by Hannah Ford
“How long ago did this happen?” I said, still reeling from everything these men were telling me.
“Approximately two years ago, ma’am,” said Lance.
Caden spoke next. “Zack was awarded The Distinguished Service Cross for what he did in Afghanistan.”
I knew that Zack was running from his past, but it never occurred to me that he’d been running from friends, from people that were like brothers to him. He was running away from anyone and everyone he’d ever known.
“Why do you think he won’t speak to you?” I asked Lance.
“We don’t know why,” Lance said. “There are people who want to find him, including us and his family. But also there’s some folks who want to tell his story, put his name out there as a hero. Perhaps he’s running from all of that stuff—the notoriety, the fame he might get.” Lance shrugged, finally. “We don’t know because he refuses to speak to us. Just runs from one town to the next, fighting, drinking, fucking random…” his voice trailed off.
I felt my face flush but kept my chin high. “Yes, he’s quite active, isn’t he?”
“Apologies, ma’am, no offense. You seem like a very quality person, but Zack has not been with any one person or in any one city for long since he got out of the military.”
“Yeah, I gathered as much.” I sighed and shook my head. “I wish I could help you all, but in case you hadn’t noticed, Zack left me too. That’s why we’re all standing here together.”
And then my cell phone began ringing.
I pulled it from my purse and looked at it. The number was blocked. I answered, my heart beating fast. “Hello?”
“Caeli, are you with them right now?” the familiar voice asked.
“Yes,” I said.
His friends moved closer, staring at me as I spoke.
He urged me with a low rumble through the phone. “Can you get away from them? I need to see you.”
“I don’t know if that’s such a good idea,” I replied.
Zack’s breath hissed into the cell phone. “Caeli,” he said, his voice sounding almost panicked. “I need to see you, but I can’t…I won’t deal with them right now. Just get free and meet me in front of the Hotel Buckminster.”
“All right.” I hung up the phone.
My thoughts were spinning, and I was left feeling as if I was trying desperately to catch up in a math class where the teacher has moved on and you’re ten problems behind.
“I’m sorry,” I said, turning to Lance.
He looked down, knowing that Zack wanted nothing to do with them.
ZACK
This was the worst it had ever been.
I was back, all the way back.
I’d just hung up the phone with Caeli and pushed my way into the hotel and asked to use their restroom. I was sweating, and I must have looked pale.
The concierge gave me a strange sidelong glance. “Just down the hall, sir,” he told me in heavily accented English.
When his hand slid beneath the desk, I had the sudden urge to drag him by his tie and scream a warning in his face.
Don’t fuck with me!
I bit the inside of my cheek until I tasted blood, coppery and fresh, and I managed not to yell, but I felt like a live wire about to explode.
Inside the bathroom, I made my way to the stall, locked the door and sat down on the toilet.
I put my head into my hands and my body was racked by shivers. “Fuck, fuck, fuck.”
Chase is looking at me, he’s next to me, laughing. “Dude, you should see your face,” he cackles, slapping his knee.
FLASH.
And then his face is disintegrating into blood and bone and flesh and I’m smelling acrid gun smoke.
Darkness.
Gun in my hand as I fire over and over, running, chasing those fuckers down. Mowing them down as they flee before me like the animals they are. I’m shouting and screaming, and I’m death itself.
Another flash.
Now I’m crawling through dirt and sand and stone, trying to stay low.
I can hear voices so close that I know it’s only a matter of time before a bullet enters my brain or severs my spine and then it will all be over.
My leg stings, seared with pain.
I grit my teeth and look up to the blue sky and see a helicopter fly overhead, and I scream again.
Someone knocked on the restroom door.
“Zack? Are you in there?” the soft voice called. It was her—Caeli—my angel bringing me back to Earth, out of the hell I’d been stuck in a moment ago.
I sat up, blinking. I got off the toilet and opened the stall door. “I’m not feeling well,” I called out.
“I’ll wait out here,” came her muffled reply.
I went to the sink and started the faucet running, and then I splashed my face again and again. Patted my skin down with paper towels, crumpled them up and threw them out.
Thinking of Caeli out there, waiting for me, somehow I calmed just a little. I took a deep breath and looked at myself in the mirror. My skin was pale and waxy, and my lips were stark and red in comparison.
I looked like a fucking vampire or something.
And then I was trying to smile as I exited the bathroom. She was standing there, gorgeous, sweet, vulnerable.
I felt so sick over bringing her into all of this madness—my madness.
“Caeli,” I said, reaching out and touching her cheek.
She blinked, smiled at me. “Are you okay?” she asked.
Am I okay? I’m never fucking okay.
I nodded. “I think so.”
Her smile faded. “Why didn’t you tell me?”
“Tell you what?” I said, feeling sick that she wanted to know more. My stomach lurched. My legs suddenly were jittery.
“Your friends told me about…everything,” she said. “How you were considered a hero for what you did in Afghanistan and how you came back to the U.S. and then you took off, refused to talk to anyone.”
