Page 3 of All I Have Left

GRAYSON

S omething happens to your brain when you’ve been to another country and forced to fight for your life, and your freedom. You look at the world, and everyone in it, differently. There’s life before, and life after a deployment, and the in between you’d like to forget.

I’m not sure when, if ever, my mind will allow me to think about what happened over there, but I do know that I’m alive today because of two people. One died in my arms and the other I’m terrified of returning home to.

Her memory has been burning holes in my mind for so long it’s singed every other thought but those ones of her. And I have to tell you I’ve had enough of it.

I’ve existed without really living and that isn’t as easy as you would think.

And now I wonder if coming home is the answer.

Part of me doesn’t want to see Evie. Not after the way I left her.

I don’t want to see those green eyes or those familiar blonde waves.

I don’t want to say her name, feel her breath on my skin or hold her close.

I don’t want to because I know once I do, I won’t be able to resist her.

I know it’d be over for me. And that scares me. It fucking terrifies me .

I’m an hour outside Pinckard, Alabama, when I finally decide to tell my family I’m coming home.

I wrote letters every once in a while, but for the last few months, I’ve had no contact with anyone.

I can’t imagine my lack of communication is going to go over very well, but believe me when I say they didn’t want to hear from me with my state of mind.

I figure I should call Frankie first, and then possibly my mom.

“Hello?” Frankie’s voice is strained, and it’s been so long since I’ve heard it, it’s almost unfamiliar to me.

“Frankie?” I’m not entirely sure it’s her or not. I even check the phone to make sure it’s her I dialed. It couldn’t be Evie, could it? No, she sounds different. Older? A wind-blown rush crackles the line. She must have been driving with the windows down. “Is that you?”

She’s quiet for a moment, and then it hits her with a squeal. “Holy shit,” Frankie chokes. “Oh my God. Grayson?”

That’s relief in her voice, right? I knew she was worried that she hadn’t heard from me since I was deployed to Iraq back in January.

My entire family had tried to contact my commanding officer only to be told I was missing.

My dad knew I’d gone missing, but I doubt he told the women in our family I had been presumed dead. I imagine he hadn’t accepted it either.

“Yeah, it’s me.” I sigh, feeling relieved to hear from my family. “I’m… coming home. I’m actually only about an hour away.”

I haven’t seen Frankie in two years. The last time I saw her she’d made a trip to Arizona to see our older sister, Kelly, who had been away at college, and stopped off in New Mexico to see me.

No one else had come out to see me and I kept it that way.

I love my parents dearly, but they didn’t want me enlisting in the first place, but I did.

Frankie, she may not have understood why I left in the first place, but she didn’t try to get me to change my mind.

Her squeal shrieks through the phone, high-pitched and exaggerated. “I’m so excited! Jesus… wait, is this just a visit or ar e you home for good?” She’s speaking so fast I can barely follow with the questions.

“Where are you?”

A thought hits me. Fuck, what if she’s with Evie?

She’s her best friend, assuming, they still talk.

I don’t know the answer. I don’t know if she’s still around.

The Evie I knew wanted out of Alabama and dreamed of the West Coast sunshine and ocean front.

I wonder if she finally left. Actually, part of me hopes she has.

I don’t want to see her because I doubt I’m her favorite person anymore.

You can’t leave like I did, without warning, and expect someone to still want to see you.

“I’m on my way home,” Frankie tells me. “I had to go pick up a dress for tonight.” She laughs, as if I should have known she’s out shopping. “And then I had to go to a different store for Evie’s dress.”

My heart jumps in my chest. Literally. It’s the worst feeling. Like a damn heart attack about to happen. But I play it off. “Oh, well, don’t say anything to anyone.” Like Evie. “I want to surprise Mom and Dad,” I add, playing it off as if I wasn’t referring to her.

It’s not that I want to surprise my parents that I’m coming home so much as my mom thinks I’m dead. I should probably tell her in person that her baby boy is still alive.

“Mom and Dad are out of town for a couple days. Some garden show.”

“Okay, but don’t tell them. I want to surprise them.”

“This is the best news ever, Grayson. Seriously. Josh and Kelly are here too!”

I smile at the thought of seeing my family for the first time in a while. It’s been so long I’m actually getting a little nervous to see everyone again. And believe me, I’m not the type to get nervous.

“Oh, yeah? I thought they would be staying in Arizona for the summer.”

“Not this summer. So what… are you home for good? You st ill have three years left, don’t you?

” Frankie takes in a deep breath and I know what’s coming next.

“And where in the fuck have you been the last couple months, Grayson? I’ve tried calling a few times and you haven’t been answering,” she growls, sounding so much like our mother.

“I’m driving, Frankie. I’ll see you soon.” I cut her off, avoiding her questions.

I’m not ready to tell anyone what happened in Iraq or why I’m coming home.

I toss my phone on the top of my letter from the review board granting my honorable discharge.

Honorable?

I would hardly classify anything that happened in that fucking situation as honorable.

My mind wanders as I stare out at the barren scenery before me. So much has happened in the last three years that it’s hard to even reason coming home, but I have no choice. I need her. She’s the only one who can help me now. I have to try at least.

Part of me is terrified to see her again, and I have no idea if she’ll even speak to me. Hell, I can’t blame her if she refuses to. I left her with a fucking note, and since then, no letters, no phone calls. Not a goddamn word from me.

So many times I wanted to call her, hear her voice, but every time I dialed the number, I panicked and hung up on the first ring. If I’d heard her voice, I would have found a way to come home and beg for forgiveness I don’t deserve.

And now, after everything that’s happened these last couple months, I can’t stay away.

Turning up the radio, I listen to the music, hoping it will provide a distraction to my thoughts.

The afternoon sun blares through my windshield.

Pulling down the visor, a picture falls into my lap.

It’s one of Evie and me on the tailgate of this truck.

She’s laughing, I’m smiling, and if you didn’t know it, you’d think we’d always be that way.

What you don’t see is the pain in my chest. That’s the day I enlisted, and she didn’t know the storm about to hit her .

Still, after all this time, she’s plastered into my mind.

Like a mold. An idea of what love looks and feels like, and I can’t forget it.

It clings to the broken pieces of me, a nudge toward healing.

It feels wrong of me to even come back here and expect her to talk to me let alone forgive me.

I have no idea what’s going on in her life.

Does she have a boyfriend? Did she finish college?

What if she’s married? What if she has kids?

And the worst part, I don’t know her anymore, and that hurts just as bad as leaving did.