Page 6 of The Bright Side of Brooding
Chapter Three
Nick
I’ve been collecting memories, cramming them into my head like a starving man. I don’t know if I’ll lose them, so I ink them into my skin to keep them safe from myself.
Command Sergeant Major Allen eyed me, his expression typically unsmiling. “You’re recovering well?”
I nodded.
Allen, Lieutenant Colonel Wolfe, and Major Nate Reynolds all stood there. Did they expect me to speak? What would I say?
“And you’re doing all right—feeling okay after the last few months and such?” LTC Wolfe asked, his voice carefully even. No pity, thankfully.
“Yes, sir. Doing just fine.” If fine was feeling the recession of grief for a few minutes a day rather than not at all, then yeah. Dandy.
“Good. That’s good,” Wolfe said.
“All right, Masters, we’ll let you get on with it. See you soon,” Reynolds said, releasing me.
I bid them all farewell with another nod and left, heading for the commissary. I needed to grab some fresh lettuce and more bananas—I’d forgotten them on my Saturday grocery run. Routines helped keep me moving, but sometimes, I came out the other side and could barely remember what I’d just done. Such was the case with the last commissary trip.
Soon enough, I’d worked my way through the produce section, dodging a glance or two from fellow shoppers, and made it to self-checkout. I’d made a habit to stick with this method since the last few times I’d checked out, I’d ended up with a woman ogling my tattoos.
“I like your tattoos,” she said, then bit her lip in that way women did to bring attention to their lips. I didn’t bother looking—she wore a wedding ring. Some women did since they were less likely to get hit on, but I happened to know this woman was married to a contractor.
“That one there—what’s that one for?” She pointed to my left bicep. The ink there was a map of the last hike my dad and I had taken, though without place names, it looked more like it traced the veins instead of outlined rivers and mountain ranges.
Since the credit card machine always took a minute, I had no escape. “It’s a map,” I said, not interested in telling her anything. Not interested in the way she leaned down, offering up a peek down her shirt.
“Ooo, like a treasure map?”
Thick, seedy disgust coated my throat, and I cleared it. “No.”
The same woman had hit on me at least two other times. Something about me read like a blinking sign to women like her—I must have an invisible-to-me notifier indicating I washere for a good time. Problem was, I definitely was not. Not anymore, certainly, and even in my younger days, I’d never thought of those experiences as exploits or sowing oats or whatever other bull people called it. I’d tried to connect, tried to grow depth.
Biggest issue for me had always been my general demeanor and introversion. At this age, I didn’t apologize for it or wish it away. The last decade or so had taught me to truly embrace it, see the interior qualities of my nature as assets instead of weaknesses. Not that I didn’t have those too, but I didn’t need to apologize for being a quiet, thoughtful person. Gran had taught me that long ago, and I’d finally internalized it.
Piercing, hot pain sliced through my chest.Gran. It was coming up on two months since she’d passed. I wondered if I’d ever count days or years by anything other than the deaths of the people I loved.
“Did you need any help, sir?” A man approached, friendly face ready to assist.
“I’m all set.” I held up the bagged goods, grabbed the receipt that spurted out of the machine, and gave him a nod goodbye.
Back in the car, the tension in my shoulders eased, even as the too-familiar grief still weighed heavy in my gut.
Sometimes, it was just the attention that got to me—I was a big man and drew eyes. Plus, I’d gained a reputation for being a hard-ass thanks to my reluctance to babble on like some, and my new PT programming that had everyone whining about how difficult it was even though I wasn’t doing anything even remotely revolutionary. Soldiers eyed me because of that, and the women around the small community…
I shook that off. Not all women got that particular look in their eye, of course—many were happily married and seemed to have some level of respect for their spouses. But plenty let their eyes wander over me, especially when I wore exercise clothes instead of a uniform. And it always made me feel like I’d left my shoes at home.
At one point in my life, I’d enjoyed the attention to a degree. Eager for the physical interactions, sure, but then hopeful for something more. And the more never once came—not enough to truly know me. I’d tolerated shallow relationships at times, assuaging the worst of my loneliness, until I’d wake up and sense I felt even more lonely being with someone who didn’t like mymoodsor couldn’t stand how quiet I was, who made no effort to dig deeper than a good time physically, or to hold on when I pushed them away.
The lessons I’d learned repeatedly were that I had nothing to offer a woman but my face and body—at least not anything most women were supposedly interested in. Gran had raged when I’d even hinted at that years ago, but there was the rub. Gran was gone. My parents were gone and had been for more than two decades.
Everyone who’d loved and known me was gone. And some of this ragged, clinging grief was rooted in that—in that loss, but also in the utter isolation that came with the fear that no one else would ever know me again.
I pulled into my driveway, surprised to find how quickly the commute had flown when I was lost in my thoughts.
I pushed inside the house and waited, wondering if I’d get the cold shoulder or an ambush ankle attack. Depended on the phase of the moon or something. I padded carefully in, especially since I’d had the horrifying experience of stepping on the cat’s tail in the first days of having him here, before I realized how he’d lace around my legs and position himself exactly where he would be most likely flattened when I wore my combat boots.
