by Lila Price
“We’re going into the city. So get ready, we should hit the road soon.”
I looked at him as I stood up, and he glanced at me in return. His green eyes were so kind and soft, and I wanted it all to be true.
I wanted to ask him when the next heartbreak would come. Just warn me and then I can at least prepare myself, I thought. I don’t want to be surprised when you run away from me—when you eventually reject me as you certainly will.
But then I just smiled, swallowing the lump in my throat. “I’m ready now,” I said. “I’ll just get my shoes on.”
“You do that,” he said. “I’m going to finish my coffee.”
I went to the bedroom and grabbed my flats, assuming we’d be walking around the city—I didn’t want to navigate cobblestone streets in heels.
And I found tears stirring behind my eyes but I blinked them back.
***
We took a cab to the T station and then waited for the train to take us into the city. Zack held my hand and when a very frustrated middle-aged woman showed up at the stop, yelling into her cell phone at some unknown offending person, Zack started pretending to be the person on the other line.
Zack was reacting to her comments as if he was a henpecked husband, crumbling under her brutal questioning. Every time she spoke into the phone, he would answer in my ear with a hysterically whiny voice that sounded nothing like him.
He was so funny and almost bizarrely believable at his acting that I began to laugh so hard the woman turned and shot us a glare that might have killed us.
Surely, it was intended to do so.
We turned away from her and laughed all the harder.
The train came soon after the two of us sat next to one another, still holding hands as the scenery passed by us outside.
He was so different then he’d first seemed. Like an altogether new person. No, that wasn’t quite right.
He wasn’t totally new. It was more like he was so fully real and present and…normal…that I thought something had to be wrong.
Because I also knew that he fought other large men for a living—fought them in backyards and who knew where else. Punched strangers until they fell down.
Had tattoos and a mysterious past and people chasing him.
Yet here we were, together on a train heading into Boston, and Zack was laughing and joking, his green eyes bright and alive and warm with affection for me.
It couldn’t be true and yet it felt so incredible that I refused to allow the dream to end. I was just going to hang onto it for dear life.
The train let us off in the heart of Boston and we wandered over to Kenmore Square. The day was bright and sunny and students were wandering the streets, as were the office workers and the hipsters on their phones, carrying laptops and tablets, groups of students walking together.
Zack’s hand never left mine.
“Hungry?” he asked, and I admitted I was.
We went to a nearby little hole in the wall bar that served incredible sandwiches, and we sat in a small booth by the window and ate sandwiches and chips and I chomped happily on a pickle.
“What next?” I asked, as I saw him checking the time on his phone.
“Who says there’s something next?”
“I know you’ve got something planned, Zack,” I said, playing with the little toothpick that had once been stuck in my sandwich, poking the last bit of my pickle with it.
“Maybe I do,” he said, “but I’m not telling you what it is. Come on, let’s go pickle girl.”
“I’m not pickle girl!” I said, slapping playfully at his shoulder.
He slid out of the booth and offered his hand. I felt myself suddenly blush, because for a moment I felt like Cinderella with my Prince Charming, which I knew was completely ridiculous.
I allowed him to take my hand and help me out of the booth. We walked out of the bar, arm in arm, and he slowed down his stride to match me as we continued towards the big CITGO sign looming overhead.
When we were outside Fenway Park, Zack stopped and haggled with a thin guy who sported a heavy five o’clock shadow. He got us two tickets behind home plate and paid the man from his stack of cash.
As we walked away, I grabbed his arm. “You didn’t need to pay so much!” I cried.
“It’s just money,” Zack said, turning his head towards me now. His eyes were so solid, so soft, and I didn’t know how to deal with it, so I looked away.
“I would’ve been happy up in the bleachers.”
“With those animals?” he said, grinning. “My girl deserves better than that.”
I bit my lip so hard I nearly drew blood.
His girl?
He just called me his girl. Was it an accident? Is he teasing me?
I tried to catch my breath, but this whole change in demeanor was so strange, and I didn’t know if I could trust it. In fact, I was fairly certain I couldn’t trust it at all. But I wanted to, I needed to.
Everything with Zack felt so good, so right. His body, his mind, the way he talked, the sound of his voice, the curve of his lips when he smiled…
We went into the stadium and found our seats. The game was just about to start, but Zack managed to wrangle us a couple of sodas and a pretzel to share—not that I needed anymore food.
But it was fun to sit close to him, his arm around me, warming me as the air was just chill enough to make me shiver without his body heat.
We sipped our drinks, nibbled on our pretzel, and cheered for Boston in a game that was fairly eventful.
The pitchers didn’t perform well on the day, which turned out to be a blessing in disguise, because there were lots of hits, a few home runs, and the crowd was on its feet consistently.
Zack was standing up, whistling, cheering, clapping.
When a song played over the loudspeakers, he would sing loud along with everyone else.
