Page 46 of The Destined SEAL
“I’m sorry,” Cage whispers, his voice taking on the tone of a friend instead of a boss delivering the most horrible news of my lifetime. He rattles off several more details that I hear but don’t quite process. Norah’s father identified the body by sight. The intersection by her practice. The time it happened. The logistics of the accident. The speed of the other car. Cage tells me the things he knows I’ll want to know, need to know, but he tries his best to detail them like a brief. Factual. Without emotion.Matter-of-fact. I appreciate his effort. Then he says Norah’s name and mentions the baby.
Numbness takes over. I don’t even feel the steering wheel in my palms. The edges of my vision go black. “Thank you,” I say and hit the red button to end the call. I see Tahoe walking to his truck parked next to mine, so I get out and stop him. I’m on autopilot, my wise intuition forcing my feet and words.
He takes one look at me and asks what’s wrong.
“Someone killed Norah and the baby,” I say. Tears are falling off my cheeks, wet, warm, and heavy. Fucking traitorous salty drops that make what Cage said real even though it seems like a cruel lie told to destroy a human. A lie I’d eat and let wrap me for a lifetime if it meant it was false.
One eyebrow shoots up. “Who? What are you talking about?”
“I need you to drive me home,” I get out. “I can’t drive right now.” I don’t want to hit and kill someone in the name of grief. “I’ll tell you what Cage told me on the way home.”
Tilting his head to the side, he nods slowly. “Okay, bro. Let’s go.” No questions asked. A brotherhood. What would have been better is if he asked who we needed to kill. “Anything in your truck you want right now?” he asks, voice wary.
I don’t respond. I climb into his truck and shut the door. When he gets in and starts the engine, I tell him in a flood of words tinged with fury, word for word, what was just said to me. Tahoe doesn’t speak. He doesn’t feed me bullshit lines about how everything’s going to be okay. Because it’s not going to be okay. Nothing can possibly be the same after this.
The attacks stole the nation’s freedoms in almost every way. I made it my life’s work to restore what small pieces could be salvaged. A drunk driver stole my entire life. The whole thing. There’s no bright side or silver lining. There’s a hole where my family should be, a regret and guilt for the time I spent trying to embrace them, a pounding in my chest that makes me feellike an infidel. Everything around me is foggy. I never pause when a life is taken in the name of terror. Evil people deserve death. How can I possibly rationalize Norah and Robin’s deaths without feeling like a criminal?
Tahoe parks his truck in my drive and jumps up to hang on my roof with one hand while he searches for my hide-a-key with his free hand. He opens the door and looks back at me with a wary look. “We’ll make a list. You have a lot to do.” The funeral. “I’ll help you, bro. We’ll get it all handled. Why don’t you get some sleep?” He nods to the sofa. A smart man.
“I’ll clean up around here while you nap,” he says, clapping me on the shoulder. I pull him into a full hug. “It sucks. Let it suck, man,” Tahoe whispers. “Then when it sucks a little less, we move on. A little cracked, a little tormented, stronger than ever before.”
I want to tell him that’s what happens when brothers die. Somehow this feels differently. The same except the sting bites across my entire existence. My daughter. My future.
I fall back onto the sofa. Tahoe tosses me a blanket from the chair on the other side of the living room. A throw blanket Norah purchased last week because it had stars on it. Heaving a breath, I lean back and close my eyes, knowing there’s no way I’ll be able to fall asleep.
Except I didn’t realize the pillow smelled like Harper. It might as well be an Ambien laced with sedatives. The blackness pulls me under quickly. I’m covered in Norah and surrounded by Harper. My entire existence is in shambles.
It was a dreamless sleep. Void of anything. Black. My exhaustion won out, and I probably have that to thank for the short reprieve from my reality. When I wake fourteen hours later, Tahoe is sitting in the chair across the room, his head tilted back, mouth open, sleeping like the dead. Running my hands through my hair, I sit up as every muscle in my body protests. I’m still in my goddamn dirty uniform. Mud-caked camo pants and a white shirt stained yellow from sweat.
“You’re awake,” Harper says, strolling from the hallway. “How are you feeling?” Her eyes are wide, apprehensive, terrified by what she’s going to find. “I let myself in. I hope you don’t mind. I still had a key from…before.”
Seeing Harper tears a wound open I didn’t know existed. I close my eyes because the pain is back, but now it’s multiplied by a thousand. “I need a shower,” I reply. Tahoe snores, completely out for the count. I approach him slowly and shake his shoulder.
“What, what? I’m up,” Tahoe says, eyes flickering open and meeting my gaze.
“Hit the couch,” I say, hiking my thumb over my shoulder. He goes without saying another word, collapsing in a heap. He’s back asleep before his head hits the pillow. Turning back to Harper, I swallow hard. “Shower,” I repeat to her. “I’m fine. You don’t have to hang around. Tahoe is here.” My traitorous gaze flicks down to her bare legs and short ripped jean shorts with lace peeking out the bottom. A sliver of her stomach peeks out from her loose T-shirt. She crosses one leg over the other, self-conscious of my obvious appraisal.
“Benny,” she says when my gaze finally finds hers. “Talk to me.”
I shake my head and let out a small laugh. “I can’t talk to you, Harper.”
“Why not?” she asks quietly, peeking over my shoulder at Tahoe.
“He can’t hear us. He’s out for another half a day. We’ve been up for more than a day.”
Harper wants to reach out for me. I see it in the way her hands flex by her sides. That’s enough torture for now. I flick my gaze forward and pass by her without saying another word. I enter my bedroom and find it has been cleaned up, just as Tahoe promised. Norah’s stuff isn’t in sight. I see several boxes in the corner, and my chest aches.
Because my friend knows me better than I thought, and because it’s all that’s left of my future. I have nothing tangible except things. I don’t want things. I don’t need things. No one does, really. That’s not what we as humans crave. The door clicks closed.
“I’m so sorry. Ben, I’m sorry. I feel so awful. I’m not even sure how to process something like this.”
Sniffing my shirt, I wince and pull it over my head while focusing my gaze out of the window. It smells like Norah’s lotion in here. I know how fragile life is. How it’s here one second and gone the next, but this sensation is new to me. Harper calls me again.
“What?” I yell, spinning on her.
“Why are you sorry? Why do you feel awful, Harper? You don’t have to process anything. This is mine to deal with. I can’t make you feel better about this. I can’t save you this time. My wife and daughter are dead. So process how you want to, but do it on your own because I’m trying to figure out how to go on without them. I can’t be on Harper duty this time.” I shake my head and turn away when I see tears falling down her cheeks.
Harper walks forward, unperturbed by my harsh words. “I know you’re upset,” she says, reaching out for my hand with hers. “Your pain is more than I can comprehend.” When I don’t take her hand, she lets her arm fall back down to her side.
