The Way We Were (Solitary Soldiers Book 2)
Page 10
To: Allie
From: Ben
YOU’RE LIVING WITH A GUY. You have all the time in the world to cheat on me. There may be chicks on base, but I live in men’s barracks and I work with men.
February 5th 2003
To: Ben
From: Allie
Can you stop with the caps lock, it’s fucking annoying. Answer the damn phone, I’m not going to email you back, so either call me or pick up my fucking call. I’m done with the fighting over email crap.
February 7th 2003
To: Allie
From: Ben
Allie, I’m sorry. I’m so sorry about the stupid fight and I know we talked it out, but I really feel like I should apologize again and say what I really wanted to say on the phone.
I work with men and I live surrounded by men. Yeah there are chicks around, but I really don’t see them. I worry about you being in the real world. You’re in school with all these smart guys, guys who are getting educated and then I come back from the field and I find out something horrible happened to you and I wasn’t there.
You needed me, Allie, and I wasn’t there for you. And while I’m feeling like shit I call you and a guy answers. I don’t worry you’ll cheat on me, Allie Cat, I worry you’re going to realize you could do so much better than me and you’ll want more than I can give you.
I’m sorry I reacted that way. I’m sorry I kept the stupid fight going so long, and I kept being an asshole. I love you, Allie, but I worry you’ll outgrow me.
February 8th 2003
To: Ben
From: Allie
I’ll never outgrow you, Ben. I’ve loved you for as long as I can remember. You’re the only person I’ve ever loved. Being apart is hard, it makes us question things, but while you’re worried about me moving on I’m worried about you moving on. You’re out there in a world I can never be part of. You’re working and making a difference and I’m stuck in school. I’m so scared you’ll find some badass army chick who can understand your life. Who can be there for you while I can’t, and one who’s there for you when you need someone.
You’re the only guy I’ve ever been with, and I’m scared you’ll find someone better than me. Someone with experience who can do things for you I can’t, even if I was there. You love me, I know that, but at the end of the day I’m not there and I’m terrified you’ll find someone else.
I swear to you that I would never even think of being with someone else. My heart belongs to you, Ben, and only you. You’re the only one I want and I’m not about to walk away from my soulmate. I love you so much. Can we just acknowledge that we both have insecurities, but try not to let them get between us again?
Call me tomorrow. I’ll be home by 10. Love you forever.
February 14th 2003
To: Allie
From: Ben
Happy Valentine’s Day Allie, hope you got my package. It should arrive tomorrow if not today (yeah, I was late putting it in the mail, I know). I’m sorry about not being able to be there for spring break. I really tried to get my leave approved, but we’re going into the field for three days next week and I couldn’t skip it. They should let me take some leave soon, I have days to burn. Love you, I’ll call you tonight.
February 15th 2003
To: Ben
From: Allie
Thank you so much babe, I love the necklace. It’s so beautiful! I’ll call you in a few hours but I wanted to thank you right away!
February 27th 2003
To: Allie
From: Ben
Hi babe, I just got word I’m going for training. I leave in the morning and I’ll be gone for six weeks. I don’t think I’ll have access to a computer, but hopefully I’ll be able to call a few times. I love you, sorry for not being able to get hold of you to tell you in person.
April 13th 2003
To: Allie
From: Ben
Call me, please. Something happened I need to talk to you Allie. Please.
Chapter Eleven
April 2003
“Ben?” Allie asked the moment the phone was picked up. She didn’t even wait for him to say a word.
“Allie, hi.”
“What’s wrong? You said something happened?”
“Do you have a few minutes? This isn’t something I can say quick.”
“Yeah. I’m home.”
“I thought you were working tonight.”
“I was supposed to but they cancelled my shift. I needed the time to study so it wasn’t a big deal. But enough about me. What’s going on?”
“I got my orders today.”
Fear and dread washed over her at his words. The only reason he would be so serious about anything was if it was bad news.
“Orders?” she almost whispered as she leaned back against the wall.
“We’re shipping out.”
“What? When?”
“Officially five weeks from now.”
“Where are you going?”
“Iraq.”
“Ben…”
“The tour is a year. I’ll be gone for a year.”
“But…”
“Allie?”
“Five weeks. Okay. We can deal with that. I’m done finals in less than a week and a half. When I’m done I can come to you. We’ll have three weeks together before you leave and—”
“I’m leaving for training in a week.”
“What?”
“We have to train for a month before we go. Desert warfare, other stuff that’s not important. I only have a week and then I’ll be gone.”
“Fine. I’ll go to wherever that place is, get a cheap motel room and see you when you’re not training—”
“You can’t, Allie. We’re not allowed visitors and it’s a secure base. Once I’m there it’s the same as me leaving.”
“No! It’s not fair.”
