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Shit felt good.
And I got a new tattoo.
That shit felt necessary.
But that was it. The full extent of my freak-out, which means everyone is waiting for me to properly lose my shit. It’s like someone took off my training-wheels and they’re all standing around, watching me wobble down the road.
Holding their breath.
Waiting for me to fall on my face.
I can’t say it won’t happen. All I can say is that I want to be better. Not normal. I know I’ll never be normal. I’d be stupid to even try but I want to be me. Not the me who came back from New York. The me who watched Bradford kiss her and realized he was never going to get her back. That she was better off without him.
I want to be me.
I want to be real.
I stopped trying after she left the first time.
Convinced myself I couldn’t do it without her.
Didn’t matter what kind of man I was because she was gone.
Wasn’t coming back.
It took her leaving for the second time to remind me that I matter.
Maybe not to her, but I do.
I matter.
Like I said, it’s shitty and I hate it and I want to give up most of the time, but I’ve got people who depend on me, so I keep pretending.
Someday, the gaping wound in my chest will close and I’ll be able to breathe again.
Taking care of Ryan has helped. He’s back from wherever he was and in pretty bad shape but the worst of it is behind him.
I got the call a week after Henley disappeared.
Mr. Gilroy, I’m calling on behalf of Gunnery Sargent Ryan O’Connell. Our records indicate you’re his next of kin…
I listen while the family liaison on the other end of the phone gives me a rundown of his list of injuries. Severe damage to his lower right leg. Probable amputation. Second and third degree burns to thirty percent of his lower body.
Damage to his reproductive organs.
Possible brain damage.
I was on a plane to Germany forty-five minutes after I hung up the phone. I don’t know must about what happened to him other than what they told me. That Ryan stepped on an IED while on a routine patrol. At least half of that is a lie. Nothing about what Ryan does is routine. I could find out if I wanted to. It wouldn’t take much to hack his unredacted file from whatever military server it’s buried in.
I could, but I won’t.
How it happened isn’t important. What’s important is that Ryan is alive. Everything else can be dealt with.
Looking at him in that hospital bed, not knowing if he was going to make it was one of the hardest things I’ve ever had to do. Wondering how I was going to tell Henley if he died.
He woke up, during my second week of sitting bedside looked at me and said, don’t tell Hen.
So I didn’t.