Page 3 of Wrong Number, Right Soldier (Wrong Number, Right Guy #11)

Saylis

I no longer sleep. Between studying my brains out and staying up late almost every night talking to Trey, sleep has become like a construct more than a real thing. And you know what, I don’t even really miss it. I can sleep when I’m dead.

We have an almost-routine. Trey wakes up an hour earlier than he normally did; so, around four a.m. his time—I know I just said I don’t miss sleep, but that is madness.

We FaceTime for a bit until he has to get some work done, and I crack the books.

At six his time—ten p.m. here in Texas—they do formation.

He’ll usually have some time afterward, and we’ll talk some more.

Then, he’s busy, and I’m sleepy, but he’ll get a block of time where he can talk around lunch, so if I want to catch him then, I need to wake up by at least five a.m.

And wake up, I do. Like clockwork.

We carry on like this for weeks, talking to each other almost every day.

I tell him all about my friends and my life and we go over some of my study notes to prep for my exam.

He tells me he has all kinds of reading and study materials too, but he won’t share them with me—not because they’re classified, but because he’s embarrassed.

He won’t read out loud in front of me, but he has nothing to be ashamed of: we are very different people who are good at different things.

I wouldn’t last a day in the military. Trey says he never finished high school, and barely passed the Army entrance exams.

I think it’s nice, to have different skills, different minds. It’s why we have endless things to talk about—not because we have the same experiences to share, but because we have none. We bring new perspectives to every conversation, every topic, each and every day.

And his stories ! I live for them. Even if they are only the goof-off stuff I know he’s curating just for our talks.

Troops wouldn’t need to be out there for a year , away from their homes, their families, if there wasn’t more to it.

I just get the feeling he only tells me the goof-off stuff.

And that’s okay. I’m here for it. Even if only armed with my heart, my ears, and my sleep deprivation.

I’m so close to finally feeling ready to take the state test. There’s a part of me that realizes it might be irresponsible to keep up this thing with Trey, at this pace, knowing what I have to be taking care of.

But the timing is what it is. I can’t put him off—not one call or chance to say hi or see his face.

He’s not in a combat zone in Kuwait, but I don’t know a lot about the Middle East, if I’m being honest—the geography, the conditions, the many current conflicts—nor what he could be sent out to do.

Or who or what could pay a visit to them .

I try to do some research, but the information is vast, overwhelming, confusing, conflicting. Quite frankly: not helping.

And he can’t help much, either. Not over the phone.

All of this is so far out of my wheelhouse, I feel a little bit lost about it.

So I’ve stopped trying to understand everything, except just this: I have to pick up the phone when he calls.

No matter what. Because morbidly, what if it could be the last call ?

“You’re getting tense, honey,” the massage therapist says in her dulcet, but firm tone.

“Sorry, a lot on my mind.”

“Not in here. Open your eyes,” she says to me, and I peel them back slowly. “You see any of those worries in this room?”

I see a low-set, dim purplish lamp in one corner, hear woodwind music playing softly from invisible speakers, smell the faint, grounding fragrance of vetiver and lemongrass.

“No,” I answer. “It’s heavenly in here.”

“So relax, honey. That is your only job right now. Also, turn over.”

As she holds the sheet up I gingerly flip over onto my stomach. Relax. Only job.

I breathe in, and exhale everything out.

Getting a massage seemed like a great idea to not only quiet some of the worries I’ve been having lately—worries that have been climbing higher and higher right along with my feelings for Trey—but to also address the issue of my posture, which I’ve been neglecting.

The ideal position for studying is probably not cross-legged on a feather-top mattress hunched over an open textbook and scrawling out notecards against the side of my knee.

Your knees are not a lap desk , Saylis , I silently chide myself—for the umpteenth time.

My hips, shoulders, and knees have taken the brunt of it. But as she works lower down my back, my lumbar muscles kill .

She works them over gently, but thoroughly. My phone in my bag is in Focus mode for the next hour, with only one of my contact’s notifications “allowed” just in case: Trey. I feel my body slowly descend from hyper-tense to mildly alert to something that feels… almost like sleep .

And then suddenly, my phone goes bananas in my bag. My eyes pop open and I flip over too quickly, startling Hannah, the massage therapist.

“I’m so sorry, I have to just see who that is!”

It’s around 5 p.m. now, so like 1 a.m. there so I don’t really think it could be him, but it could be him . Did my Focus mode glitch? He’s the only allowed contact .

