"Pep talk? Why?"
"Oh, you're about to find out," she says and stands to go.
I stand, too, letting my far-too-perky-to-have-ever-been-in-the-Army friend know that her attempt to leave me alone with Deacon has failed. I scoop up my notebook and coffee. "Got to head out."
I go to pass him but he doesn't move. Standing there, he's a brick wall, immovable.
I sigh and slip by him, saying nothing. My chest brushes against his upper arm, my entire body tightening in response to the briefest contact.
"Coward," he whispers as I slip past, leaving Nalini and Deacon standing together.
I keep walking.
Hating the fact that he's right.
Deacon
I let her go. I probably should stop fucking with her but with Kelsey, everything is complicated. And in the six months that she's been back in my life, it's only gotten more so.
"She's fine, you know," Nalini says softly. Her eyes are always bright and calm. I love Nalini like a sister and I love that she’s looking out for Kelsey because I no longer can.
I've known Nalini a while now, ever since I started grad school. She's a magnet to other vets on campus, kind of like Eli is over at The Pint. Between the two of them, they're the sun and the moon. The rest of us are caught in their orbit.
"I know."
She smiles warmly and pats my cheek. "But you're not sure. If you were, you wouldn't watch her like that every time she walks away."
I grin and lean against the broad table behind me. I love that The Grind has broad, wide tables as well as smaller ones and comfy overstuffed chairs. "How much trouble are you causing on campus today?"
"As much as I need to," she says. She folds her arms over her chest. "When are you going to stop pining after her and do something about this awkward standoff you two have going on? I feel like I’m caught in no man's land between the French and the Germans in World War I."
"That is a terrible analogy."
"Yeah, well, you should try being caught between you two once in a while. Take pity on the rest of us who have to deal with your sexual frustration. You can practically touch it."
She follows for a few steps while I laugh and move to the line for coffee. "I don't even know what to say to that." I place my order. “Large latte, extra shot of espresso.”
"Well, that'll put hair on your chest," she says dryly.
I shake my head. "What are you poking at, Nalini?" Because she always pokes until she gets around to what she needs to say.
"Nothing much. Just wondering how things are out at The Pint?"
"They're good. I mean, I know you don't drink but you really should come out some time. There's a whole bunch of us out there, even a couple of new guys who came by last week who used to be in First Cav. You could come by and just hang out, swap war stories about Stetsons or whatever you Cav people do."
She grins and glances down at her watch. "I'm good, thanks. Though it's awful tempting. You 82d Airborne guys think you're all that with your raspberry berets."
"Bite your tongue." Damn, sometimes it feels good to walk back over familiar ground, harassing each other because of the units we've both served in. "I chewed the same dirt as you did in First Cav."
"Well, use that common ground to make some damn progress with her, why don't you?"
I sip my coffee and instantly, my blood cells are more awake than they were a moment before. "Does she say anything?" I want to add in about me. But I don't.
Because I'm a coward when it comes to Kelsey.
"You wish. And even if she did, I wouldn't break her confidence."
"I hate playing games. You know that, right?"
"No games, Deacon." Nalini turns suddenly serious. "I worry about her. About the things she doesn't talk about."
I glance toward the door that Kelsey disappeared through. "Yeah, me too."
I know the things she doesn't talk about, at least some of them.
I know what things keep her up at night.
I know how good things used to be between us, once upon a war.
And I know exactly the moment things got screwed up.
I can't fix any of those things now, no matter how much I might want to. Kelsey has to want to unpack that stuff herself. In the few months she's been back in my life, she's given me no indication that she wants to go anywhere near our shared memories of sand and dust and war.
Not that I blame her.
I leave Nalini at The Grind and head to the old Wilson building for my graduate seminar. I’ve got a relatively light load this semester. At some point, I have to stop avoiding my thesis and actually start typing.
I've become a master of procrastination, among other things. Funny how leaving the war and the Army behind makes you find other things to keep you occupied.
My old first sergeant would kick my ass if he knew how much I was avoiding this work. I grin, thinking of him. I should shoot him a note one of these days.
But I won't.
Lately it's been like I'm running some kind of test with myself or something. How long can I stay away from the lure of the familiar? The good memories.
And yeah, even the bad ones are good when you're talking to someone who speaks the same language. There's something comfortable about just talking to someone who's been there. Bullshitting about the stupid shit we or one of our soldiers did.
I'm pretty sure America would have kittens if she knew the kind of shenanigans her soldiers pulled on guard duty in the middle of the desert.
But I won’t make the call. I can’t. It’s like I’m trying to prove to myself that I can cut the cord between me and the Army, that I can truly function out here as a civilian and not constantly be reaching back to the guys I left behind when I left Fort Hood.
Besides, it’s not like I don’t have enough Army around me with Eli and the rest of the gang at The Pint.
I smile down at my phone, double-checking the room number for the class Professor Blake asked me to assist with. She was pretty vague about who I was going to be teaching with this semester.