“Allie—”
“We were supposed to have the summer. We were supposed to have last summer. We were supposed to have time before this happened.”
“Baby—”
“Fuck school. I’ll blow off finals and come now. I can leave tomorrow, or tonight! Do they have flights overnight? I can be ready in an hour—”
“Baby, please, listen to me.”
“No. If I listen to you then you’ll tell me I can’t blow off school and I have to finish. Then you’ll tell me it’ll be too late and you’ll already be gone.”
“Allie—”
“I don’t want you to go, Ben. I don’t want you to go over there. People are dying over there. Every day people are dying and I don’t want you to die—”
“Allie—”
“You’re supposed to marry me. We’re supposed to live a long and happy life. You’re not supposed to die in a fucking desert on the other side of the planet—”
“Allie, stop!”
She bit her lip to keep quiet, and it was only then she noticed there were tears streaming down her face.
“I have to go. It’s my job.” His voice was clear but she could hear the emotion behind it. “It’s why I joined and it’s what I have to do. I hate leaving you for so long, but when I come home we’ll have lots of time together. I have to do this.”
“Ben…”
“We both knew it was going to happen. The moment I joined this was going to happen.”
“I know,” she whispered. “I just hate that it’s so soon.”
“I know. So do I.” He sighed heavily. “I have to call you back. I haven’t told Mom and Dad yet. I wanted to tell you first.”
“Sure, but you’ll call later?”
“I promise.”
“Okay.”
The phone clicked and the call ended.
Ben was leaving. He was going to war. He was leaving her to go to war.
She felt numb as she put the phone down and stared at the wall. He was right. They’d known this day was coming. He’d told her at Christmas it was probably going to happen. She’d known it, but that didn’t make it any
easier to deal with.
Ben was leaving, and he might not come home.
* * * * *
For the next week Allie and Ben spent as much of their free time as they could on the phone. She looked forward to hearing his voice every day, but dreaded his calls because it meant they were one day closer to him leaving.
On the last day before he left they were on the phone until two in the morning. After they’d hung up Allie had spent an hour lying in her bed staring at the ceiling. She was numb again, and she was in shock.
Ben had promised to call her as much as he could, but he had no idea how much access to a phone he’d have, or what he’d be allowed to tell her. She’d wanted to quit her job so she could make sure she was home for the calls, but he’d reminded her she still had bills to pay and needed to keep working.
He managed to call once a week, but the calls weren’t long. He couldn’t tell her much about his training and tried not to talk about leaving. All she knew was the date, he wouldn’t tell her anything else.
He would have sporadic use of a phone and even less chance to use a computer. There would be weeks where she wouldn’t hear from him, but he promised to leave messages if she wasn’t home.
Saying goodbye to him on the last day before he shipped out had been the hardest moment of her life. Watching his bus drive away after basic training, leaving him after their short Christmas visit had been hard, but this was by far the most pain, fear, panic and dread she’d ever experienced.
He’d told her he loved her a dozen times, had promised to be safe and come home to her. She’d tried to be strong, but the moment his voice had cracked as he’d been telling her how she was the best thing to ever happen to him, she’d broken down and sobbed.
Through her tears she’d told him she loved him and had promised to wait for him to come home. He’d asked her to promise three times before he’d let it drop.
He’d said goodbye for the first time in all of their phone calls, and then hung up. She’d stayed curled up on her bed clutching the phone in her hand as she’d let out every bit of emotion she’d locked away since the day he’d told her he was enlisting. She was grateful Casey wasn’t home because he would have probably called an ambulance as she went into hysterics.
She didn’t sleep a wink the entire night and didn’t get out of bed for any reason other than to pee for almost twenty-four hours.
Ben was gone. He’d flown away and was going to fight in a war. The love of her life. Her other half and the only man she would ever love was gone, and he might never come home.
Chapter Twelve
The next three months crawled by.
Allie worked as many hours as she could to cram her days as full as possible. She needed the money, but she needed the distraction more.
It was as though she couldn’t control her emotions. One moment she’d be fine and almost forget Ben was gone. Then she’d see her ring or think of something that would remind her of him, and she’d be hit with a wave of fear and panic. She cried herself to sleep at least twice a week, and watched the news every night and read every paper she could. She went online and searched out the names of the fallen, and she was driving herself crazy.
Ben had told her to stay away from any and all news of what was going on. He’d told her to ignore what people were saying or reporting because the media was going to sensationalize things, and he didn’t want her to freak out over nothing. He didn’t want her to read about something terrible, and then worry for weeks until she could talk to him again.
She’d tried to listen, but after three days she’d needed to know everything.
He managed to call every two to three weeks, and she’d missed two of his phone calls. He’d left her really sweet and long messages, and she felt so terrible for not being home. It was a losing situation. If she was home she was driving herself crazy, but if she was at work she might miss him.
