Prove Me Wrong

by Gemma Hart

  Uncle Doughy shook his head as he threw the empty carton away and filled two glasses with just water, handing one to Dillon. Uncle Doughy pointed towards Kat with his glass. “Talking about Kat’s mystery beau,” he said gruffly. But she could see the twinkle in his eyes.

  Kat rolled her eyes but was unable to hide the blush that colored her cheeks.

  Malcolm tried to peer over her arm at her letter again. “You know,” he started again, “it’s odd how devoted you are to a man you knew all of four hours for. If that, even.” He paused, giving her a suspicious look. “What exactly did you do that night when you went out?”

  “Nothing!” Kat said automatically in a voice that sounded incredibly suspicious. “We just talked,” she added, calming her voice.

  “Talked with your mouths like responsible adult or talked with your bodies like a bunch of dirty hormonal teenagers?” Malcolm asked, quirking one brow.

  Kat narrowed her eyes. “Speaking from experience, are you?” she countered, staring at her nineteen year old brother.

  “I’ll have you know I shower every night,” he said piously.

  “I see you’re not arguing the ‘hormonal teenager part,’” Kat muttered.

  But before Malcolm could say anything else, Uncle Doughy leaned against the kitchen island. “You do seem quite fond of him,” he said, his gravelly voice steady and studious. Kat could feel his eyes on her back.

  Despite what her family thought, they truly had done nothing but talked. And of course, that made it all the stranger. For two people who hadn’t even shared a kiss, where was this sense of loyalty and connection coming from?

  Well, it beat her as much as it beat her family. All Kat knew was what her heart felt. And she wasn’t one to argue with her heart. She remembered his dark green eyes. She remembered his stubbled jaw, hard and chiseled like a statue. She remembered his warm arms and his tall, broad body.

  And even though they had only had a few short hours together in person, through their letters, she had begun to see more of who this Jason Daniels was. Kat wrote more frequently than he did. He wasn’t always able to write but when he did, it was clear he had read and reread all her letters.

  He encouraged her to keep planning the future of Doughy Pop’s. He gave her strength to keep encouraging Malcolm to finish his studies at the local community college. He told her of the starry desert skies and the cold that permeated the quiet landscape and how it reminded him of their own starry night together. He told her about how he couldn't wait to have another slice of her blueberry pie again.

  The stars here are brighter than they are in North Carolina. Brighter and bigger. But they’re colder too. It’s hard to look up at these stars alone with my own thoughts for company. Especially after some rough days.

  I prefer those North Carolina stars. They’re warmer. And beneath them, there’s a pretty girl and some blueberry pie waiting.

  Kat was keenly aware that Jason still was withholding a lot of personal details about himself. “Rough days” was as detailed as he got in terms of his job out there. He never spoke of family or even his comrades but Kat didn’t push. He was in a dangerous environment and she didn’t want to add to it by making him feel forced to talk about things he didn’t yet feel comfortable with.

  “I never got to meet this guy,” Dillon complained as he plopped himself down at the kitchen table.

  “There wasn’t much to him,” Malcolm said confidently. “Short, fat, balding drifter.”

  Kat slapped her brother’s arm as she laughed. Jason was tall, built, and dark haired like a forbidden fantasy. She felt her body warm at just the thought of him. There were definitely a few nights when she had imagined his lips against hers, his large hands squeezing her breasts before slowing moving down her body. She had bit her lip in the dark of the night many times as she imagined his fingers stroking her growing wetness, urging her further into the spiral darkness of pleasure. And then just when she thought she couldn’t take anymore, he would thrust his large—

  Kat felt her face heating like a summer barbecue. She looked up and saw Malcolm eyeing her with a knowing smirk. Kat quickly shook her head clear of such steamy thoughts and instead finished her letter.

  She wondered if he really would come back to Peytonville after his deployment was over. She had mentioned it several times in her letters. Kat hoped he would.

  Standing up, she quickly folded the letter and licked it closed. “I’m going to drop this off at the post office,” she said. “Anyone need anything while I’m out?”

  “Juice,” Uncle Doughy grumbled as he glared shrewdly at the correct culprit. Malcolm, having enough sense, blushed and looked down.

  Kat laughed as she grabbed her keys on her way out.

  ***

  Three months later

  Kat stopped on the last step of the stairs just as Malcolm was coming back into the house. She had heard him step out for the mail and had dashed down the stairs, hopeful.

  But Malcolm looked up at his sister, clearly torn between pity and disappointment. “Sorry, sis,” he said. “None today.”

  Kat swallowed the disappointment, feeling it sting all the way down her throat. She shrugged and gave a half smile. “Ah well,” she said casually. “Those desert camels sure are unreliable when it comes to post.”

  But however unreliable those desert camels were, they became almost impossibly reliable as the weeks rolled on. For awhile, Jason would send a letter every three weeks. Kat usually sent one every week.

