Page 44 of The Beginning and End of Everything
I nod. It was enough to do anyone in.
“How’d Poppy take the news of deployment?”
I drop the pen to the table and spin it. “Not good.”
She cried. Not full out sobbing or anything, but I could hear it in her voice. The strain, the fear. I promised her I’d come back, and I intend to, but writing this letter makes me picture what would happen if she ever received it. And it shatters me.
I never want to hurt her.
I never want to leave her.
This isn’t how it was supposed to go. We’re supposed to grow old together…
And I had to believe we would.
23
Brandon
April 2014
Isquint against the sunlight pouring through the windscreen. It always seems so much brighter here in Afghanistan, the sun that much hotter sitting amongst endless blue skies. It’s nothing but desert over a desert. Sweat trickles down the back of my neck, and not for the first time, I wish I could strip out of my body armor and rig.
“My balls are so sweaty, I think my swimmers have been boiled,” I groan.
The other three guys in the Foxhound laugh.
“Three weeks until you’re back to the piss-wet rain in Dublin,” Connor shouts over the rumble of the engine. “I can’t wait to go home.”
Home. I should be excited. I’m happy for Con, at least, but truthfully, I no longer have a home, anywhere. Every time I go on leave, I’m itching to get back here, to this hell hole because I fit in here. I crave the chaos, walking on the edge of a knife every day. Back there, I’m nobody, but here…here, I count. Here I have a purpose. Here I have Connor, but when we’re home, he has Poppy. They don’t need me, though they insist on involving me in their lives. The truth I can’t tell them is, sometimes it hurts to witness their happiness. I feel like an intruder.
“Yep. I’m going to drink all the whiskey Ireland has to offer.”
My sergeant glances at me briefly, a smile on his lips. “And by ‘all the whiskey,’ you really mean all the women. Careful your dick doesn’t drop off.”
“Why would you say such horrible things to me? I thought we were friends.”
The sound of laughter blends in with the hum of the engine, then in a fraction of a second, there’s a bang so loud that it shatters everything else. A deafening silence follows, and I’m weightless in my seat as the world outside whirls past the windscreen in a blur. It’s like I’m watching a nightmare through someone else’s eyes. Violent and unstoppable. I don’t have a chance to think or react before there’s just nothing.
Everything goes dark.
Blinking open my eyes, I try to lift my head, but pain ricochets through my skull, leaving nothing other than a continuous static ring in my ears. I flinch when something drips onto my face. When I lift my hand to wipe it away, my fingers come away crimson. Realization slowly creeps back in, and I lift my head, looking around. The Husky is on its side, and my Sargent limply hangs above me, his body held in place by the seat harness.A thick piece of shrapnel is buried in his neck, the blood dripping on me like a leaky faucet.
I manage to assess the situation with an odd sense of distance, nothing but blood and twisted metal. I release my harness and fall the short distance from the seat to the window grill. Groaning, I push up, shards of glass biting into my palms as I do. The stench of smoke, diesel fuel, and charred flesh hangs heavy in the air, and even though I’m disoriented, that smell sends me into fight mode.
I need to move. I need to get them out of here.
Pushing to my feet, I press my fingers to Serg’s neck. He’s gone.
Connor.
Panic pulses through me. When I glance into the back seat, I see him slumped against the rear door, lifeless eyes staring straight at me.
No, no, no.
The sight of his mangled face covered with burns and blood makes my chest heave. I choke out an anguished sob, but the sound is lost, falling on my own deaf ears.
I throw myself into the back of the vehicle, landing on him in a heap. With a tug, I lie him as flat as I can against the glass-scattered window grill, then rip open his vest, and start chest compressions.