It was affecting every aspect of her life. She wasn’t eating properly, she was barely sleeping and she was burning herself out. She was half a step away from a full breakdown, and she had no one to lean on.
Ben had always been her rock and her confidant. Whenever things were hard or she needed someone, he’d been there. Now she was alone. Her family was useless, she didn’t have any friends to call because she’d alienated them all over the summer while she worked herself to the bone and spent her free time panicking about Ben, and she didn’t want to worry his family.
Nicole had called her every week since he’d left to tell her how their parents were doing, and to cry. She needed to be strong for them, to show them how much she loved and supported Ben, and could be a real sister to Nicole after she and Ben were married.
Her only support system needed her support, so she was completely alone. Other than customers, her coworkers and Casey, she didn’t see anyone.
She didn’t know if she would ever survive a whole year of this, but she would do whatever she had to. Ben was going to come home and she would see him again. She just had to get through the next nine months.
Chapter Thirteen
August 2003
Allie was exhausted.
She’d worked every day for the last two and a half weeks and it was almost time to start getting ready to go back to school. Now that she’d had a chance to get into a routine she was starting to feel normal again.
She worried about Ben constantly, but had stopped watching the news and didn’t read the papers. She didn’t search out the names of the fallen or any other information. Not knowing was hard, but speculating had been killing her.
“You got a letter.”
“What?” She jumped at the voice behind her.
She’d been standing in the kitchen staring at her shelf in the fridge as she tried to figure out what to eat. It looked like it was either a tunafish sandwich or leftover spaghetti.
“You got a letter,” Casey repeated as he reached around her and grabbed a carton of juice. “I tossed it on your bed.”
“Thanks.” She pulled out the bowl of pasta and moved around him as he drank down what was left in the carton. “Is Chantal coming over?”
“Sabrina.” He grinned.
She laughed and put the bowl in the microwave. “What happened to Chantal?”
“She found out about Sabrina.”
“Well, whoever you have over tonight, can you try to keep it down a bit?”
“You gotta work tomorrow? I thought you had a few days off?”
“I do, and I’d actually like to get some sleep.”
“I’ll do my best, but you might want to put on the white noise maker I got you.”
“That works fine until you forget we have a shared wall.” She grinned as she pulled her half-warmed food out of the microwave. “One of these days you’re going to put your headboard right through it and end up in my room.”
“I’ll pull the bed back,” he promised.
“I appreciate it. Have fun with Sabrina.”
“I plan too.”
Chuckling Allie took her bowl, a fork and a can of soda up to her room. She didn’t feel like sitting at the table and being proper. She just wanted to put her pajamas on and read until she fell asleep.
When she got to her room she saw the letter Casey had been talking about, and she almost dropped her bowl and drink.
She knew the stamp on it. It had gone through the military mail system.
She put her food on her desk and rushed over to her bed. Ben hadn’t sent her a written letter yet and she excitedly ripped it open.
Dear Allie,
I know I’m breaking protocol by sending you this letter, and it’s usually the other way around, but I wanted you to be able to read it in my handwriting and not on a screen.
I need you to know I love you more than life itself. I meant what I said, you are my soulmate and my one true love. You are the only woman I’ve ever loved, and that’s why it’s killing me to write this.
Things are hard here. There’s so much going on I can
’t tell you about, can’t talk about. It’s different from what I imagined, and it’s harder. I’m changing. The world is changing, and I know you’re changing.
Nothing would make me happier than coming home to you and starting the life we’d planned, but it can’t be like that anymore. You need to find someone else. You need to find someone better who better fits into your life. I was that person, but I honestly don’t know who I am anymore.
I wish it could be different. This is the hardest thing I’ve ever had to write or even think. It’s over between us. I’m sorry and I love you so much, but it’s the way it has to be.
Take care of yourself. Have the best life you possibly can. Enjoy every moment and reach for your dreams and goals. I love you, Allie, and I hope you have a wonderful and fulfilling life.
Love, always and forever,
Ben
Allie stared at the letter as a wave of cold washed over her. There was a weird sound in her ears, it almost sounded like ocean waves crashing against a rocky shore. Her hand started to shake as her eyes misted over, and it was as if all of her energy rushed out of her body at the same moment.
She didn’t remember falling, didn’t realize it was happening, but she found herself on the floor of her room with Ben’s letter clutched in her hand. Time seemed to stand still. It was as though the entire world stopped spinning and she was trapped in the moment.
“Allie? Are you okay?”
Casey’s voice sounded weird, like it was coming through a filter and was very far away.
“Allie? Come on. Answer me or I’m coming in.”
The room around her began to shift and tilt and her vision began to fade in and out. What was happening to her?