Page 43 of Lost Then Found
I pause. Breathe deep.
“It was safer that way. If I didn’t know where you were—if you didn’t know where I was—there was nothing for anyone to use against us.”
She doesn’t say anything. Just watches me. Waiting.
“There were places I had to be. Shit I had to do.” My jaw tightens. “And sometimes, not knowing—that was the safest move I had. For me. For the people I gave a damn about.”
What I don’t tell her is the rest of it.
The nights I didn’t sleep. The missions that got messy. The bodies.The silence. The way it feels when you can’t remember if your hands are shaking from cold or adrenaline.
Her voice is soft when it finally breaks through. “Where were you, Boone?”
I don’t answer right away. Can’t. I just sit there, feeling the weight of the question settle between us.
It’s not that I don’t want to talk. I do. God knows I do. But wanting something and knowing how to reach for it—how to say it out loud—that’s a whole different thing.
Because somewhere between leaving this ranch and coming back, I forgot how to let people in.
The military will do that to a man. You learn to keep things locked up tight. Emotions, thoughts, fears. You compartmentalize or you don’t survive. You start treating everything like a mission—complete the task, follow the orders, keep moving forward. There’s no room for softness in a firefight. No space for vulnerability when you’re trying to keep your brothers alive.
And then you come home. Back to a world that runs slower, asks different things of you. Wants you to feel everything you’ve been shoving down for years and smile while you do it.
I want to tell her how I’m still trying to rewire my brain. How I scan every exit without meaning to, how loud noises still make me flinch, how I haven’t slept a full night in weeks because my body still thinks it’s waiting for something to explode.
I want to tell her all of that. But the words stay stuck in my throat. Thick. Heavy.
Then she leans in a little. “If we’re going to figure this out for Hudson…it starts here. With the truth.”
I drag a hand down my face, slow and rough, like it might scrub the memories loose. “Afghanistan. Iraq. Syria. Other places I can’t name. Places I still see when I close my eyes.”
My voice stays calm. Even. But it feels like there’s a vice wrapped around my ribs.
“I was deployed more times than I can count. Did the job. Some of it I can talk about. Some of it’s classified. Not because I’m hiding it—because I legally can’t say the words out loud.”
She nods. Doesn’t push. And I’m grateful for that.
Then she asks the one thing I knew was coming.
“Why did you leave?”
I look at her. Really look at her. She’s holding herself together by a thread, but she’s not backing down.
“I thought we had a plan,” she says. “Graduate, build something together. I thought we were going to stay.”
Her eyes drop for a second, then find mine again. “Was it me? Was I the reason you left?”
“Jesus, no.” The words come out rough, sharp. Instinctual. I lean forward, elbows on my knees. “It was never you.”
She waits.
So I give her the rest.
I bring my palm across the back of my neck, the skin hot, tension crawling up my spine like it’s got nowhere else to go. “I left because I had to. Because if I stayed in this town, if I stayed on this ranch, I would’ve spent my whole life living the way I thought I was supposed to, instead of figuring out who I actually was.” I glance down, shaking my head. “I needed something different. I needed to prove to myself that I was capable of more than what was expected of me.”
I hesitate, then add, “And I’m sorry. I’m sorry if I ever made you think you were the reason. You weren’t. Not even for a second.”
Lark nods once, but doesn’t say anything. Just watches me for a long second before she shifts her focus back to the desk.
