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Boom.
The agony surging in my body makes me sick. I feel like bending over and throwing up. I feel like dropping to my knees and beating my chest. I feel like screaming at the sky.
But I don’t.
Instead, I channel those chaotic, raging emotions into target practice. At least I’m doing something sane. Perfecting my aim. Steadying my shooting hand.
Rather than just curling into a ball and bawling like a baby.
“Thought I’d find you here,” a voice says. I hear shoes crunching against dry grass. The smell of cologne fills the night. There’s a hint of something else too. A lighter floral scent. Probably rubbed off from holding his wife.
“You seemed like the type who’d work even in distress.”
“You found me. Congratulations.”
“Sarcasm and violence. Always a good combination.”
“I’d prefer to be alone, Darrel,” I reply without looking back.
My free hand sinks into my pockets for gun shells. I come up empty.
“Damn.” I check the safety and shove the gun into the rack.
A hand on my shoulder stops me from reaching for my Colt.
My jaw clenches with the force of my effort to keep the emotions at bay.
“What are you going to do now?” Darrel asks.
“Iwasgoing to practice with my 1911 before you showed up.”
“You know what I meant,” he says quietly.
I go stiff. In my mind, I relive the moment when Island nodded ‘yes’ to her boyfriend. The man she’d loved since she was a teenager. The man who I lost to.
Because isn’t that what this is?
A loss?
I grit my teeth.
“What is there to do?” Since Darrel is here, I turn away from the targets and sit on the bench. “She chose him. It’s over.”
“Okay,” he muses. “If you say it’s over, then it’s over.”
I squeeze the water bottle so tight it almost pops.
“Everyone thinks love is about how the other person makes us feel.” Darrel clasps a hand over his knee. “‘She makes me feel happy’. ‘He makes me feel safe’. But love isn’t a feeling that another person gives you. It’s the sacrifices you’d make for that person’s benefit.” He nods at me. “That’s why you can honestly say that you love your country. It’s not about what the country’s done for you, it’s all about how you would die for it.”
My eyes narrow to slits because I know where he’s going with this.
“Let her go if you have to, Clay. But let her go because you love her so much that you want her to be happy. And if that guy makes her happy, then that should be what you want.”
Resistance surges in me. Surrender has never been an option. Even if it hurts. Even if it’s a lost cause, I want to keep fighting.
I’m a soldier.
I fight to the death.