“I’ve been here since June,” he admitted.
“In town?” I could hear the high-pitched screeching tone of my question and tried to swallow down my mounting emotions.
He nodded. He started to say something but then slowed the vehicle. “I don’t see any house party.” He turned slightly and called to the back, “Where to on Forest, ladies?”
Lana didn’t respond. When I turned around, I saw both of them had passed out. They must have had a lot of tequila shots.
There was nothing to do but to take them—and Noah—home.
Noah
Grace’s body was rigid in the passenger seat of my truck. She was strung tighter than a garrote wire.
The Marines had taught me a lot. I learned all the delicate pressure points on a man’s body. I learned to walk a hundred miles in full battle rattle, carrying a pack and ammunition heavier than the two girls in the back seat. I learned how to start a fire in the desert out of nothing more than a soda can, toothpaste, and the sun.
But the Marines had not taught me how to win over a girl whose heart I had broken. Most of the guys in my unit were the ones who had been cheated on. Sure, some of the guys may have forgotten their hometowns when the Air Force chicks or supply personnel arrived at a forward operating base, but most of us were lonely bastards.
I admit that the few times I imagined Grace and I getting together, there was a lot less space between our bodies. When I played this moment out in my mind, I figured I’d calmly explain what happened, and she’d listen intently. I’d apologize and then take her to a movie or two before showing her exactly why she should be with me. In bed.
Right now Grace would probably rather climb in bed with a rattler. I grabbed the back of my neck and squeezed the tight muscles there in frustration. Maybe I should’ve taken Bo up on his offer to strategize, but his relationship experience was as non-existent as mine. Getting advice from another Marine on how to handle a relationship was like asking another orphan how to handle your parents.
Ironically, the one person in my life who I felt comfortable enough confiding personal shit to and who might give me halfway decent advice was sitting in the passenger side of the truck, doing her best to ignore me.
I wrote stuff to Grace that I would never say out loud. Communicating with her had never been an issue before. But we were writing then. Letters only. Old school style, we agreed early on. I cast around for a reasonable explanation, one that didn’t make me out to look too much like a loser. My previous explanation, “I had to get my shit together,” didn’t seem like it would cut it.
I glanced at her in her shiny blue top with its bow I’d like to untie with my teeth. Her brown hair looked incredibly soft, and I wanted to dig my fingers into the thick strands. She looked expensive, like the china Bo’s mother used for company. Totally above my pay grade.
I was right to have waited and gotten everything in order before coming here. Grace had sent me The Odyssey once during deployment, writing that we could experience her English lit class together. As Odysseus fought his way back to Penelope, his faithful wife, he had to overcome obstacles from sirens to monsters.
Homer never said whether the obstacles were all in Odysseus’s mind, created from too much war, too much time at sea, too much time away from reality. But they could have been.
It’s a cliché among fighters that they are all trying to beat back their shithole childhoods. The military is full of guys whose dads were deadbeats at best and abusive monsters at worse. My own old man fell in between. He never raised a hand to me. Too lazy. His preferred method of punishment was making sure I understood that I had ruined his life.
My dad was mad at the world and had been since I killed my mom by being born. He hadn’t called me Noah since I was probably eight or nine. Shithead was his preferred name for me. Worthless was his favorite adjective. When he was drunk, which was often as his measly paycheck allowed, he liked to string them together with a few curse words. Noah, you worthless shithead, you’re not going to amount to anything more than knocking up some trailer park trash.
The Marines may have made me a man, but Grace made me human. No matter what I told her in my letters, she accepted it and wrote me back something funny or sweet. She made me realize I could have more if I wanted it. And I wanted more bad.
Chapter Four
Dear Grace,
I don’t think you’ll ever see me on YouTube, but there is shit-all to do around here, so guys will memorize songs and videotape each other performing. I have zero twerking ability. I guess if there’s ever some music video involving marching, I could participate in that.