door, snapping me back into the bright, fluorescently-lit room. She walks in and gives Romeo some more pain medicine.
“Visiting hours are ending,” she tells me, an understanding smile on her face, and I nod.
“I’ll be back tomorrow,” I promise Romeo. He pats my knee and nods slowly.
The pain medicine is already hitting him, and his eyes flutter closed before I’m even out of the room. I make my way to a hotel close by and check in, crashing onto the bed as soon as I can. My night is filled with nightmares and flashbacks from my time overseas, and I wake up multiple times covered in sweat and tears.
The next two days are filled with more of the same. I get to the hospital around six in the morning and make sure Romeo has enough food for breakfast. I know sometimes they’ll skimp out on portions, so I need to be there to sneak an extra cup of fruit and some extra bacon. Plus, Romeo needs his coffee. Not the watered-down shit they serve in the VA hospital. He needs the motor oil he’s used to.
I’ve taken my friend to several X-ray appointments and an MRI in the afternoons; then I try to encourage Romeo to take a nap. He’s not used to resting so much. I get it. That was never part of our lives before, especially on a mission. Right now, though, my friend needs to sleep. He seems calmer when I’m around, so I’ve tried to stick by him as much as possible.
Today is the third day in the hospital, and Romeo and his team are starting to make plans to leave and head to a veteran’s rehab facility about four hours away from here. He’ll be there until he can get his new prosthetic and learn how to adjust to his new reality.
After all that, Romeo can go home, though I wonder where home is going to be for him. Now that his mother has passed, there’s not much bringing him back to New York. I’ve been trying to convince him to move closer to me. I know that wherever he lands, he’ll need to hire a caretaker until he’s fully healed and can get around by himself, but then at least, I would be close by to help, and we could hang out more.
After a restless, frustrating, two-hour flight back to Tennessee, I return to my truck, groaning when I see my phone. I knew I had left it there, but between the long days at the hospital and catching sleep whenever I could, the impact of leaving my phone here for three days didn’t hit me… until now.
Lucy. Noah. People I care about. People I haven’t talked to in seventy-two hours.
Shit.
Digging through the glove compartment in my truck, I pull out an old charging cord. It’s not the best, but it’ll work. Plugging it into the dashboard, I stare at the blank phone, pleading for it to come back to life.
My heart bangs against my ribcage, my throat closing up as I try to suck down air.I fucked up.I was so worried about getting to Romeo and making sure that he was going to live… I never told Lucy or Noah that I was leaving town for a few days. I left them without a word.
The phone vibrates in my hand, lighting up as it beeps over and over with incoming messages and voicemails. Most of them are from Lucy, asking where I am and if I’m okay. My gut twists as her messages get less worried and more angry. Her last messages are particularly heartwrenching.
Lucy:Look, if we’re done, just say so. Ghosting me after we slept together is a pretty shitty way to break up with someone.
Lucy:I honestly can’t believe you right now. How could I have been so wrong about someone? It’s one thing to ignore me, but abandoning Noah? I don’t want anything to do with you, Remington.
If that weren’tenough to rip me to shreds, the next batch of messages from Noah and the Big Brothers Big Sisters program certainly was.
I messed up. I abandoned two people whose biggest fear is being left behind. I was making such good progress, and then this unexpected tragedy happened, and I didn’t handle it in a good way at all. I’m not just looking after myself and my best interests anymore. I have to make room for Lucy and Noah if I want to have a fighting chance at keeping them in my life.
I shake my head and then rest it on my steering wheel. Ireallyfucking messed up. Now I need to figure out how to make it up to both of them and convince them to give me another chance.
NINE
Lucy
I gritmy teeth and force a calming breath through my nostrils before pulling into the Big Brothers Big Sisters parking lot. The last three days have been an exercise in self-loathing as well as self-restraint. As much as I want to cry and punch Remington in the face for sleeping with me and then leaving me, I don’t want June or Noah to see me like that.
Hence the clenched teeth and deep breaths.
