Faking It

by Nikki Bella

  To the surprise of no one—including my recruiter, who asked for an autograph the second I walked in—I was a lock for training people in hand-to-hand combat. But there was one surprising thing to me.

  They assured me that I would make a perfect officer. I had the bearing, the leadership skills, and the courage that men would follow. At least, that’s what the tests said, and who was I to argue with a piece of paper that said here’s how you’re going to spend the next three years of your life?

  I spent two weeks at a camp upstate that was an introduction to becoming an officer. It wasn’t basic training yet and there were very few physical demands beyond a morning run and a general series of calisthenics that were far easier than my usual training regimen. The camp was more of a primer for the mental aspect and the philosophy of warfare and combat that I would need to have command of when I led a unit. A lot of it came naturally to me. I knew tactics and strategy. Adaptation and improvisation. I knew how to think under pressure and while in pain. My time in the gym with the other guys had also shown me that they would always follow my example, for better or worse. That was a big responsibility, but one I took great pleasure in.

  No, that doesn’t say enough. I loved it. It felt right and it felt real. I was at peace.

  When I told my family about my decision, my mom lost her mind. Janie was supportive, but it definitely made her nervous. My brothers still hadn’t resurfaced and whoever was in charge of them over there was being incredibly tight-lipped about it all.

  “I know you need to do it.” My mom said that over and over. “I know you need to, I just wish that weren’t true. I can’t lose you all.”

  I had made a promise to myself that I would not contact Alyssa before she contacted me. I needed to focus. The stakes were going to be higher than any I had ever faced. My mistakes were going to have the potential to affect other people in grave ways. There was something zen about this level of detachment from all but the goal I was working towards.

  She didn’t call. She didn’t text. I went into those two weeks knowing that I might have blown my shot with her. I would have to accept that. This was something I had to do. If Alyssa was the one for me, she would find a way to recognize that and to let me know, in the near or far future. To do so, she would have to become her own person, shaking off her dad and sticking up for me. If it turned out that she couldn’t do it, I knew that I would never blame her. I wanted to know for sure, rather than to be wracked with uncertainty.

  Once I got to the camp I did my best to put her out of my mind, although I did tack a small picture of us on my small desk. It was a picture a sparring partner had taken of her in the gym, at my request, using my phone. I had it printed out and brought it with me. In the photo, Alyssa is standing next to a hanging heavy bag that is nearly as tall as she is. Her wrists are wrapped and she’s making what she considered a furious face. “Go crazy!” I had shouted at her. “Show the world what a savage Alyssa Edwards is!”

  Guys stopped by my desk every chance they got to whistle at the photo and ask me questions about her. Every time I said the same thing: “That woman changed my life.”

  “How?” they would say. Like all guys in a group, we were desperate for stories about women. But I wouldn’t say.

  She would be there or she wouldn’t. It was now out of my hands.

  The day the camp ended was bittersweet, which made me feel silly. I would be seeing most of the guys a week later when we reconvened for basic training. Still, the seeds of a real brotherhood were already developing. We all knew that we were heading into the most serious thing imaginable, and it would be up to us to keep men, and each other, safe. Our goodbyes were curt but heartfelt.

  The octagon had been the only place where I knew I was doing exactly what I was born for. Or so I had thought. This was different. This was doing what I was born for, but it came with a sense of honor and duty that fighting didn’t.

  My agent hadn’t been happy about my decision. But as soon as he saw that I was serious, he went into spin mode. “If your tour is only three years, you’re going to be a young, young man when you come back. And if you’re still training other guys in fighting, you’ll still be sharp. We’re going to make this work. If you can go do your thing and stay safe, we’ll be able to bank on it later.”

  I liked the thought of that, but it wasn’t my priority.

  When the car dropped me off at my house I had a lump in my throat. This was the house where I had been raised. Where my brothers and I had teased each other and fought and slept and taken care of my mom. Most of the days of my life had been spent beneath its roof.

