Hell

by Tom Lewis

  “He will. Just do it.”

  A deep breath. “Okay.”

  Sean zipped up his duffel bag and rose from the bench.

  “Hi.”

  It was a girl’s voice. He turned and saw one of the cheerleaders approaching. She was strawberry blond, with freckles, and lacked the deep tan of the other girls on the squad. But what she had was a cute charm that shined in her smile, and her awkward blush as she nervously approached.

  “Hey,” he smiled back. And she was instantly relieved. First part accomplished — he hadn’t laughed at her.

  “I’m Amy. And I just — well, you did really good out there. You know, catching the ball and stuff.”

  She bit down on her lip. Had she just said, ‘catching the ball and stuff’? Real smooth, Amy. She needed to extract herself ASAP, before she blurted out any more stupid lines.

  “Anyway. Just wanted to say that.” She turned to go...

  “Amy.”

  She stopped. Looked back. He was smiling.

  “Thanks.”

  She fidgeted. “Yeah. Sure. You’re welcome.”

  Oh, geez. Could she suck any worse at this? She bit her lip again. But then she noticed — he was still smiling. He wasn’t laughing at her or rolling his eyes at her lameness. He walked over and extended his hand.

  “I’m Sean. You wanna grab something to eat?”

  And just like that, he had put her at ease.

  “Okay.”

  ****

  Amy was pretty sure she fell in love with Sean the moment he first smiled at her. It was the way he put her at ease over her clumsy approach and boosted her confidence. He made her feel good about being Amy.

  Amy had no brothers, but she had an amazing dad, who was always doing kind things for her mom. She saw how it always made her mom smile, and she loved her dad all the more because of it. It was number one on her checklist of things she wanted in a boy — she had to find someone who would treat her the way her dad treated her mom.

  Sean had that quality. And he was cute. But only the first part really mattered.

  Love came slower for Sean. He had an adventurous spirit that made him — in his own words — commitment-ophobic. But Amy’s quirkiness made her fun to hang around, and she soon became his partner in crime. They did most things together — studied, went to parties, watched movies, went sailing, took long hikes and bike rides, went on picnics (although he constantly had to remind the vegetarian Amy that guys like meat on their sandwiches). She also blushed easily, much to her embarrassment, so Sean’s mischievous side had him always look for ways to make her blush. This usually got him a punch on the arm, which for Sean meant mission accomplished.

  For their first Christmas together, Sean asked her what she wanted. That was simple — a bottle of her favorite perfume, Chanel No. 5. She made him repeat it till it stuck in his memory. There would be a quiz on it later, she assured him.

  Amy’s family was also Catholic, so it wasn’t long before their families met for Mass on Sundays and would go out for brunch afterward. Amy’s mom, Pamela, and Sean’s mom also became quick friends and often met for coffee while their kids were at school.

  Amy took her faith a lot more seriously than Sean and was trying her hardest to remain a virgin till her wedding night. It wasn’t always easy, but she was relieved that Sean never pressured her to go all the way. It scored major points for him with her. So even if he was a jerk for making her blush, she could live with that. She really liked this boy she had fallen in love with.

  Sean, of course, never told any of the guys about this virginity thing with Amy, or he never would have heard the end of it. But he knew it was important to Amy, so he just dealt with it. It also gave him a chance to get to know her as a friend, without the sex part overwhelming everything, so that was pretty cool.

  Over the coming months and years, the two of them laughed, and teased, and played, and had fun. And Sean did eventually fall in love with Amy.

  It continued that way till their senior year, and then something happened that would later haunt Sean in ways he never could have imagined at the time.

  CHAPTER TEN

  Innocence

  The final score that Friday night was St. Augustine Knights 17, Wilshire Hawks 10. Seven of those points, and eighty-seven of the yards that got them to victory, were thanks to Sean. The team was headed to Troy the linebacker’s home on the harbor to celebrate. Troy’s parents were out of town, and his older brother had picked up some kegs, so it looked to be an epic party.