I probably should have asked for more details but she's pretty much been my fairy godmother since I decided to go to grad school and get my master’s in public administration, so I figure I owe her whatever she needs.
The classroom is just inside of the old Wilson building. You can practically smell the history in this place, along with the chill from the stone walls and ancient windows. There’s too much history here for a working class kid like me. I suppose people who are used to this kind of place aren’t really awestruck by it like I still am.
I still have no idea how I got accepted here. Or how I haven't managed to be politely asked to leave.
Ah well.
I push open the door to the classroom, tucking my phone into my back pocket, and then stop short. The classroom isn’t empty.
"You've got to be shitting me." What's that they say about fiction? It's supposed to be believable, right? You can't make this shit up because no shit, there is Kelsey Ryder sitting in a corner, her back to the wall.
And she looks ready for war.
2
Kelsey
I thought I was braced for this. For the moment that he walked through the door and saw me.
I still wasn't prepared for the utter devastation of watching the realization hit his eyes that we’re going to be working together for the entire semester.
The cadets aren't here yet.
We’re not teaching today. Professor Blake wouldn’t be that sadistic that she’d drop us both into a classroom with no prep. No, today we’re supposed to meet them and pass out the military science syllabus.
Right now, that feels next to impossible. The weight of the room is closing in on me with Deacon standing there.
I was wrong. I was so fucking wrong about being this close without the distraction of the noise and the chaos of The Pint. About being alone with him.
Everything about him draws me closer, makes me crave the feel of his ski
n against mine.
We probably don't have that much time to get to some kind of equilibrium before they start walking through the door. Just like a commander and first sergeant, we can't let them see us fighting. They'll exploit the weaknesses and play us against each other. It doesn't matter if they're soldiers or cadets; they'll do it.
Because that's what soldiers do.
He stands there for an impossible expanse of time, his eyes dark and blue and intense.
"Well, this is awkward," I finally say when it's clear he's not going to break the silence. "I take it Professor Blake didn't tell you that I was your assistant?"
"Who said anything about assistant?" is what he finally says.
His words catch me off guard. Then again, he’s always been good at thinking on his feet.
"What do you mean?"
"You're my peer. We'll co-teach this." His voice is grating and rough, like there is so much more he wants to say but won’t. Or can’t.
It’s better this way. It has to be.
I make a noise. "I've never taught anyone in my life,” I admit.
His scowl deepens. "That's not true. You taught soldiers all the time as a sergeant."
And there it is. The elephant in the room that is our shared history of Iraq and Fort Hood.
"This isn't the same thing." I'm working on hiding the unadulterated panic in my voice. I'm losing the battle.
"Sure it is. They're college students. You and I are going to teach them about the Army. We're supposed to get them to ask us questions. To push them on what they think they know. Professor Blake told me that she and the ROTC commander agree the cadets don't get nearly enough exposure to enlisted folks."
“She doesn't need me to do this."
He drops his backpack on the table with enough force that I wince. "Tough shit." His voice is practically a snarl. And no, I've never described anyone as snarling before but Deacon is definitely snarly. "They're going to be here any minute. Figure out how you want to introduce yourself because unless you feel like arguing with Professor Blake, you're here for the rest of the semester and so am I."
I say nothing at the force in his response. I don’t know what I’m supposed to read into his reaction but I'm reasonably certain I can't talk without raising my voice. Here at school, they call that yelling. I haven’t yelled at anyone since I got here and I'm not going to start now.
I close my eyes, listening to the sounds of Deacon violently pulling his iPad and his notebook from his backpack.
Breathe in. Deep. Slow. Controlled. Breathing into the knot in my chest. Into the violent heat that burns against my heart and sends my thoughts racing through the tangled maze of memories and fear.
Deacon
Professor Blake is a crafty old fox, I’ll give her that. If I’d known she was planning on putting me together with Kelsey, I would have begged her to do it sooner.
Looking at her face right now, it’s easy to see how much this is upsetting Kelsey’s carefully crafted Avoid Our Past plan.
That’s over now. And I have to say I’m pretty fucking grateful at the moment. Except that I have no idea how to even begin a campaign plan to break down the barriers she’s erected between us.
And after six months of letting her set conditions, I need to play this right. If I screw it up, I could end up pushing her to get Professor Blake to take her off this assignment. I can’t blow this.
“What crawled up your ass?” she asks, leaning back in her chair and crossing her arms over her chest.
This I can handle. “Seeing you still doubt yourself. I thought you finally broke that habit in Iraq.”
Her mouth drops open. That’s clearly not what she was expecting. Good. Maybe if she’s off balance, she’ll stop thinking about all the reasons she left and start thinking about the reasons why us working together can work here just like it does at The Pint.
I don’t mind keeping her off balance. In fact, I think it will be fun. A totally new challenge in my life.
Getting back into hers.
“What, no sarcastic comeback?”
