Page 1 of SEAL my Fate

ONE

EDWIN

Fuck. Retirement is kicking my ass, I think, as I try to settle back down for the night after waking up from yet another nightmare. It always starts out the same, ending with me gasping for air, drenched in sweat, unable to forget every detail of the worst day of my life.

I was in the Navy for the last twenty years, the last ten of which I was a SEAL. I loved every single minute of it, right up until I walked into a fucking trap. I was in Africa on a peace-keeping mission, and the locals definitely didn’t want us there. I thought I was prepared for anything, but I wasn’t prepared for a little girl to come crawling out of the woodwork. She befriended us and then systematically took out my unit, but when the time came to kill me too, she didn’t; she just shot me in the back and walked away. I crawled my way to safety, but it was too late. I have bullet fragments lodged in my spine, and they are inoperable. The Navy hedged their bets and cut me loose. So, for the first time in twenty years, I’m back in my hometown of Telescope Beach, Florida, for good.

After my parents died, I inherited the house I grew up in with my older brother, Joseph, but while I was gone, it fell into disrepair. Pipes burst, and the roof needed to be replaced. Joe tried to keep up with it, but he’s married with four kids and lives over on the other side of town with his wife, Rosalie. The bungalow we grew up in wouldn’t have worked for them. He owns a beach bar, and I understand why the house wasn’t a top priority for him. I’ve been fixing the place up all summer, and it's finally finished, which is why the nightmares are happening more frequently. Idle hands have always been my downfall, but I have no idea what the hell I am going to do with the rest of my life. I was a career Navy man, but now I’m nothing.

I try to go back to sleep, but it’s no use. I get out of bed, get into my car, and drive down to the beach. It’s where I go to think, just like I did when I was a teenager. My mom’s best friend, Milly, got me a job interview down at the high school where she works as the principal’s secretary.

I’d be a football coach and a history teacher, which was my favorite subject in school, to be honest, but do I really want to go back to high school? It was hell the first time. I took college classes at the time as my high school classes so that I could go into the Navy as an officer. I chose teaching as a fallback, but I didn’t think that I would actually need it. All I need to do is take a short recertification class since teachers are hard to come by and reinstate my license. It wouldn’t take anything at all.

I decide to go in for the interview and see what it’s all about, never having actually stepped foot into a classroom as a teacher, except for the required time I shadowed a teacher back in the day; this should be interesting.

The following morning, I arrive at the nearly empty high school for my interview at nine. I am a few minutes early. I am looking into the trophy case when I’m tapped on the shoulder.

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