Page 194 of Lost Then Found
“I was a team sergeant,” he says finally. “Basically, I was the guy responsible for our twelve-man unit. Made the calls, kept them safe—or tried to.” His thumb runs along the edge of the blanket, slow and steady. “Jack and I served together for a while. He was part of my team.”
There’s something about the way he says it—my team—like the weightof those words hasn’t eased with time.
“We were assigned a mission in Afghanistan,” Boone continues, his eyes still on the photo. “Intel said there was a bomb maker operating out of a village near the mountains. He’d already killed American troops and some civilians. Our job was to go in, capture him alive, get out before anyone even knew we were there.”
His voice is steady, but there’s a tightness behind it, something that tells me he’s walked through this memory more times than he’s wanted to.
“We had to split up for the approach. Jack was our best guy for recon—close surveillance, moving quietly. I picked him to lead the advance team, two guys with him. It should’ve been clean. We’d done so many things like that before.”
The muscles in Boone’s forearm tense beneath his skin, but he keeps going.
“They got ambushed. A second group was waiting, more than we expected. Jack got his guys out, pushed them back toward safety, but he stayed behind.” Boone’s voice dips, rough around the edges. “He covered their exit. Took fire so they wouldn’t have to.”
He swallows hard, eyes still fixed on the photo like it’s holding him there.
“He didn’t make it out.”
The room goes still, Boone’s silence more telling than anything else. I reach for his hand, threading my fingers through his, and he holds on like he’s done it a hundred times and would do it a hundred more.
I haven’t thought much about what he must have gone through while he was away. Not because I didn’t care—I did. I do. But there’s a part of me that didn’t want to look too closely, that didn’t want to imagine the shape of his life without me in it. And Boone never offered much. He’s always been good at keeping things locked up, his past kept neatly behind the closed door of things we never talked about.
Until now.
“I’m so sorry,” I whisper, the words catching in my throat before I can stop them. They feel small, almost stupid, like they can’t possibly reach the place in him that still hurts.
Boone nods, barely, his gaze still distant. “I’ve carried it for five years,” he says, his voice low and worn. “The guilt. Wondering what I could’ve done different. If I should’ve sent someone else, made a different call, gone myself. I think about it all the time. Replay it.”
“Stop,” I say, sharper than I intend, my voice cutting through the quiet. I lift his hand, still wrapped around mine, and press it to my lips, holding it there for a breath. “You can’t do that to yourself, Boone. You can’t live inside of the what-ifs.”
His eyes flick to mine, searching, but I don’t let go.
“You did the best you could with what you had in front of you,” I say, my voice softer now, steadier. “That’s all anyone can do. That’s all any of us get. Just…the moment in front of us and the hope that we don’t get it wrong.”
Boone’s shoulders rise with a breath that doesn’t seem to fill his lungs all the way. His hand stays in mine, his thumb brushing once over my knuckles like he’s not even aware he’s doing it.
The light from the nightstand lamp casts a soft glow across his face, catching on the curve of his jaw, the faint crease in his brow that never really goes away. He looks tired—not just in the way people are at the end of the day, but in the way people are when they’ve been carrying something heavy for too long. Like if he puts it down, he might forget who he is without it.
Boone exhales. “That’s easier said than done,” he says, quiet, but not defensive—just honest.
“I know,” I tell him softly. “But guilt is sneaky. It convinces you that if you hold on tight enough, if you punish yourself long enough, maybe you’ll earn a different outcome. Like suffering will somehow make the ending less permanent.” I pause, watching him. “But it doesn’t work that way. The past already happened. You don’t get to go back. All you get now is the time you still have. And what you decide to do with it.”
Boone doesn’t respond, but something in him shifts—his posture softening, the fight draining from his shoulders like the weight’s still there, but he’s tired of holding it alone.
He squeezes my hand and tugs gently, just enough to pull me toward him. “Come here,” he murmurs, his voice low, not quite rough, not quite steady either.
I move without hesitation, sliding closer until I’m pressed against him, my head resting on his chest, the steady beat of his heart thudding beneath my cheek. His arm wraps around me, his hand drifting into my hair, fingers moving slowly through the strands like he’s thinking about something else. My leg drapes across his thigh, the blanket tangled around us now, the whole room dim and still.
Boone’s lips graze the top of my head, the words barely more than breath when they come. “I’ve never told anyone about Jack.”
I turn my head slightly, just enough to look up at him, my chin resting against his chest. “No one?”
He shakes his head. “Only my therapist,” he says, thumb absently tracing a line against my scalp. “And now you.”
I watch him. The way he tiptoes around the truth, like it’s still sharp enough to cut him open. The way he doesn’t say the thing directly, but it’s there—in the tight grip of his hand, in the way his jaw won’t quite relax.
“Why?” I ask.
His fingers go still in my hair, like I’ve hit something that makes him flinch. He exhales slowly, and the sound of it weighs more than the words that follow.
