AllFreeNovel
Share Us
He snorted. “What career? I highly doubt they’ll want me to reenlist after all the stuff in my fitness and disciplinary reports right now.”
Rubbing a hand over my jaw, I looked over at him. “Max, do you want to reenlist?”
“What?”
“Do you want to reenlist?”
“Why would you ask that?”
I jerked a shoulder. “You mentioned your dad. Was he a Marine?”
“Yeah. For twenty years. But then there was a freak accident on a deployment, and he died right before he was supposed to retire.”
Pain ripped through me as I imagined what that must have been like for him to lose his dad like that. It wasn’t lost on me that as a Marine myself, the risk of the same thing happening to Grayson was very real. But all I could do was be as safe and careful as possible and hope it didn’t.
Getting out of my head and back to Max, I cleared my throat. “I’m so sorry, Max. That’s really terrible.”
“No kidding.”
“But, um, do you think maybe you joined the Marines more because of your dad than because you wanted to be a Marine?”
His head turned slowly to look at me. “No.”
I saw the lie in his eyes as surely as if he’d screamedYes!
But I didn’t have to call him out on it, because he dropped his head and stared at the ground. “Okay, maybe.”
“Okay. Hey, there’s nothing wrong with that.”
“It hasn’t worked out too well for me.”
“No, but I imagine if your dad had been an investment banker and you’d tried to make a go at that even though you didn’t really want to, it would have ended up the same way. It’s not what you want to do, and that’s okay.”
He remained quiet while he processed that for a minute, then he looked over at me again. “I still have another year in my contract, though. And everyone back home expects me to stay in for the full twenty like my dad did.”
“Don’t worry about everyone else. This is your life, Max.” I reached over—slowly, cautiously—and put my hand on his shoulder closest to me. “Listen, I have a son. He’s six. His name is Grayson.”
He looked away, not acknowledging what I’d said, but not telling me to shut up either.
So, I pressed on. “If something happened to me on the job, I would hate to see him give up whatever else might interest him out of some attempt to do this for me. I’d want him to live his own life, be happy doing something he was meant to do. What would make you happy, Max?”
“I don’t even know. I was a freshman in high school when he passed, and ever since then, I’ve only been focused on this.”
“Understandable. But listen, you’re allowed to figure it out and then pursue whatever it is. You don’t need my permission, obviously, or anyone else’s. You only have to giveyourselfpermission.”
“Like I said, I still have a year left on my contract.”
“Yeah? Well, serve it. Get through it, man. You made a commitment, and you have to follow through with it. But after that? Take that DD-214 discharge paperwork and hold your head up high. Only a small percentage of the world can say they were a US Marine. Be proud of your enlistment, and then go do something else. Think of this like a light at the end of the tunnel, you know? It’s a season, not your whole life.”
A faint smile appeared on his sullen face. “I thought you were PMO, not a guidance counselor.”
I laughed. “Yeah, me too. But then you went missing, and people were worried, and it’s my job to make sure you’re okay.”
“Am I in trouble again?”
“No, man. You’re on leave right now, so you’re not breaking any laws by coming out here to think. But your roommate was worried about you, and we don’t take that kind of thing lightly, so here I am.”
His expression turned guilty, and he hung his head again. “I feel bad for worrying anyone. I just needed to get away and think.”
“It’s all good, Max. Everyone will be glad you’re okay. If you’re ready, I’ll take you back to the barracks. You can start looking into jobs you might wanna do when you get out. Take one of those online career aptitude tests or something.”
He grinned. “You know, you’d make a pretty good guidance counselor if you’re thinking about getting out, too.”
I patted his back and stood, dismissing the idea. “Nah, man. We’ve all got our own version of the perfect job for us. This is mine.”