It was as if Lance was talking out of Caeli’s mouth. I stepped back, away from her, pressing into the wall. “I don’t know what you’re talking about,” I said.
I heard gunfire in the background, and then screams.
“Zack,” she said, looking at me with worry. “What is it?”
“I can’t talk about this shit,” I whispered. “I’m not ever going to talk about this shit. You understand that I’m finished, right? I might look normal on the outside, but inside there’s…there’s nothing left.”
“You’re not finished,” she replied, color rising to her cheeks.
“You don’t understand what I’ve been through.”
“I can’t understand what you refuse to tell me.” Her eyes didn’t waver.
I felt a wave of anger pass through me and my fists clenched. “I don’t want to talk about it because I know what will happen if I do. You think they didn’t give me appointments with shrinks when I came back home? When I was in the hospital getting well?”
“I—I don’t know what they did,” she said, sounding unsure.
“They had me in therapy, they had me talking about my feelings, remembering the shit I went through, reliving it, and nothing got better. Nothing got better from talking about it and remembering it. What got better was when I drank and fucked until I couldn’t think straight.”
“That’s no way to live,” Caeli said.
“It’s how I live, though.” My eyes focused on hers.
“That’s a choice,” Caeli said. Her big eyes looked at me with so much caring, so much love and understanding and it was like she saw me and the emptiness and madness and she didn’t care about that stuff at all.
She saw past it, to whatever was left of who I used to be.
And then I felt as though someone had just given me oxygen, brought me back to life. I felt the breath come into my lungs and I sucked it in, gasping.
I fell back into the wall, gasping over and over, like a fish that had been taken out of the water, my mout
h opening and closing. I slid down and she cried out, running over to me as I sank to the floor.
“Zack,” she said, grabbing my arms. “What’s wrong? Oh my God. Zack. Zack.” She was shaking me but I couldn’t speak.
It felt like everything was crumbling and my body was shaking and vibrating and I was coming apart at the seams.
I’m dying.
I’m dying, but it’s okay.
I looked into her eyes, trying to breathe and just say her name one time before it was all over.
And then I sobbed, and it came out of me. I wasn’t choking or dying at all, I realized, as tears poured down my face.
I was crying.
Fucking crying for the first time in years.
And she was wrapping her arms around me then, and I held her close, never wanting to let her go. “Caeli,” I whispered, as the tears poured down my face, and I tasted salt and I smelled her pure scent.
“It’s going to be okay, Zack,” she whispered to me, her forehead pressed tightly to mine.
“I lost my brothers,” I told her, and my chest seized again as I felt another sob wrack my body.
I remembered them, their smiling faces, the sounds of their voices.
I remembered it all.
Watching them die.
Losing my mind, fighting and killing, hiding for four days and knowing that everything was finished for me. I was no better than a rat scurrying, trying to find a hole to hide in, and when they finally got me out of that hell and back to the States, I never really felt like I’d left.
The memory of that barren place and the stink of death never left me, not for one second.
So I left myself.
“It’s okay,” Caeli said again, stroking my head. “You’re going to be okay.”
I nodded, finally starting to believe a little bit. “Maybe,” I said. I grabbed her hand in mine. I finally looked at her again, as I caught my breath.
“You’ve been through a lot,” Caeli continued. “You shouldn’t expect everything to be normal for awhile, maybe never again. But you’ll find a new normal.”
“Maybe we’ll find it together,” I said, stroking her cheek. “If you could stand being with a maniac like me.”
“I could more than stand it,” she laughed, her cheeks reddening like they did when she was embarrassed or angry.
Down the hall, I could see the concierge peering worriedly at us from his desk.
“I should get out of here before they call the cops on me,” I said, getting to my feet and brushing myself off, straightening my clothes.
“I have to tell you something before you go out there,” Caeli replied.
“Yeah?”
“I brought Lance and the rest of your squad with me,” she said.
I just stared at her. “You did what?”
“They’ve been looking for you a long time,” she said, imploring me.
I felt like she’d just knifed me in the gut. “You had no right to bring them here,” I said. “Go out there and tell them to leave, Caeli.” I pointed down the hall, my voice rising.
“No,” she said. “If you want them to leave, tell them yourself.”
“I’ll talk to them in a few days, but I have to get my head straight first. Okay?”
“I think you’re saying that to stall for time,” Caeli replied calmly. “You’ve been avoiding this for years, but you can’t run away from it anymore. It’s time to see them, talk to them—“
“You want me to talk to them?” I said, laughing loudly, so loudly that now the concierge came out from behind his desk and started towards us.
“Sir, is anything the matter?” he asked.
“No, not at all,” I told him, but my voice was shaking strangely. I began walking, feeling my pulse rise as if I was about to fight.
I moved fast down the hall and brushed past the concierge.
Sitting on the fancy leather chairs in the lobby were my brothers, and they were all waiting. They were watching me, and Lance stood up first.
