Page 19

We spent that night drinking milkshakes and chatting like no time had passed at all. Laura sipped from my straw, and every time the plastic touched her lips, I felt that this thing between us was as serious as Greg Dumass and his girlfriend, Christy.

I imagined what it would be like if she were my real girlfriend, if she wrote letters to me the way Christy had written letters to Greg. It was a nice thought, one that filled me with something warm and comfortable.

But every time I caught myself thinking that way, I had to remember that it wasn’t in the cards.

“Will you walk me home?” she asked after the milkshakes were finished and a kid in a McDonald’s hat started to mop the floor.

It was near closing. Way past Laura’s bedtime. She was still in school after all, and the thought made me feel too old for her, too experienced, despite only being nineteen .

I knew how to shoot a gun, for crying out loud. I knew how to kill .

“Yeah,” I said, nodding. “Of course I can walk you home.”

“You guys sure?” Molly asked, slipping a tiny black purse onto her shoulder. “I can give you a ride, Laura. I don’t—"

“I wanna walk ,” she replied quickly through gritted teeth.

Ricky smirked. “They need the exercise.” He sidled up to me and jabbed his elbow into my ribs. “ Tongue exercise.”

I groaned and shoved him away, even though I was hoping she would kiss me. I wasn’t expecting it. I wouldn’t try for it myself. But if she made the first move, if she asked , I would go along. Gladly.

Ricky and Molly left in their separate cars. Laura flashed me a pair of knowing eyes when they both turned in the same direction despite their houses being on opposite sides of town.

“Ten bucks says they’re gonna go make out somewhere,” I muttered, leading the way down the sidewalk.

Laura snickered. “Make out ? More like make love .”

She said it teasingly, tauntingly, and I furrowed my brow.

“What?” I asked, forcing a laugh. “Seriously?”

“Oh, yeah,” she replied, sounding unamused, like this was old news. “Molly wouldn’t shut up about it a couple of months ago. But honestly, I don’t know how good Ricky can be when … I mean, no offense, I know he’s your best friend …”

“Yeah,” I said absentmindedly. “I know what you’re saying.”

Actually, I had no idea what she was saying. I had no idea what the hell she could possibly mean. I couldn’t begin to understand when I was struggling to comprehend that Ricky, my best friend, had had sex and not told me.

But you haven’t been here. When would he have said anything?

The thought was harsh, depressing, and sobering. I had been gone for three months. Three months . That was long enough for Ricky’s virginity to fly out the window, for my sister to get a boyfriend, for Dad to become a decent father to everyone but me.

Who the hell knew what else had happened over the weeks I was gone?

“So, um,” Laura said quietly, her head hanging as we casually walked in the direction of her house, “do you like it?”

“Do I like what?” I asked, my voice gruff with the pain of being left out.

“Being in the Army.”

I cleared my throat and shrugged. “It’s all right. I mean, I don’t hate it, if that’s what you’re asking.”

“No, I’m asking if you like it.”

“Yeah,” I said, nodding. “I like it.”

“Have you made any friends?”

I laughed. “You sound like my mom.” But … no, she didn’t, did she? My mom had never asked if I made friends at school. My mom had never cared. “Yeah,” I sa id, feeling so defeated and sad all of a sudden. I couldn’t stand it. “I have a few friends.”

“Tell me about them.”

So, I sucked in the Massachusetts air, noticing how different it felt in my lungs, and began.

I told her about Greg and his girlfriend, Christy, and how he believed they were soulmates despite being so young. I told her about his infectious laughter, how he often lost the ability to breathe and wheezed until everyone was laughing with him as he grabbed his inhaler.

“He’s a great guy, really nice,” I told her, keeping my eyes on the sidewalk. “But, shit, his farts stink .”

She giggled, but the sound was almost sad, though I couldn’t quite put my finger on why. To brush it off—the feeling of wanting to hug her and tell her to not be sad at all—I moved on to talk about Matt and Justin.

“Matt is cool,” I said. “He can get along with everyone as long as they’re nice to him. And then Justin … Rids … he’s a big fan of Pearl Jam, Nirvana. One of those grunge guys, you know? Really laid-back and cool.”

Laura hummed a soft, thoughtful sound as we walked. “They sound nice,” she replied quietly.

“Oh, yeah, they’re all great guys,” I commented, missing them in a way that felt almost strange, like I’d known them for years. “Honestly, everyone is pretty cool. Well, except this one guy. Sid.”

“You don’t like him?”

