My mom and dad got married when they were both eighteen, and they had me a few years later. Today we celebrated their twenty-year anniversary. They looked so happy, always have been. Did I tell you when I told them I was going to marry you, all my mom said was, “When you know, you know.”
It’s our first holiday season together. If you think the last care package I sent was good, wait until you see the next. I, of course, included a little something for Lucias and Scribe. Tell everyone I said hi, and I hope Mac is keeping you boys in line.
With all my heart, I LOVE YOU!
Yours.
Chapter Eight
JULIE
January 2012
“Julie.”
“Who’s this?” I say into the phone. Glancing over at the clock, I see it’s four o’clock in the morning.
“Julie, honey, it’s Lucias.”
I feel the burn in my nose, the onset of tears is instant. The tone of Lucias’s voice, the fact that it’s four o’clock in the morning, and that he’s calling me, lets me know more than I want to.
“Please don’t,” is all I can get out.
“Calm down, honey, he’s going to make it. It was touch and go for a week, but he’s stable.”
“A week?” A fucking week and this is my first call?
“I know, but we just finally got stateside, I promise this is the first time I got a chance to call you. We just touched down at Walter Reed hospital in Washington, D.C.”
“I’m coming right now,” I say, jumping out of bed. I grab everything I can, the phone still pressed to my ear.
“All right, I’ll text you the address. He’s been in and out of consciousness. He just keeps saying your name.”
A sob rips from my throat
“Julie, he’s going to make it, but I’m not going to lie to you, he’s rough. He got hit with a shit ton of blow back off an IED. He took a lot of shrapnel and has some bad burns, but that’s it. He’s lucky it wasn’t worse. Internally he’s fine.”
“Thank God,” I hiccup into the phone.
“Just get here. I’m sure once you’re here he’ll calm down. He keeps having nightmares, and every time he wakes, he’s screaming your name. It takes four of us to hold him down, so we’re thinking if you’re here it might help.”
“I’ll be there as quick as I can.”
Dropping my phone onto the bed, I hurriedly get dressed and pack a bag. When Lucias texts me the information, I forward it to my mom so she can book me a flight. I’m not wasting any time. She can make the travel plans while I drive to the airport.
“I’m coming, baby,” I whisper.
Chapter Nine
ABE
I feel the fire on my face. My nightmare always starts the same. It’s burning hot, and I can’t find Julie anywhere. She’s here, but I don’t know where she is. I keep screaming her name as the explosion goes off and takes a part of me with it, the pain shooting through my body.
Days have passed, or so they tell me. Everything seems so jumbled around, and all I can feel is pain. I’m in and out, and every time I wake I seem to be somewhere else. I just keep seeing the explosion happen right in front of me, and there’s nothing I can do to stop it. Each time the explosion goes off I see her reaching for me, calling my name. I need to get Julie out of here. I need to keep her safe, but as quick as she’s there she's gone again, I can’t find her.
“Julie! Julie!” I feel the heavy weight on me again, and it helps to ease some of my fear. It’s my brothers holding me down, I know it, but I can’t connect reality to my dreams. They are both twisted together and distorted.
“Abe?”
It’s barely a whisper, but I know it’s her. I struggle harder to try to get to her.
“Calm down, goddamn it. If you don’t pull it together, the nurse is going to sedate you again. Julie’s here, man. Just calm down and we’ll bring her over.”
I can feel the bandages covering most of my face, but I can still make out some of her silhouette in the distance. I can’t imagine what I look like. From what I remember from the doctors, I have second-degree and some third-degree burns over forty percent of my body, but I was lucky not to have any major damage. I’ve gotten a few glimpses of myself, and it isn't good. I start to sit up again, but I feel Lucias stop me, pushing me back down onto the bed.
“Just lie back and be easy. We are trying to do this for the both of you, but you’ve got to be calm.”
“Okay.” That word is all I can manage through my dry mouth. At some point I must have had a tube down my throat, because it sounds like I’ve been gargling with gravel and battery acid.