  But after a few months, Jason’s letters became sparser and sparser. Not only in presence but in their words as well. His letters became almost terse. He wrote as if he was writing to a stranger with no warmth or even recognition.

  Kat wondered what was going on. Was he stressed? Was he just battle worn and tired? After receiving a third letter in this same tone after nearly six weeks of silence, Kat even began to wonder if maybe Jason had been kidnapped and someone was forging these letters to hide his disappearance. Her mind flew to all kinds of crazy theories.

  And then finally, they just stopped coming.

  Nothing. No letters. No postcards. Nothing.

  Kat doggedly wrote still, asking if everything was alright. She even asked for him to just send a letter back to assure her he was okay, even if he wanted to stop the correspondence. She wouldn’t write another letter to him as long as he could reassure her that he was okay.

  But still, nothing came.

  Soon, sleep came less easy to her. Dark smudges appeared under her eyes and she ate in small bites, never finishing a meal. Could his silence mean something worse?

  She shuddered, only imagining the absolutely horrific.

  Even Uncle Doughy took notice of her state. One night after closing up the shop, as they were cleaning, he said casually from the kitchen, “Military is meant for war, not for managing mail. A lot of things get lost along the way.”

  Kat had looked up from wiping down a table and saw her uncle through the small order window. He was looking down as he scrubbed his worktop, as if he had not spoken at all.

  She gave the top of his bald head a wobbly smile, grateful for his concern. Her wonderful uncle, her silent and strong guardian. “You’re right, Uncle Do,” she said. “It’s too early to be worried.”

  But was it?

  For the first three months he had been away, they had written with somewhat regularity. And Jason had seemed just as eager to write back as she had been. He had regularly written how much he wanted to walk in the library park again with her.

  So why the sudden silence?

  After another few weeks, a horrible thought came to her. What if he had been killed in action? If Jason had been killed, no one would know to notify her. After all, she must look like a trumped up pen pal at best to anyone from the outside. No one would think to let her know of his death.

  Panicking, she had thrown herself on her computer, trying to search who she could get in contact with to find out about Jason Daniel’s where
abouts. She looked up numbers and names at Fort Bragg. She wrote emails.

  But it was all for nothing. She wasn’t family. She wasn’t a wife or even a girlfriend. And the military wouldn’t give out information to a complete stranger. Kat truly began to despair that death had been the reason for this sudden silence from Jason.

  She saw the sideways looks she was getting from her brothers and Uncle Doughy as she doggedly tried to find one crumb of information on her soldier. She could tell they were thinking she had finally come unhinged.

  Then finally, she got lucky.

  An older lady who must’ve been a civilian employee answered one of her calls. She sounded flustered and quite confused before Kat could even introduce herself.

  “Daniels? Jason Daniels, Staff Sergeant?” the woman said, echoing Kat’s words. A sound of computer keys tapping and papers ruffling crackled across the phone. “Daniels, Daniels,” the woman muttered to herself.

  Kat bit down on her lip, hoping against hope she wouldn’t be turned away again. She usually never got beyond this point.

  “Wait, Jason Daniels, Staff Sergeant of 2nd Battalion, is still deployed in Iraq, dear,” the woman said, sounding like she was reading off a computer file. “He’s not available here. Why did you need to meet him again?”

  The woman, flustered and confused, had unwittingly given Kat the very answer she had wanted. And had dreaded.

  So he hadn’t been killed in action, thank god. He was still on the Army files as deployed in Iraq. So that only meant one thing—he didn’t want to write anymore. He didn’t want to talk to her. Jason Daniels had moved on from her.

  “No, I’m not meeting him,” Kat said softly, feeling her heart sink into her belly. “I’m not meeting him again.”

  Chapter Five

  Two Years Later

  Jason took another swig of his beer. Reggie’s was in full swing it looked like for the night. The sizeable bar, which even held a small ring for amateur boxing, was packed. Unusual for a Wednesday night but not impossible.

  Jason sat back in his wooden seat as he surveyed the seedy looking crowd. Reggie’s was an institution around Fayetteville. Jason snorted and shook his head. No, not an institution. More like a stubborn stain that wouldn’t go away.

  Reggie’s only attracted the darkest, roughest, and surliest elements around a military base. And that meant for very rough nights.

  But this was where Jason felt most comfortable. After leaving the Army, he had never been able to walk into a normal bar without feeling an itch at the back of his neck. He felt too exposed and too vulnerable in a regular bar that only served beers and not knocked out teeth or broken noses.

  So he haunted Reggie’s regularly to take his mind off of things and to actually relax. Although most people could hardly call the place relaxing.

  The rowdy crowd was loud and rough. Already two fights had broken out and a table broken and it was hardly past 10 PM.

  One more beer, Jason thought. And then he’d go. He just needed enough alcohol to help ease his nerves. He could feel his muscles twitch underneath his shirt from how tensely taut they were.

  He closed his eyes.