  My thoughts were interrupted by mom opening the door and holding her arms out. I could see the outline of one of Janie’s wheels behind her.

  When mom hugged me, she was strong and sure. “I’ve got a surprise for you, baby,” she said. “Come on in.”

  Janie was so thrilled to see me that I thought she might start to float. She kept trying to spoil some surprise, but my mom hushed her over and over as we walked through the house.

  “All right, the mystery has got to stop,” I said with a laugh. “You two are driving me nuts.”

  Mom stopped in the living room and made a grand gesture at the coffee table. An open laptop was on it, its back to me. “Have a seat, Braden,” she said.

  “Yeah Braden, have a seat,” said a voice from the laptop. Then another.

  When I sat down in front of the laptop that lump in my throat broke apart and the dam burst.

  Ryan and Sean, my two brothers, looked back at me from inside of what looked like the ugliest beige tent in existence. As soon as they saw me crying they burst into wild laughter.

  “You two stop it!” said my mom. “You can’t laugh at him like that, he was worried just like I was!”

  “Yeah!” said Janie. “Braden is very sensitive! Leave him alone!”

  Needless to say, that did not get that to back off, nor would I have wanted them to. They were still the brothers I had known. I was so happy they were alive and whole that I could barely speak, so they did the talking for a while.

  During a covert operation on an outpost in the mountains, where it was suspected that an enemy target was hiding, they had been taken prisoner. Of course they had lost all ways to communicate, and this explained why no one had been willing to tell us anything about them. At first, no one had known where they were, and had feared the worst. But soon the enemy had sent a ransom demand. It turned out that they had been taken by run of the mill kidnappers, not by the Afghan armed forces. Their demands had been simple: money.

  Unfortunately, there were complications. The leadership of Sean and Ryan’s unit could not convince the administration that the kidnappers were not in league with the enemy. Therefore, paying them would have meant cooperating with hostile forces.

  “So what the hell happened?” I said.

  “We’re going to be able to tell you more about that in person,” said Sean. “I don’t want to be coy, but it’s really not something we can talk about on an unsecured channel.”

  “But the short part is,” said Ryan, “We escaped. They couldn’t hold us. Not the most, uh...vigilant captors, you might say.”

  My mom crossed herself and Sean and Ryan laughed.

  “Wait,” I said. “What did you mean I’ll be able to tell you in person?”

  They looked at each other. “Oh, hadn’t you heard? You’re coming over to take charge of a unit adjacent to us. We’re going to be able to show you the ropes and watch your back. Just like you’ll watch ours.”

  It was all too much. “I can’t wait,” I said. “To tie you in knots. I haven’t been getting kidnapped but you guys have no idea what you’re in for when I get my hands on you. Next time you’ll be tough enough so that no one will be able to kidnap you.”

  We joked and made fun of each other for another half hour before they had to go. When mom closed the laptop I hugged her and Janie and thought about how lucky we all were. The day was almost
perfect.

  Alyssa would have loved seeing that. I think. For that matter, it would have made a hell of an episode for her podcast.

  Thinking about her, about what I had cost us both, was definitely going to bring down the mood, so I did what I could to put it, and her, out of my head.

  A car’s horn started honking outside, driving all thoughts out of anyone’s head. “Good grief,” I said after it had gone on for at least a minute. “Is that someone’s alarm?” I got up to go check.

  “No,” said Janie, “Alarms are consistent. That sounds like someone just messing around.”

  “Well it’s driving me crazy and I’m going to go make them stop,” I said. “Don’t worry, mom, I’ll be nice. Firm but fair, that’s me.”

  The last person in the world I expected to see when I opened that door was Vlad. The killer from another continent, there on my mom’s doorstep. I was even more surprised when he embraced me. “I served my country for years before I began fighting,” he said. “Service was compulsory for us so I had no choice. The fact that you are making the choice tells me everything I need to know about you. One day, maybe we fight. But every man who serves his country is a brother. All respect, Braden.”