  Sean and Amy arrived with the team and cheer squad and stuck around the party till late in the night.

  Amy was small, weighing all of 105 pounds, so it didn’t take much to get her drunk. Sometime around midnight, she stumbled off through the party to find Sean. She found him on the patio, playing beer pong with the guys. She strolled up and leaned into his ear: “Can we go for a walk?”

  Sean and Amy strolled along the water’s edge, far away from the city noise and lights. Moonlight danced across the water, and waves lapped gently against the shore.

  Amy stopped and looked up at him. Was he always this tall? Or was she just that drunk?

  “I think I’m ready,” she said.

  “Ready for what?” He was pretty buzzed himself.

  “You know. To...” She didn’t want to say it; but from the puzzled look on his face, she was going to have to.

  “Make love,” she finished.

  Oh.

  She blushed at the sudden change of expression on his face. It was somewhere between dumbfounded and excited Neanderthal. He definitely had not seen that one coming.

  “Are you sure? Or is that the beer talking?”

  “A little of both,” she admitted shyly.

  “Maybe we should wait till it’s just the one.”

  She saw the concern in his eyes; he didn’t want to do anything unless she was absolutely certain. And it was that care that made her want him even more at that moment.

  “I want this,” she said, then broke into that blush that was so uniquely Amy. “But don’t make fun of me if I do it wrong.”

  “Can I make fun of you just a little,” he teased, and she smacked him on the chest. But it was all in fun. She wanted this.

  At least she was pretty sure she did.

  They sat down on the sand, with their backs against a bluff, and faced out over the ocean. She guessed it was around one in the morning, and there was no one around.

  As they kissed, he noticed the scent of her perfume dabbed behind her ear. Chanel No. 5, he reminded himself. He made a mental note to buy her a bottle as a gift.

  She leaned back and began unbuttoning her shirt. He watched as her fingers trembled. She was shaking.

  “Amy...” He was worried again.

  Shhh... she pressed a finger to his lips.

  “Okay,” he reluctantly nodded. But this was wrong. She wasn’t ready. They shouldn’t be doing this.

  But they did it anyway.

  And for Amy Duval, her first time was scary, and awkward, and wonderful, and oh so painful.

  And devastating.

  Amy leaned over in the sand and vomited. But not from the beer. It was a deep, gnawing guilt that clawed at her stomach.

  Sean could only watch.

  A desolate silence hung over them as they walked home afterward. Sean had no words. What could he even say? He wanted to kick himself for having agreed to it. If she had been sober, and knew what she was asking for, it would have been different. But she wasn’t.

  In the few words they exchanged during the walk home, they promised to never tell anyone. It would stay their secret. And as far as Sean knew, it had remained so.

  What he didn’t know at the time, but would later discover in the most horrifying way, is that nothing is ever truly secret.

  They knew.

  They were always watching.

  ****

  Sean walked Amy to her door. There was a hug and quick kiss, but it felt staged, like she was s
imply going through the motions, because it was expected.

  Sean lay in bed all night staring into the darkness, replaying the night over and over again. He was an idiot.

  He punched his pillow for the hundredth time that night. He didn’t know how he was going to make things right with her, but he was going to do whatever it took. He was still awake when the sun came up, and he counted down the hours till the stores opened. By then, he had an idea.

  Sean was waiting outside with his coffee when the department store opened at nine. He cut through the clothing departments and over to the cosmetics counter. He purchased a bottle of Chanel No. 5 and had it wrapped in a gift box.

  Sean’s next stop was a florist, where he bought a bouquet of roses. Now it was time to grovel.

  Sean called Amy at eleven that morning, figuring it would give her time to sleep. It turned out she hadn’t slept either. Their call was short. He asked if she wanted to grab lunch, but she said she wasn’t feeling well. Besides, she had some studying she needed to do. She would just see him on Monday.