“I’m not really sure how to respond to that,” she says softly.
“Start by agreeing not to downplay what you did over there and we’ll get along just fine.”
Kelsey
The door opens and the cadets start walking in. One more breath and I open my eyes, watching them silently file past us and take seats.
I’m not sure how I feel about this. I wasn’t sure before he walked into the room and I’m less sure now as the cadets start to fill the small space. I have to put it aside. I can’t let them see me having an existential crisis. Shit, the Army at least taught me that much.
The classroom is more of a small conference room. With Deacon at the end of the ancient wooden conference table, it feels smaller. More closed in. The windows are at least a hundred years old. It’s the fixing of modernity overlaid upon ancient gothic stone and masonry.
Sums up how I feel right now, really. Like I’m trying to paste a new Kelsey on an older, more worn down one. But the cadets don’t need to know that.
I shut down the unsettled feelings swirling inside me and watch them filter in.
The first thing that strikes me is that they're so young. I wonder if I ever looked that young, that…innocent.
I lean back in my chair, watching Deacon scroll through his iPad as the cadets settle around us. The small space is tight with them in the room now.
They're clearly picking up on our tension because they settle into their seats silently, their conversations about mundane things falling away.
Our class consists of eleven people, crammed into this smallish conference room. I'm pleasantly surprised to see that they look like they come from every corner of America. They look like the rainbow of faces I used to have in my MP platoon.
I want them to wear freaking name tags so I can learn their names. I try to always remember who everyone is. It's a holdover from my days as a sergeant. Know your soldiers and all that, right?
"Excuse me?"
The speaker is a thin young man with dark, intense eyes and sharp features, all beneath a cap of vibrantly black hair.
I school my expression to look a little less intimidating. I'm pissed, being stuck in this situation, but that doesn't mean I need to take my bad mood out on them. "What's up?"
"I noticed you have om on your wrist. Do you know what that means?"
I glance down at the sacred Sanskrit symbol tattooed below my watchband, at the edge of my palm. "I do. It represents an incredibly important part of my life."
He tips his head, curious. "Really? How?"
I inhale deeply. "It's a really long story."
Across from me, I can feel Deacon watching the exchange.
The young man standing in front of me finally sets his bag down and offers his hand. "I'm Veerkar Patel."
"Kelsey. It's nice to meet you."
"I'd love to talk more with you about your tattoo some time," he says as he releases my hand and sits.
"Sure." I wonder if he wants to talk about how yoga saved my life. About how the practice of it helped me put everything back together when it shattered into a thousand pieces of detritus.
But I'll listen. Because it's rare that I find anyone who wants to really talk about the practice. Too often I find people want to etch the symbols on their bodies and wear the yoga pants as virtue signaling but not go any deeper than that.
I know about that, too. That was how I started yoga. I’m no better than any of them.
Except that I'm trying to do better.
I'm still putting the pieces of my life back together.
Yoga has been a big part of that.
I look over at Deacon. At the man who represents the fault line between who I was and who I am trying to be.
And I'm not sure that even the deepest practice will help me keep it together this time.
Deacon
"Welcome to our military science class. I'm Deacon Hunter and acr
oss the table is Kelsey Ryder. We'll introduce ourselves in a moment but first, tell us where you're from, what you're studying and what you've branched."
I'm trying to pretend that I'm an adult and that watching Kelsey from the other side of the small conference room isn't visually stalking her.
I'm better than this.
I'm still agitated, seeing her sitting across from me. I wonder if Professor Blake put us together on purpose. It's not like she could have known that we have a complicated history.
Whatever joke the universe is trying to play, I appreciate it.
I tune in to the cadets again, realizing I've managed to jot down seven names and branches without hearing anything.
"I'm Veerkar Patel. You can call me Veer. I've branched armor and I'm hoping to be a Cav Scout like my grandfather. I'm majoring in biochemistry."
He speaks with a quiet confidence that says he knows who he is and where he's going. I envy him the certainty in so many ways.
"The Army is a family tradition then?" I ask.
He nods. "My grandfather enlisted in the Army after he immigrated from India. Served three tours in Vietnam. My father was in Desert Storm and he met my mother in the Army."
I steal a glance at Kelsey. We could have had a happily ever after if I hadn't been a coward. If I'd fought harder to stay by her side instead of chasing a career I later realized I didn't want.
She's deliberately not looking at me. Rather, she's listening intently to each of the cadets as they tell us who they are and where they're heading once they commission.
"I'm Jovi Sinclair. I also branched armor," says a fierce blonde sporting an intense tan and equally intense eyes. She looks like a Valkyrie come to life. A warrior. She glances over at Veer. "I wanted to follow in my mother's footsteps. She died during the initial invasion in Iraq."
I feel sucker-punched, a direct hit right in the gut. It hits me then in that moment that we have soldiers entering into the war that their parents might still be fighting.
Catch My Fall: A Falling Novel Page 3