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Marco Reyes was with me in the Marines. He was deployed to Iraq with me and was there the day that everything changed. He’s actually the only one who survived besides me. He lost a leg and was shot up pretty badly. I had lost him when we both were sent to Germany for medical treatment and when I got sent back to the States, I was too afraid to call him up.
The phone rings again and I blink. I need to know what he wants. Maybe he’s calling because he needs help with something. Maybe that will help ease some of the guilt that I’ve been carrying around.
“Hello?” I answer right before the voice mail kicks in.
“Jonah, hey. I wasn’t sure that you were going to answer,” he says and he sounds exactly like the guy that I remember.
“Sorry, I was just getting dressed. How have you been?” I ask.
I can barely hear his answer over my racing heart. Memories that I’ve tried to bury resurface and I close my eyes, taking deep breaths in through my nose to try to calm down.
It doesn’t work.
I can still remember that day like it happened yesterday. It’s weird the little things that you remember. The glint of the sun off the hood of the Humvee, a single child’s shoe half buried in the sand on the side of the road.
“I just got back to the States and settled in,” Reyes says, interrupting my spiral.
“Yeah, are you back in Louisiana?” I ask him.
“Yeah, I’ve got a nice little apartment in downtown New Orleans. It’s just a few blocks away from my parents’ restaurant and I’ve been helping out there.”
“Not as a cook, I hope,” I tease him.
Reyes could burn water. He always had to have someone else make him coffee in the morning, and I smile at the memory.
“Haha, no. I’ve been bartending.”
“Do you like it?”
“Yeah, it’s kind of nice to hear about other people’s problems. I missed feeling useful after I got back. I had no idea what I wanted to do with my life and I still don’t, but for now, bartending is a good start.”
“I hear you.”
“What have you been up to?”
“I’m staying with my cousin and his wife up in Fallen Peak.”
“Never heard of it.”
“I’m not surprised. It’s this tiny little town, but I love it.”
“Yeah? Are you working?”
“No, not yet. I have no idea what I want to do,” I admit.
“You should do web design,” he says right away and I blink.
I was always messing around on my laptop when we were deployed, so I’m not surprised that he remembers that. There wasn’t much else to do and I had always liked computers. I taught myself code one lonely summer when I was a teen but had never done anything with it.
One of our teammate’s wives was starting her own business and I had offered to help with the website. I ended up designing her whole site for her and had a blast doing it.
I had forgotten all about it until now though.
Could I really start my own business? Could I find enough clients to support myself?
“Yeah, that’s a good idea,” I tell him.
“Let me know if you do it. My parents’ website could use a makeover.”
