Page 73 of The Way Back Home

CHAPTER THIRTY-ONE

August

Then

ISTARE AT THE LETTERin my hands. A single piece of paper that I thought might be the end of me. I roll my head against the scratchy canvas of the cot so the other guys won’t see as a hail of gunfire sounds in the not-too-far distance. Havoc nudges my arm with his nose, and I reach out and scratch him behind the ear. He closes his eyes against the ever-present dust that kicks up anytime a member of my platoon moves inside our tent. I should take him back to the kennels. It’s hot as the eighth circle of hell, and he’s not fond of the constant gunfire. That makes two of us.

At least in the kennels he has air-con and can stretch out on the cool floor and sleep. I should take him back, but I don’t because I’m stronger with him at my side. We’ve been working him hard; as one of the only dog teams here in Sangin, Havoc and I are escorting every patrol team that goes out beyond the wire. I should be amazed that he’s standing at all, but I’m not because I know my dog. He’s prideful, and it’s as if everything he does is him saying, “See, Dad? Who’s a good dog, then? Huh? And you thought I couldn’t hack it playing with the big boys.” It’s as if his every glance is full of smug self-assuredness, and I love him all the more for it.

He puts both paws up on my arm and whines. I pat my chest, and all sixty-four pounds of him bounds on top of me and settles in. The breath leaves my lungs in a rush, and for a moment I stare up into those ochre eyes and think he understands why my soul is in tatters right now. The letter Jude wrote me falls away from my hand, down into the gap beside my cot and the wall of our tent, and I wrap my arms around my dog.

Emotions run up and down the leash between dog and handler. It’s a constant tug of war between feeling what my dog feels and compartmentalizing the fear and pain that needs to be seen to and that which needs to be stored for later when we’re not being shot at or risking our lives for the rest of our unit by leading the patrol. He knows when this desert gets too much for me, and I know when it’s too much for him.

It isn’t the desert that haunts me now, or the gunfire, the women and children caught up in firefights, or the civilians that find an IED meant for one of us. It isn’t the terrorists who take aim at my dog from behind primitive mud walls baking in the sun, or the bastards who seek to blow us sky-high every time we step outside the wire. It’s the three little words written on Jude’s note.

Sav is dead.

I bury my head in my dog’s neck and inhale sharply to keep from choking on the sobs that long to break free from my chest. He smells like blood and dust, and he licks at my face, as if I’m a small child and he’s kissing it all better. God, how I wish he could. I wish I’d never walked in on the two of them. I wish I’d never found out. I wish I’d seen her one last time before I deployed, instead of ignoring her calls and refusing to reply to her letters. I don’t care that it makes me a chump—if that’s what made her happy, then I’d gladly give her that. I’d do anything to have her in my arms again, and not buried six feet under.

The only girl I ever loved is dead and she killed herself because of me, because I broke her heart.