“Zack,” he said.
“Fuck you,” I told him, my fists clenching. “You come at me when I tell you I’m done, you’re going to lose some teeth, motherfucker.”
Zack laughed. “You’re going to fight me?”
I felt like all of them were laughing at me. I turned to the concierge, who was shouting for security.
“You all want something from me?” I screamed, feeling my veins practically burst out of my neck, my head. I ripped my shirt off. “Come on, motherfuckers. You didn’t get enough of me in Afghanistan, huh? I didn’t spill enough blood? You want more? What do you want next?” I shouted, my ears ringing.
I kicked one of the big black leather chairs and it spun into the wall.
My brothers came at me then, and I swung once, connected with someone’s face, and then they were on top of me, grabbing me.
I was dragged out of the hotel and into the street, and I was trying to fight, but there were five of them and just one of me.
Their hands grabbed my arms and legs, and I heard them communicating with each other so efficiently, calmly, just like back in the day.
Working as a team to subdue the enemy.
Only now I’m the enemy
I’m going to kill them because they won’t ever leave me alone.
They dragged me around the corner.
I saw Caeli following as they dragged me, her eyes frightened. “Don’t hurt him!” she said.
Hurt me?
I laughed. I tried to break free and finally managed to do so.
Lance stepped forward. “The fight is over, soldier,” he said. “We’re your friends.”
“If you’re my friend, you’ll leave. Me. Alone.”
He stared at me, as the others looked away, looked down, hands on hips, everyone breathing heavily.
“I just never got a chance to thank you for what you did, Zack. You saved my life. You saved their lives too. We all wanted to tell you that much, at least.”
They all nodded, then saying thanks. They looked right at me.
They thanked me for saving them, on behalf of wives and kids and families.
I groaned and put my face in my hands as the scenes flashed before my eyes.
“No,” I said. “Please stop it.”
And then they were around me again. Lance was talking as the brothers huddled in, circling me, but this time I didn’t fight them.
“We’ve been where you are right now,” Lance said. “I was in the VA for six months when I got home. I cracked up.”
“I drank every day for a fucking year,” Caden said.
“You need us now.”
“You took care of us and now it’s our turn to take care of you,” Lance said, and someone put a hand on my neck and squeezed.
I closed my eyes tight and nodded, knowing it was over.
I hadn’t just been out in the wilderness for four days in Afghanistan. In truth, I’d never left—I’d been stranded out there ever since.
But they’d finally come and got me.
CAELI
I felt tears stinging my eyes as I watched Zack’s fellow marines surround him, protecting him, talking to him.
A sob rolled through my chest but I bit down on my lip, trying not to draw any attention to myself, not wanting them to lose this moment that had been so long in coming.
To think that Zack Wild was so different from what I’d originally thought.
In the beginning, I’d been sure that he was some dumb frat boy, some preppy college dude, arrogant and empty-headed.
Later, I’d been sure he was bad news, on the run from the law or a bad past.
His drinking and womanizing had been obvious, but it had never in a million years occurred to me that he might have been a brave soul who was a war hero.
An actual hero.
He’d saved lives, risked his own, and lived to talk about it.
Zack Wild had been to hell and back, and he bore the scars from it both outside and inside.
The real Zack…
And I think I might be falling in love with him.
Let’s be real, Caeli. The falling is over and done with. You’re in love with this man, however crazy that might be.
But did he love me back? Could he ever love me the way I felt I was capable of loving him?
As the marines stood in Kenmore Square, huddled up, heads bowed, talking, arms around one another, I knew that whatever else—Zack had been reunited with the people who cared about him most.
After another minute or two, the group finally began to move apart, and now Zack stood there, legs spread, hands down at his sides.
Lance saluted him first, followed by the others.
Zack nodded, laughing. “Okay,” he said. “Okay.”
Lance broke free of his salute and then gave Zack a big bear hug. The two of them were whispering for a moment, before Zack looked up at me, waving me towards him.
I felt like a bit of an outsider, but the marines were all smiling, looking at me with kindness, which helped.
When I got close to Zack, he grabbed me by the hand. “The boys and me have some catching up to do,” he said, almost apologetically.
“Of course,” I replied instantly. I tried not to show the pain that flashed through me.
He’s leaving me, I thought. He’s going with them and he’ll forget all about me.
“Listen,” Zack said, his voice lowering as he rubbed my hand with his thumb while looking at me with those brilliant green eyes of his. “I need to do this.”
“I know you do,” I smiled.
“But I’m coming back to you. I want you to wait for me, I’ll be there later, okay?”
I nodded. “Sure.”
“I’m serious,” he said. “Caeli, take the train back to your apartment and wait for me there.”
“I will.”
He squeezed my hand and then he leaned in and kissed me. I savored it, wondering if it would be our last.
Wondering if he was free to finally fly away, back to Ohio, back to his real home and his real family.
***