  Would the haunting nightmares never cease? Would he have to always live his life filled with one blood soaked memory to the next? He had left the Army as soon as he had come back from Iraq but it had been too late. The damage had been done and his soul had been ripped one too many times.

  The table suddenly jerked underneath him.

  Jason sat up abruptly and opened his eyes, his body even more tense and ready for action. But immediately he sighed and relaxed.

  “Jesus, Al, you nearly spilled my beer,” Jason chastised halfheartedly as he righted the table.

  Al Bozer sat across from him. In his late fifties and with a head of wild graying hair, he looked like an eccentric bum. Jason realized that except for being employed as his foreman, Al essentially was an eccentric bum. He had a small flat in downtown that he only used to sleep in. He ate wherever he found food, worked when he needed to, and the rest of the time, spent his hours at Reggie’s. The Army had left its dents in Al as well.

  Not just the Army, Jason reminded himself grimly. He looked at the long faded scar down Al’s right temple. It had bled like hell, he remembered. Jason flexed his right fist. He wasn’t sure if it had been his right or left fist. All he knew was that it had been his fist that had cut up Al’s head like that.

  Al shook his head, dismissing Jason’s words. His wide brown eyes were sparked and clearly excited. “There’s a girl in here!” he said, leaning forward in excitement.

  Jason shook his head but couldn’t help grinning. “Al, you’re fifty eight years old. You say that as if you’d never seen a girl in your life.”

  Al shook his head again, his wild gray hair flinging about. “No, man,” he said. “This is a girl girl. She’s no Army floozie. She’s wearing a sweater.” He said the last word as if it were a sacred word only meant to be used in church.

  Jason’s brow furrowed a bit. Although Al sounded a little crazy to be worked up so much over a sweater, Jason understood what he meant. The only kinds of women that populated a rough bar like Reggie’s were women who knew exactly what they wanted. Usually, it boiled down to a one night fling or a wedding ring. Army benefits were nice when you could get them and a lot of these women were on their second or third Army marriage.

  Most of the soldiers from Fort Bragg were warned not to patronize Reggie’s but that didn’t stop infantry soldiers. They knew where their people were and damn the brass.

  But no nice, decent girl came into these kinds of bars. They would be eaten alive.

  “Where’d you see her?” Jason asked, debating whether he wanted to get involved or not. He had only wanted a few beers after a particularly rough night of sleep the night before. The nightmares only seemed to be getting worse not better.

  Al pointed towards the back where the bar was. “She was heading towards the bar. I heard her asking about Reggie,” Al added in a confused voice. He was clearly perplexed as to how a nice girl in a sweater would know about a man like Reggie.

  “Hmm,” Jason said, taking another swig. “Maybe she’s not such a girl girl like you think. Not if she knows about Reggie.”

  But before Al could respond, there was a loud crack like the sound of wood splintering followed by raucous shouts. Over at the far end of the room, towards the bar, Jason could see a huge ball of angry fists and leather jackets tumbling together. Violence at Reggie’s grew like tornados—it swept up everything in its path.

  Jason would’ve just waited it out till the tornado eventually petered out like it normally did when he suddenly caught a flash of a color he had never seen in Reggie’s.

  Mint green.

  He jerked to his feet and peered through the shouting crowd and saw a girl wearing a mint green sweater. He only caught the side of her face, which was obscured by her long caramel colored hair, but he could tell by her hunched and frozen posture that she was terrified.

  And as well she should be, the dummy, Jason thought in irritation as he quickly shoved his way towards the bar. This was no place for someone like her. She looked like a rabbit caught in a wolf’s den. And if he didn’t get to her soon, she’d be eaten whole.

  The crowds yelled and cheered whoever was fighting. Jason was quite sure even the instigators of the fight had forgotten why they had started fighting. Jason shoved and ducked as he made his way through the thick crowd to the bar.

  The crowd shoved to the right as one body as the fighters pushed towards the opposite end of the bar. Jason could see a burly arm raised for a powerful punch towards his opponent who was standing right in front of the girl.

  With one great lunge to push himself free from the tightly packed crowd, Jason wrapped his arm around the girl, pushing her against his chest, then turned in one swift movement so his back faced the brawlers.

  The punch landed on its intended target but the power of the punch sent its victim reelin
g, knocking hard into Jason’s back. Jason grunted as he felt an elbow dig deep into his ribs as the man hit him with the full impact of the blow.

  Shaking himself free, he pulled himself and the girl free from the crowded and now wrecked bar. It was slow moving with how thick the crowd was. Jason could feel the girl squirming against him but he kept his arm tight around her, not giving her an inch to get away. She’d be mauled and he’d be damned if he let this dummy do that to herself.

  He could feel under his hands the slenderness of her shoulders. Her bones felt as delicate as a bird’s. The top of her head barely reached his shoulders. He felt the heat of her shuddering breaths against his chest.

  And this frightened little rabbit is thinking to squirm away into this mob? Jason snorted as he tightened his arm and continued to push their way out.