Page 75 of How You See Me
Her arms tighten around me, hands splaying across my back like all is forgiven. I’m not sure I deserve that, but there’s no denying how much it means to me.
Maybe Mom is right. Maybe we should explore our connection. Maybe I should stop sending mixed signals.
My hands move to her elbows, and her head falls back to see me. Every time she does that, looking at me like I can do no wrong, air snatches from my chest. And touching her only intensifies it. I’m suffocating in her and all we left unspoken.
I didn’t know how desperately I needed that hug until it was over. “I’m sorry for being short with you earlier.”
“You weren’t. I shouldn’t have pushed you. I made you uncomfortable, and I’m sorry.”
My hands glide up her arms to rest on her shoulders where my thumbs trail under her jawline. Mixed signals are shooting off left and right, but I can’t help myself. She’s so delicate, touchable.
Her head slowly shakes, and the words to tell her I feel the same are nowhere to be found. That would be a continent outside that comfort zone she keeps testing.
“Maybe we can do it again sometime,” she whispers. “It was nice.”
“You might have to push me again.”
“Happy to.”
???
Josie’s beside me, legs curled up on the passenger seat, sketchpad balanced on her thighs. She’s humming, half-singing as she brings the waterfall scene to life, half bringing up random topics to fill the silence. I don’t always respond. I like the sound of her voice too much and how it tethers me to the present.
“I’ve never had a desire to go to Ar-Kansas,” she says, laying on a heavy country twang, as we pass a mile-marker sign for Little Rock.
We're laughing at her ridiculous accent when a loud pop cracks through the air like a gunshot. The vanjerks to the side and my hands clamp down on the steering wheel to fight the pull. I guide us off the road, my erratic pulse stealing control of my brain.
Josie sits up fast, clutching her sketchpad to her chest. “What happened?”
But I’m not in the van anymore.
Instinct has taken over, and I’m back in the endless desert. Heat waves lifting off the sand. The sharp tang of metal and fear in the back of my throat. The clear sky promising a peace I won’t find here.
Bullets kick up dirt around me, bodies hitting the ground, and Jordan—
I’m back in the chaos, numb and drowning in a day I thought was my last. It was for many of my brothers, and it almost was for Jordan. If I hadn’t dragged him down behind an armored vehicle at the exact second I did, the raining bullets from the artillery, twice the size of anything we had on hand in the ambush, would have pinned him in the crossfire.
The gunfire never took a break. It was deafening. Too terrifying to think. Too overwhelming to be a Marine. We all regressed to being delicate humans, and I feel it all over again.
There’s a sudden weight in my lap, and I brace, thinking it’s gear. Or worse, someone’s dying body.
It’s warm, familiar, and rocking me gently
Arms come around me—one cradling the back of my head.
“You’re okay,” someone says. A whisper at first, then firmer. “You’re okay.”
A new scent covers me—peach, maybe—replacing the dank musk of blood, smoke, and gasoline.
“Josie?”
“Oh, thank goodness,” she breathes out. Her fingers are in my hair now, her other arm still holding me like I might break. “You’re in the van. In the U.S. You’re okay.”
With the inviting sound of her voice, I crash back to the present and bury my face in her neck, melting into all she represents. Life. Freedom. Safety.
My tremors don’t register until she calms them with a press of her lips to my temple, murmuring something I can’t hear but feel in my bones.
I lose track of how long we stay like that, and it doesn’t matter. She didn’t run. She didn’t panic. She just gave everything I needed without hesitation.