  Over his shoulders, I saw something more surprising yet. I’m not sure how they did it so quietly, but it looked like everyone I had ever known was on my lawn. My agent was the first one I saw, on one knee, snapping pictures of me and Vlad. All of the guys from the gym were there—minus Mason, of course. They rushed me, slapped me up and down, play fighting for the cameras that were filming the event from scaffolds that had been rigged up out by the curb, behind the crowd.

  High school friends. James from Nike. Most of my teachers from elementary school on up. Neighbors. All of them cheering and crying and saying that they supported me. People were waving signs and ordering me to stay safe.

  To say it was overwhelming would be a big of an understatement. I’m not sure I had ever been so moved.

  Vlad stepped to my side and began clapping in rhythm. The crowd joined in. Something was happening, a shift in the ranks. The sea of people parted further, then further, and then there they were.

  Holding Mason’s arm as if she were a bride being given away, Alyssa was there. She and her dad walked towards me with huge smiles on their faces. I couldn’t make sense of it and I didn’t give them a chance to get closer. I was running towards them, sweeping her into my arms, and spinning her around like we were in some corny musical.

  “I’m getting dizzy!” she said.

  I put her down and gaped at them both. “What are you doing here?”

  Mason put his hands on my shoulders. “I felt terrible about the way I spoke to you. Just horrible. Alyssa and I had a very long talk about you, her, me, and what we all want for each other.” He smiled. “Braden, I’m not an easy man to love, unless I’m your coach. I’ve got a lot of blind spots, especially when it comes to Alyssa. But she has helped me see that I’ve overdone it in some ways. As a fellow serviceman, I respect what you’re doing, more than you understand yet. As a coach, it drives me crazy. As a father, I need to just back off a bit and let Alyssa live her life. But if you two are going to be together, I just wanted to tell you that you’re everything a man could want for his daughter.”

  “I’ve got a lot of things I still need to work out,” I said.

  “You sure as hell do,” he said, laughing.

  “Is that what you want?” I said, turning to Alyssa.

  “First,” she said, “I have to tell you some good news.”

  “Please.”

  She lit up like the sun and took a deep breath. “ESPN picked up my show! It’s going to be small to start, but High Impact is going to get a thirty-minute slot and sometimes it’s going to air during halftime of NBA games!”

  “What? That is amazing. How did it happen?”

  She threw her arms around me and kissed me hard. “It just so happens that while you were away, I released our interview episodes. I think you’ll like the final result, but I don’t want you to listen to it until you’re in basic training. It will give you something to think about that I think will be good for you. That’s how it happened, though. The producers said it was one of the most moving things they had ever seen in a sports piece. It’s just a trial run, but it looks like it’s really going to happen!”

  I wasn’t even surprised. I mean, you’re never really prepared for something like that, but as I looked at her, thought about her, remembered all the things I loved about her, it was only what she deserved. There was no way that Alyssa was ever not going to take the world by storm.

  “They’ve commissioned a follow-up piece as well,” said Mason.

  “What is it?” I said.

  “Once you’re situated,” said Mason, “we’re going to be able to talk with you once a week, assuming that you’re not in the middle of maneuvers. It’s going to be an ongoing profile of you and the life of an athlete who gave it up—temporarily, I hope—to serve something bigger than himself, bigger than sports. So you two will get to be in more contact than you would have otherwise.”

  “Depending on the conditions,” said Alyssa, “I might even be able to come over for a visit, somewhere safe, when you’re on furlough.”

  Janie rolled her wheelchair next to me. “I want to go too!”

  “We’ll see,” said my mom. “I’m not sure I want anything to do with it. But it would be fun to go see all three of your brothers, wouldn’t it?”

  Alyssa kissed me again. “I am so proud of you. I can’t believe how fast this has all happened, but I’m so glad it did. I will be here when you get back. You go do whatever you have to. I am always going to be here. Always.”

  It was all I had ever wanted to hear.

  The End

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