Well, and of course, because of her.
Except I can’t let that happen; not what I want to let happen. I toss the phone onto the couch behind me after I hang up with Logan and turn to stare back out through the window at New York. All of this - the money, the penthouse with the view, the cars, the girls, the power - all of this means nothing, really. And I don’t need Logan telling me how I can’t bring her into all of my baggage; I already know that. I already know that I can’t let her in; it’s why I pushed her away before as much as it’s killed me for five fucking years thinking about it.
I’m broken, and a girl like Reagan Archer is the last person on earth I need to sift through the pieces.
5
Hudson
P A S T
“I can’t go back, man.” Bryce’s eyes have a wild look in them, and even though he’s technically looking at me, it’s more like he’s looking through me. He’s rocking on the balls of his feet; “Fuck, man; fuck.”
Logan looks up from where he’s pulling the bits of shrapnel fragments out of my arm and meets my eyes, quietly shaking his head; “It’s not like we haven’t discussed this before, Hud.”
I nod grimly, wincing as he squirts disinfectant over the gash in my bicep he’s just pulled the piece of Humvee fender out of. Sure, we’d all thought it before, even talked about it when it was just the three of us. Any guy out here in this fucking hell on Earth is a liar if they tell you they’ve never even thought about the idea of just lighting out of there. Following orders and saying yes is the one thing they drill into your head more than anything else in training. Fuck; saying yes is the glue that hold the entire chain of command together. You say yes, you shut your damn mouth, and you follow your fucking orders; that’s the job. You don’t debate yourself, you don’t weigh anything against whatever moral compass you’ve got spinning inside, you just do it. If the call was bad, then it was bad, but you move on.
Except what if you can’t? What if you hit that one wall of your spirit inside they never got through; the wall to the part inside that keeps you being human when you’re faced with the horrifically inhumane every single day?
It’s just the three of us left now from the nine of us that found ourselves in the Taliban ambush. I swallow heavily and choke back the rage as I glance back at the first of the two Humvees we rolled in with; the one that hit the IED and lit up like the fucking Hindenburg before they even knew what happened. I look around us at the burning wreckage of the village. In war, bullets don’t discriminate between Taliban psychos trying to murder you and innocent villagers just trying to get the fuck out of the way, as much as you try to do so. I look at the bodies strewn across charred and cratered streets and in the smoldering ruins of what were homes, businesses…
…Or a school, like the one that burns quietly like a funeral pyre behind us.
Logan catches my glance and shakes his head fiercely; “That isn’t what we signed up for, man.” He follows my eyes to the burning school; neither of knowing but both of us hoping to God it was empty; “I’m here to fight for my country, not watch bombs drop out of the sky onto fucking schools.” He spits, his face shaking.
“Drop out of the sky; right out of the sky.” Bryce is staring at the dirt in front of him and just rocking back and forth.
“So, what, we just walk away? Here in the middle of the fucking desert?”
Logan catches my eye and nods quietly; “The radio went out with that second IED hit; as far as they know back at base, the whole damn convoy got taken out.” He gives me a hard look; “This isn’t going to stop, Hudson. Every mission is going to be like this; every mission is going to be bad guys hiding behind kids and the guys back home hammering them with bombs anyways.”
“You’re talking about desertion of duties during wartime, Logan.” I say my words slowly; “They shoot you for that.”
“I’m going to shoot myself if I have to be part of something like that!” Logan jabs his finger at the burning school across the shelled street at us, the flames still licking the burning Afghan air.
“And it’s only desertion if they think you deserted. If you’re dead, well…” He trails of and looks up at the mountains on the horizon.
“Where the fuck would we go, man? What do we do, fucking walk back to the States?”
“I don’t think we do go back, Hud; ever.”
I swallow heavily as I let his words sink in; we’d never go home. I mean it’s not like there’s anything left for me back there anyways. It’s not like my job at the garage before I enlisted was my dream career, and the only family that still even remembers who I am is my drunk asshole Dad, and if he remembers who I am between sips from that bottle, I’d be fucking shocked. Really, at this point the only family I’ve got are these two guys right here; my de facto brothers. I don’t know much about either of their lives before the Marines either, but I’ve heard enough to know they’re not much different than me.