  She was wounded. And Sean was crushed.

  Monday couldn’t come soon enough.

  Amy arrived at school on Monday morning and found several of her girlfriends gathered around her locker. They were giggling and staring at a rose taped to the front of it. There was also a card inside a sealed envelope.

  “Someone’s got it bad,” the girls teased. “Open the card.”

  Amy did. And despite the anxiety that gnawed at her stomach, she still managed to blush. Inside the card was a small hand-drawn map that went from her locker, down the hallway, through the doors at the end, and to a planter out front.

  “What’s it say?” the girls wanted to know.

  Amy shook her head. “It’s a map.”

  “To what?”

  “I don’t know.”

  “Awwww,” the girls fawned. How cute. High school boys did things like that?

  After the girls left, Amy followed the map to the planter. There was a row of bushes that ran along the front of the building. Amy looked behind the bushes and saw a small gift box that had been carefully wrapped with a ribbon and bow.

  She opened it. Inside was a bottle of her perfume, and a handwritten note:

  To my best friend and partner in crime — please forgive me.

  She smiled. And that knot in her stomach began to shrink.

  “There’s nothing to forgive, Sean,” Amy said as they met for coffee at a small coffee shop down the block from school. “You didn’t make me do anything.”

  He poked his finger in his coffee. “I could have said no.”

  “You did. A bunch of times.”

  “Obviously not enough.”

  He looked up and saw her watching him play with his coffee. He took his finger out and wiped it on his shorts.

  She smiled. “I don’t blame you, Sean. You’ve been wonderful to me about it. It’s me I’m disappointed in.”

  “Buy why?”

  “It was supposed to be my gift to my husband on my wedding night.”

  “It was still a gift.”

  She nodded. “I know. It just would have felt more magical on my wedding night.”

  “Instead of on the sand.”

  She couldn’t help but smile. He was trying.

  He reached for a napkin and wrote something on it, then slid it across the table to her. She read it:

  To the girl I hope to share that wedding night with, thank you for the gift.

  She reread it several times and felt that knot in her stomach melt away. She flipped it over and wrote something on the back, then slid it over to him. He read it:

  To the boy who always makes me smile. I love you.

  CHAPTER ELEVEN

  Drums of War

  “Only the dead have seen the end of war.”

  — Plato

  ****

  It was the fall of Sean’s freshman year in college when the first in a tragic sequence of events would occur. He and Amy were at his parents’ house for breakfast that morning when his brother Conor called to see if they were watching the news. The family turned on the TV and watched as thick plumes of smoke billowed from the sides of the Twin Towers. Two planes had crashed into them earlier that morning, and the FAA had already shut down airspace over the entire country.

  There were no words.

  Soon reports came in that a third plane had flown into the Pentagon, and it was clear now that these hadn’t been mistakes, or tragic miscalculations; the country had been attacked.

  It was shortly after the Pentagon strike that the unthinkable happened. There, on live TV, they watched the once-majestic towers crumble down in volcanic eruptions of ash and debris. And they, along with the rest of the country, could only stare in numbed silence.

  America was at war, and she was a country wounded and grieving.

  Sean met Conor for coffee on campus later that week. Conor was like a dog, pacing restlessly at a door for someone to let him out. He wanted in on whatever action was coming and had met with a Marine recruiter the day after the attacks.

  He was enlisting, and he wanted his younger brother to join him. They could attend boot camp together on the “buddy program,” and the recruiter told him there was a good chance they could be assigned to the same company, and possibly the same platoon.

  Sean thought the idea sounded crazy. He had just started school. And what did they know about being soldiers? But Conor already had his answers planned. School could wait. There was still time to withdraw without failing his classes, and then he could attend later. And the Marines would pay for it. And as for the soldiering, that’s what boot camp and infantry training school was for.