“He’s just …” I shook my head, picturing Sid’s shit-eating grin. “He’s a dickhead. It’s like he thrives on being an asshole. ”

Laura was quiet for a moment, the silence between us paving the way for the crickets, before she said, “Like your dad?”

My brow pinched, and I shook my head. “No, not like that. Sid is … I don’t know. It’s almost like … like he’s trying to be funny, but he’s just fucking mean .”

“Well, maybe he doesn’t know how else to make friends,” she suggested with a limp-shouldered shrug.

I gave that a moment of thought before continuing because why the hell would I waste more than a second on Sid Sprague?

So, I spent the remainder of our walk telling Laura about the long, grueling days of training, the shitty dinners with lively conversation and laughter, the nights of lying in bed and thinking about my sisters and how they were doing.

“What about me?” Laura asked, looking up at me as we turned onto her street.

I met her eye and smirked. “What about you?”

“Did you ever lie awake at night, thinking about me?”

“I tried not to,” I admitted slyly.

“But you did?”

“Yeah, I did,” I confessed. “A lot.”

We neared her parents’ house, and she slowed, turning to press her back against one of the white fence posts surrounding the perimeter of the front yard.

“What did you think about?”

I faced her and stuffed my hands in my pockets, trying to play it cool as my heart hammered wildly in my chest. “I thought about what you were doing. Who you were with. If you had a boyfriend.”

Her eyes softened as her throat bobbed with a swallow, and she gripped the post behind her. “One day, I will have a boyfriend.”

“I know,” I said, taking a step closer.

“I wish it were you.”

Her face was hidden from my view beneath strands of hair and shadows, but the moon’s light shone over the hint of pink blush spreading across her cheeks.

“I know,” I repeated.

She looked up and cast her gaze off to the dark world around us, illuminated only by streetlamps and moonlight, and she huffed a humorless laugh.

“I wish we could’ve had this before,” she whispered. “Nobody hanging over you, nobody threatening you … you could’ve been, like, a real kid.”

I pushed a smile, but, damn, I didn’t want to. There was nothing to smile about.

“If only,” I replied.

“Would you have been my boyfriend then?”

I shook my head slowly, releasing the breath from my lungs. “Laura, come on …”

“I know we can’t be anything now,” she insisted, shrugging and looking up at me, her hair falling away from her face. “I’m just wondering, if things had been different, would we—"

“It doesn’t matter,” I pressed.

She twisted her lips to the side, considering the thought, then said, “No, I guess it doesn’t. But it’s nice to think about, right? ”

I pulled in another breath of fresh air.

The night was cooler than it was in South Carolina.

Soon, autumn would fall over Massachusetts, and I was going to miss it.

I wondered what the season change would be like down South.

I wondered if I’d hate it or if maybe I’d like it more.

Milder winds, warmer winters … it sounded nice in theory, but Christmas without the cold seemed odd.

The thought of Christmas at all seemed wrong.

“You know, there are plenty of girls with boyfriends in the military,” she mentioned casually.

I closed my eyes and lifted my hand to scrub it over my bristly scalp. “I can’t do that, Laura. You know that.”

“Can you explain to me why though?” she begged, sounding a little more desperate. “I don’t get it. You’re an adult , Max. You don’t live at home anymore. Your dad has nothing to do with—"

“My dad has everything to do with everything ,” I replied harshly, not intending to sound so damn angry. “Do you even know how he treats my mom?”

Her face crumpled. “What … what does that—"

“You don’t understand. I don’t expect you to understand,” I said, suddenly breathless and desperate for air. “But please. I wish you’d get it through your head that I cannot do this. Okay? I don’t mean to be a dick. You know that. I’m not a dick. But I can’t do this .”

My blood was boiling. I was angry—so fucking angry—but not at her.

I was mad at my father. I was mad at the life he’d forced on me.

I was mad at this unbreachable wall I’d had to build around my mind and heart, guarded by electric barbed wire, telling me that the most I could ever have was this .

Tiny glimpses of what I wished were mine, all of them coming as quickly as they were going.

Because what if the best that I could ever be was him ?

“It’s okay,” Laura finally whispered, but it definitely was not okay. None of this was okay .

“I should get back to Ricky’s,” I grumbled, wishing she had never sat with us at lunch.

I took a step backward, not wanting to forget the way she looked as I walked away. The hope dying in her eyes. The hurt written in every wriggle of her bottom lip. I needed to feel that pain, to remind myself of who I was at my core with ice bred into my veins.

“Wait,” she said in a hurry, filling the gap between us as she rushed forward. “Kiss me. Please.”

My brow pinched with confusion. “Why?”

“Because I want you to.”