to get us a little nest egg so we could get married. Seven months doesn't seem that long when you're talking about forever."
A harsh snort erupts out of my mouth. "Women are fickle, man," I tell him bitterly.
He finally takes his eyes off the never-ending desert and glances in my direction.
"Sure your inability to commit doesn't have more to do with you than them?" he asks before resuming his watch.
Gold eyes that would make the gods weep flash through my mind. I have a million photographs in a drawer in my apartment back home of those eyes. They used to be my obsession.
Now it's seeing how close I can get to being blown up without actually dying.
I could probably benefit from a shrink.
I haven't talked about her in years, not after her disappearance also meant the loss of the only two guys I've ever trusted in the world. But out here, it’s easier to talk about the past.
"There was one girl. I would have done anything for her. We were childhood sweethearts. She looked like an angel…or maybe an angel of the fallen variety. Even as a teenager, I knew there was no one else like her.”
"What happened to her?"
The bitter laugh escapes from me again. "She was in love with me supposedly…along with my two best friends." I sigh, the memories making my chest hurt just to think about.
"It was the first time I've ever been in love, and it's probably the only time I will be.”
"Did she run off with one of your friends?" he asks, wiping his sweaty brow.
"That would have been better I think. At least that way, I would have had some closure. Instead, she disappeared. Left us all behind. Almost destroyed me, if I'm being honest," I admit, bringing my camera up to take a picture of some dust flying in the wind around a soldier a few yards down.
"Fuck," he swears softly. Then he laughs. "You know, that's more emotion and more words than I think you've said the whole time you've been here?"
I roll my eyes, but can't contain my grin. I've been called a moody bastard many a time in my life, so he's not saying anything new. I prefer to see the world through my lens rather than actually having to engage with it. It's always been like that…except with her. With her, I preferred to experience life as closely as possible.
He opens his mouth to say something else, when the sky suddenly erupts in a ball of fire.
"Get down," he yells as he brings up his gun to shoot at figures darting towards the camp.
I'm on the ground, but trying to capture the action as it happens. This is what war photographers live for.
Screams and the sound of bullets fill the air. If there is a hell on Earth, it’s in this moment. The air is so smoky with artillery residue that it's impossible to see anything.
I'll never forget the silence that surrounds me a few minutes later. With the dark smoke and the lack of screams, it's like I'm the last person on earth.
When the smoke clears, the ground is littered with bodies. Some them, too many us. And Sgt. Tennyson is one of them. He's lying on the ground, a blank look in his eyes, like he's still keeping watch over the horizon. A bit of white is peeking out from his hand. I crouch down, and pull at it, obviously not having any boundaries. It's a picture of a golden-haired girl with sad gray eyes. I wonder if she knows how much it meant to him when she sent letters, or if she understood how much she meant to him.
I tuck the picture back in his hand and raise my camera. I take a picture of just his hand, grasping that photo, feeling like a bastard the whole time. It's the kind of shot that could get me the Pulitzer, but I feel hollow and dirty inside as I take it.
"Carter, we need to get out of here," another soldier says as he runs towards me. He takes a look at the body at my feet and grimaces.
"Who takes care of the bodies?" I ask, unable to take my eyes away from that hand grasping that photograph. I feel desperate in this moment, desperate to have anyone in my life who I care about as much as he cared about her.
Would anyone cry for me if one of these assignments was actually the end for me?