  Conor was way too practiced at this. All their lives, Conor had always convinced Sean to join him on his misadventures — whether it was jumping off their roof with a bed-sheet parachute or egging the principal’s house — the two brothers were inseparable.

  And now they were talking about the Marines. Despite his initial misgivings, Sean soon found himself actually considering it.

  The brothers rented a collection of war films, then binged them one afternoon in Conor’s apartment over pizza and beer. It was John Wayne, and Rambo, and even an old Abbott and Costello Army comedy for the pure nostalgia of it.

  Conor took Sean to meet with the recruiter the following Monday, and they spent several hours listening to war stories of his time in Operation Desert Storm. This guy reminded Sean a lot of his dad. Unflinching. Badass. A hero. That’s what Marines were and why they were so feared and effective — they ran to the sound of gunfire.

  Sean walked away from that meeting convinced. He knew it was the craziest thing he would ever do, but he was doing it with Conor. And that just made it feel right. Sean and Conor — that’s how it always had been, and he always came out better because of it. Now he just had to tell Amy.

  ****

  Amy couldn’t believe her ears. The Marines? The idea had come so completely out of left field, she didn’t even know how to react. But as soon as she heard Conor was the instigator, it all made sense. She knew the boys’ bond and how they would walk through fire for each other. But she also knew the sway Conor had over Sean, and even if Sean had any misgivings, he still would have enlisted just to have his brother’s back.

  This really sucked.

  But Sean’s mind was apparently made up, and there was no way she would even think about getting between the brothers. No. That was a no-win battle, no matter how much Sean loved her. And although she was furious at Conor at the moment, she was also really fond of him. He had always been a big supporter of their relationship and a big fan of Amy in general. He had lent them his boat several times, had bought them Red Sox tickets, and he even lent Sean his car for a road trip she and Sean had taken up to Maine.

  So no matter how much she wanted to hate Conor for dragging Sean into his craziness, she knew she couldn’t. The brothers were simply doing what they had always done — they were being brothe
rs.

  This really, really sucked.

  ****

  Amy was at Sean’s graduation from boot camp, along with Sean’s parents and brother Brendan. Brendan had a fun time giving his younger brothers shit about their latest rash decision, but it was all in fun. They were all proud of Sean and Conor, and that included Amy.

  Sean had two weeks’ leave before he had to report to the School of Infantry at Camp Geiger, so he and Amy were going to pack as much as they could into that time.

  She noticed some definite changes in Sean that had taken place during his thirteen weeks of boot camp. There were the obvious changes — gone was the thick hair, having been sheared off into a high and tight. He was also leaner, or, as Amy put it, ripped. She enjoyed that part. But there were subtle changes as well. He walked with a new confidence. Sean had never been shy or timid, but the way he carried himself now projected a real presence. He was also politer and more considerate, and she snickered when he addressed her mom as “ma’am.”

  “Stop that, Amy Joy,” her mom scolded. “Sean’s being a gentleman.”

  But the teasing resumed as soon as they were out of her mom’s earshot.

  The Marines also seemed to have tamed his more mischievous side, and she doubted he and Conor would be steeling any more golf carts to go joyriding across golf courses anytime soon.

  That was probably a good thing.

  But either way, he was still her Sean, and she had him for the next two weeks.

  ****

  Following their leave, the brothers spent two intense months with the Infantry Training Battalion in North Carolina before being deployed to Afghanistan. There, they joined up with operating forces already on the ground and engaged with an enemy who lurked behind every crag.

  It was the first of many successive deployments to that Godforsaken region. They were brutal and harsh, and when his enlistment was finally over, the Sean who returned home was not the Sean who had left all those years ago.

  Conor had returned home two months earlier in a flag-draped coffin. They had been exactly sixty-three days and a wake-up from the end of their enlistments, and were already making plans with Brendan for a drunken trip to Europe, when a suicide vest worn by a young Afghan girl ended Conor’s life.