AllFreeNovel
Share Us
She frowned. “You don’t like it? It’s Sweet Tea.”
He took another small sip. “It’s like….liquid crack. It’s all sugar,” he declared. “How did you manage to make sugar with tea in it?”
“You boil water. Then add sugar. Then reheat. And add more sugar. Then reheat and add more sugar.”
“Yeah, I got that part, Slick. Jesus. If I finish this glass, I’ll have diabetes.” Scowling, she reached for the glass, but he swung away from her. “I’ll risk it. What else is in there?”
“Mint. It’s refreshing,” she snapped.
“It is that, Slick,” he said, grinning. He downed the glass and handed it back to her.
He lifted his shirt to wipe the sweat from his face.
************************
Hayley was a little irritated that he didn’t like her sweet tea. She made excellent sweet tea, thank you very much. All true Southerners did. She snatched the glass back and made a mental note to put salt in Chris’s tea next time.
Then he lifted his shirt.
She froze, rooted in her spot. Scars. Chris had scars. they seemed to come up out of the waistband of his shorts on his left hand side, jagged white marks laid out in a haphazard fashion that stopped short several inches before the mid-line of his torso. They covered his side and skittered off toward his back. They stopped just under his armpit. Without thinking, she reached out to touch them. Chris, realizing what was happening, immediately caught her hand. She startled and dropped the glass.
“Shit,” she said suddenly. “Shit, I’m sorry.” She immediately dropped down and grabbed the glass, which had not shattered but spilled the dregs and ice cubes on the freshly mowed lawn. Stupidly she started gathering the ice cubes and shoving them into the glass.
Chris got down to one knee beside her and put his hand on hers again. “It’s fine, Slick.”
She ignored his words, the hand on hers, and pretty much Chris Sullivan’s entire presence at that moment.
“Slick, they’re ice cubes. Let ’em go.”
She finally stopped, took a deep breath and raised her head to face him. “I’m sorry. That was so inappropriate. I- I don’t know why I did that. I’m so, so sorry.”
He had a strange look on his face that she couldn’t decipher. He didn’t seem angry. Or forgiving. Or embarrassed. He seemed…confused. Which didn’t make sense to her. He should have the decency to be angry since she was definitely embarrassed and him not being angry only seemed to make what she did that much worse, somehow.
Not cool. Not cool. Not cool, she told herself.
“It’s okay, Hayley.”
“It’s not okay. I had no right.” She shivered at the idea of someone doing that to her. Staring at her, pawing at her like she was in a petting zoo.
There was an uncomfortable silence which Chris finally broke. “It was an IED.” She stared at him. “Improvised Explosive Device. Insurgents in Iraq lay them on roads to damage convoys. They’re nearly impossible to spot. Especially in the dark. My unit was in the second vehicle on the road into Fallujah and the lead vehicle triggered an IED. All the men in the lead Hummer died. I took some shrapnel in the side. Jimmy, our youngest, he lost his lower right leg.”
“Oh, God,” she whispered.
“Jimmy’s in the VA hospital up near Spearfish. He’s…having some adjustment problems. He’s got a basic prosthetic, but he won’t do his PT, sorry, his physical therapy, to get himself ready for a better one. His insurance is gonna stop paying soon, since he won’t do the therapy. Which also means he can’t stay in the facility. He’s from New Orleans, but he doesn’t get along too well with his folks and I don’t think they’re capable of handling him right now anyway. I think I’m gonna move him in with me, when they discharge him from the assisted living center. I told him on the last visit that it’s time to move on.”
Hayley frowned. “Move on,” she repeated. “Do you ever talk about it with him?”
He shifted uncomfortably. “No. We just- we try to focus on the positive, on the future. About him coming to work at the garage and getting a bike and-”
Hayley picked at a blade of grass with her free hand. “Maybe he doesn’t want to move on. I mean, people say that all time. Move on. And what they really mean is they want you to forget. So they can forget. But there’s no forgetting, Chris. You cover it up with your shirt, but he can’t do that. He can’t go one single minute without remembering what happened. When everyone around you wants to forget, you can get… isolated. You feel like you’re the only one holding on to something important.
“Maybe it hurts him that you pretend it didn’t happen. Maybe all he wants is for you to tell him that you won’t forget.” She stood up abruptly. “Anyway, maybe not. You know him and I don’t. I’m probably wrong. Thanks for mowing the lawn.” She turned and headed quickly up the stairs of the deck and into the house.
