thought maybe I’d . . . I don’t really have a lot of practice telling . . . so . . . the scars.”
Her plate clinked to the cement. “You’re seriously gonna tell me about—”
“Just listen, okay?”
“You don’t have to, Lucas. You really don’t have to. I know you don’t like to talk about Afghanistan. That’s why I’ve never asked. Not that I don’t want to know. I do.”
“Then be quiet for two seconds, okay?”
She opened her mouth again. Closed it.
“What?”
Even in the dark, he could make out her look of embellished innocence. “I was just going to say if it only takes you two seconds to tell the story, then you’re not as loquacious or garrulous or effusive as one might hope.”
“You finished?”
She pasted on a contrite expression and suddenly, none of this seemed like such a good idea. Couldn’t they just go on being silly? Teasing one another? Eating blackened marshmallows while she oohed and aahed over his garden plans and he pretended this was a date even if she didn’t know it?
“Luke?”
Just talk.
“It was an IED—improvised explosive device.” No, he needed to start further back. “My troop was mainly doing humanitarian work, digging wells, clearing roads, that kind of thing. There was this group of kids that would wander out from one of the villages to watch. Saw them all the time, didn’t think much of it.”
His gaze fastened on the fire.
“The night of the explosion, just a few days before we were supposed to break camp, the kids had come out again. They were kicking a soccer ball around. One of them stepped in the wrong spot.”
“Oh, Luke.”
“I was working on a fence in the area—saw the whole thing. Three of the kids were dead, one was alive. I didn’t even think, I just picked him up and started running in the direction of the village.”
He felt Jen go still beside him.
“Strangers somehow got me to the right house, but by the time I reached it, he’d died. His mother screamed and wept, and I just stood there.” While a lifeless body seared his arms and any clear thought of life beyond that moment shattered. “His name was Tashfeen. I didn’t know that until three days later. I guess I passed out from the burns. His mother—Kaameh—took care of me. While she was grieving her son, she dressed my burns and . . . and kept me alive.”
Jen shifted at his side, reached for his hand.
“And then I just stayed.”
That was the part of the story he’d never made it to before. He’d told Kit once of Tashfeen, but he hadn’t been able to make himself go further. Even the therapist Flagg had sent him to hadn’t heard much about his time living under Kaameh’s roof.
“It was probably some kind of shock at first, but eventually I told myself I stayed because Kaameh needed me. Because I could help her. A week passed, two weeks. Then a month. My unit hauled out. I just . . . stayed.”
“Because you saw someone in need.” Jenessa finally spoke. “Because that’s the kind of man you are.”
He released her hand. “No. Because I was selfish and cowardly. Because I convinced myself fixing her roof and giving Kaameh food and letting her cry on my shoulder was noble, but really I was just—”
“In shock,” she interrupted. “Hurting.”
“For almost two years?” He’d let Kaameh mother him in a way he’d missed out on as a child. Pathetic.
“You were young, Luke.”
“I was old enough to know what I was doing. I deserted. I did the worst thing a soldier can do.” A log in the fire tipped, sending ash and sparks spattering.
She scooted closer. “So maybe you did. But you paid for it. You went to prison, you were discharged—”
“Dishonorably.”
In a move that completely stunned him, she wrenched her hands upward, touched both of his cheeks. “I’m not going to do this. I’m not going to sit here and listen to you talk about yourself like this. I’m not going to just go on letting you act like your decisions in the aftermath of something horrific make you cowardly or dishonorable or any other awful label you want to give yourself, because you’re not any of those things. The labels don’t fit.”
“I hid from the MPs, Jen.” Frustration backed each word.
She dropped her hands and scrambled to her feet. “I will walk into that house and leave you out here if you say one more word against yourself.” She plucked the bag