Hannah gives me a look that’s a sprinkle of patience mixed with a heavy dose of concern. “You sure, honey? You have thirty minutes still.”

“Yes, I am so sorry,” I say again, with the sheet wrapped around me and my hands already diving into my bag for the phone. “It could be my…boyfriend.”

Oh, so we’re saying that word now?

To strangers—but still.

Now Hannah has transformed into full-on parental stance, eyes dark and pinpointed, her mouth set in a firm line. I might actually be the same age as her, and I feel like I’m in trouble.

“Do not let a man have control over you,” she says, an air of righteous authority I’m intrinsically compelled to cower to, no questions asked.

Except—“No, no, it’s not like that. He’s in…Kuwait.”

All at once, Hannah does a complete one-eighty. “ Oh! Well hurry, answer, answer it!”

Trey’s name and a handsome, smirking selfie he sent for me to save as his Contact photo brightens my phone screen, and I look up wide-eyed at Hannah, unable and unwilling to wipe the goofy-ass grin off my face, as I swipe to answer.

“ There you are, sweetheart .”

At the sound of his warm, masculine voice, Hannah does a pretend swoon and collapses onto the massage bed.

#

Trey

“Hey, sorry, I was just getting a massage when you called. Isn’t it like, the middle of the night there?”

“I couldn’t sleep. Did I interrupt your massage? We can talk later.”

“It was almost done, but is everything okay?”

“Yes,” I say in a whisper, not wanting to wake up anyone else. I feel a broad smile slam onto my face. I’m already feeling more relaxed, just spending a few minutes with the sound of her voice.

So this is how addictions work.

“Just wanted to hear your voice a minute.”

“Oh, okay. Hi.” She smiles. Fuck. That’s what I needed.

“Hi, sweetheart.” My eyes start to fall closed, and Saylis lets out a soft giggle.

“You’re cute with your bedhead,” she murmurs, making me grin. I probably look drunk. In a way, I sort of am. “You should sleep…”

“Mmm,” I acknowledge her words with a low hum. “Come visit my dreams?”

“Close your eyes, Trey,” Saylis commands, her voice a thread of the sweetest, softest singsong breath.

I’ve started to become familiar with all of her voices: her anxious, scatterbrained voice; her compassionate, listening voice, the one that is always encouraging me, or at the very least tries to understand me; her hungover voice after a night out with her friends—how it’s scratchy and throaty but is happy like an ELO record from the 70s; her hungry voice; her hangry voice; her sad voice I never want to be the reason for.

Even her teacher voice comes out sometimes, which I’ve discovered I have a definite affinity for.

“ There you go .” A faint, lyrical whisper. “I’ll be right there…” Her voice drifts far away.

I fall into the dark, where there isn’t any more sound, nothing to see, or feel, no smells. Only void.

The only sensation here is thought.

Remembering—that first morning when Saylis called out of the blue. The refreshing-ness of her. The distraction. The feeling of something to look forward to, finally. A numbness I hadn’t known was encasing me until it shredded away and light, life , emerged in its place.

Realizing—how often we talk now. How fast it’s turned into something I need, and not just need, but I need a lot of it.

I need a lot of Saylis.

All of Saylis.

Regretting—that I’m a distraction for her, too. And not a good one.

She might have already taken and passed the exam, if it weren’t for me derailing her studies every single fuckin’ night.

Next, she’ll start to look for a teaching position.

She’ll get a great one. Whatever school she is going to teach at doesn’t even know yet how lucky they are about to get, to get her.

Saylis has so much going for her.

What am I, except eight thousand miles away, and yet still managed to be in her way?

It hits me, the God’s honest truth, square in the chest, so plainly, right here in this pitch-black, soundless nothingness where I know Saylis is not going to come, and I don’t want her to. I don’t want her to ever see me here .

I’m being unfair to her.

I am not good enough.

I struggled all throughout school, dropped out after my dad died, eventually got my GED, barely even passed the ASVAB. She’s going to be an English teacher . Saylis uses words I don’t always know the definition of, and I just nod along as if I do. Like a big fake, stupid coward.

But that’s not even the point. This thing with the Army? I’m in it for life . This is my life.

The best thing I can do for Saylis—is let her go live hers.

Is let her go .

But that’s just me in the dark. When I come to, I know that’s not something I’ll ever be able to do.