his mouth for another yawn. Then he smiles at me.
“You’ll get acclimated pretty fast,” he says.
I just nod, eating more chicken.
I hope so. As soon as I possibly can, I jump up and clear my plate. Then I hustle back to my cabin.
Safe within the walls of that tiny cabin, curled in my bed, I allow my thoughts and feelings to overwhelm me. There where no one can see or hear me, I let myself cry, sobbing silently into my pillow.
I cry for myself, for the situation I’m in.
I cry because Grayson seems unaffected by all of this.
But mostly I cry for the people that we used to be. Young, stupid, wild.
And most of all, free.
I fall asleep with tears still on my cheeks, clutching at my pillow.
Chapter Six
Grayson
I wake earlier than anyone else at base camp, glistening with sweat and breathing hard. I can still taste the ashes that rained down on me after the first IED went off. I can still feel the desert heat of the early evening.
Standing straight up from my hammock slung between two trees, I try to breathe through my racing heart and let my eyes adjust. Because of the natural canopy over the campsite, it is almost pitch black. I check my watch and see that it’s four in the morning.
Hell, sleeping until four am is better than most days for me. Usually I’m up by two or three, sweating and shaking, repeating my mantra and looking for some mind-numbing work to do.
In the early morning hush, I quietly go about my business. I’m trying not to think about the past, but I just can’t seem to do anything else.
Looking at Rachel makes me relive all the guilt that I’ve been trying to meditate away. Looking at her last night, she is still looking as poised as I ever saw her and so beautiful she could steal my breath away in an instant. That is my first thought; that I have missed her, or at least missed being so close with someone.
But close on the heels of that feeling is a blinding sort of guilt.
This was my always and forever girl. The only girl I’ve ever whispered those three little words to.
I close my eyes and breathe out sharply. I thought that I meant those things, but… maybe my young, stupid heart was wrong.
I have to wonder, though. Where did all the heat and wonder and spark in our relationship go?
I wash up in the solar-heated group shower, groaning at how the hot water hits my sore muscles. I stand under the shower’s spray and try to breathe.
Probably down the same hole that took my dignity and my self-respect, the second I woke up in that military hospital in Yemen. The truth is that I hate myself now, and I have to think that I always will. I’m disgusted by how weak I was, then and now.
Sighing, I get out of the shower. The reality is that I don’t know and I’m going to have to try not to find out.
Shaving as best as I can without a mirror, I try to avoid thinking about Rachel.
It’s not easy, though. Especially when Aiden strolls up to where I hung my hammock, looking expectant.
“So…” he says, yawning. “Yesterday was pretty nutty. Seeing Rachel again must be fucking weird.”
Even early as it is, I laugh. “Weird doesn’t begin to describe it.”
I expect him to press me for details, but he doesn’t. “Do you want to grab breakfast?”
“Sure. I mean, I’ll go with you to the mess hall.” Eating without Rachel seems inhospitable, but there is nothing saying I can’t go to the mess hall twice.
I’m quiet as I walk beside Aiden. As soon as we get close to the mess hall, he starts in on me.
“I’m guessing you were up late last night?” he says, looking at me. “I would have a lot of feelings if I were you.”
My mouth twists. “She brought back a lot of memories with her. Some good, some… not.”
It’s hard not to remember the younger version of her. She had shorter hair, though it was the same rich honey color. She wore short pink skirts and checkered Vans most of the time. She laughed at lot, looking up at me as if I set the sun and stars for her.
And she fit so nicely against me when I held her close. I still remember how her clean scent — lavender and sage — hit my nose when I would bury my