I kept looking at him, unable to process what I was seeing. At one point, he turned and looked at me. “What’s with you?” he said, nudging me with his elbow.
“Nothing. I just can’t figure out if I’m with a stunt double for Zack Wild.”
“That’s fucked up,” he said, shaking his head but laughing.
“You’re so different,” I told him.
“Different from what? You just met me.”
I nodded. “It’s just a feeling. Like—a switch flipped and everything’s changed and…”
“Hey,” he said, grabbing my hand and looking into my eyes. “Just trust it,” he said. “Trust me even though I don’t deserve it. Let me prove myself.”
I nodded, wanting to so badly. “Okay,” I whispered.
And then his lips were on mine and the camera caught us, and suddenly we were up on the big screen and the whole crowd was cheering us momentarily.
***
After the game, we were making our way slowly out of Fenway with the rest of the crowd.
As we were heading past the restrooms towards the exits, someone began calling Zack’s name.
At first, Zack appeared to ignore the voice, but then I noticed him beginning to speed up, his legs moving faster, so much so that I was having trouble keeping up.
“Come on,” he said, suddenly darting in between a group of heavyset men who all yelled at him as he knocked one of their beers out of their hands.
I was unable to move with him and instead walked around the men, and then Zack was waving at me to follow him. His face looked almost panicked, and then he looked past me and his eyes hardened.
“Zack!” someone yelled from just behind me.
I turned and saw a tall blond man wearing a Red Sox sweatshirt. He had long sideburns and he was clearly built and fit. The blond man’s eyes darted to me and then to Zack.
“Leave me alone,” Zack said.
I turned my head, watching both men uncertainly.
“Dude, we need to talk,” the blond man told him. “It’s time.”
“I got nothing to say and you should know that by now,” Zack told him.
The man shook his head and then looked at me. “Are you his girlfriend?” he asked. His blue eyes were piercing.
I gave a half-shrug. “Who are you?”
“My name’s Lance Barrett,” he said, outstretching his hand to shake mine. I grasped his hand and he firmly shook mine, still looking at me.
“And how do you know Zack?”
“We served together,” he said.
I nodded as if this made sense, and it did—a little. “I’m sorry,” I said, “but I don’t really know what’s going on.”
“Don’t talk to him, Caeli,” Zack said, not moving from where he stood.
Lance turned and pointed back towards the restrooms. There was a small group of men, all of them sporting short hair and similarly fit builds.
“Friends are here to see you, Zack,” Lance said. “It’s time to face up to it.”
Zack swore under his breath. Then he looked up. “Come on, Caeli. Let’s go.” He reached for me and I crossed to where he stood, felt his hand on my arm, pulling me closer as if to protect me.
“Dude, you can’t keep running from this,” Lance called out. “You need us and we need you.”
“Fuck off,” Zack replied, and then turned, pulling me with him as we went out to Yawkey Way.
“What’s going on?” I said, as he started up with a brisk pace. “Zack, I can’t keep up with you when you walk this fast.”
“Then run,” he said, his voice suddenly aggressive.
I felt tears sting my eyes and I stopped short.
Zack stopped too, looked down at his feet. “I shouldn’t have yelled at you,” he said softly as people streamed around us.
“Who are those guys? What do they want?”
“I don’t know and I don’t care,” he said.
“Zack, that guy said his name was Lance and that he served with you in the military.”
He shrugged. “I don’t like to talk about it.”
“Well maybe you need to.”
He looked up at me, green eyes flashing with anger now. “What the hell would you know about it?”
I stepped back, and felt my cheeks flame. “Don’t talk to me like that.”
“I just need to clear my head.”
“You need to stay and deal with this.” I looked over and saw Lance and the other four men standing not far away, watching us.
Zack glanced at them and shook his head. “No, I don’t think I do.”
“Then go on and leave,” I said, folding my arms.
“And you’re going to stay?” he said, smirking with disbelief.
“I’m not running anywhere.”
His eyes grew harder and colder still. “Fine,” he said, sneering a little. “You have no idea…no idea…” he seemed unable to even complete his thought, and then finally he just turned and moved off, away from me without looking back.
Soon, he’d disappeared into the crowd.
I felt myself choking back tears, staring at the crowd of people, waiting for Zack to reappear. And then I felt a hand on my shoulder.
“You okay, ma’am?”
I turned and saw not just Lance, but also his four buddies all surrounding me. I licked my lips and tried to smile. “I’m Caeli,” I said. “And you all must be friends of Zack’s?”
“That we are, ma’am,” a shorter guy with a dark beard said.
They introduced themselves to me, then. There was the tall blond Nordic fellow, Lance, and then the bearded fellow, Brant. The others were Steve, Caden, and Darrell.
“I’m afraid I don’t really know Zack all that well,” I admitted to them. “I didn’t even know he’d served in the military to be honest.”
None of them registered any surprise.
Lance spoke up again. “We know that Zack didn’t probably talk to you about his service, ma’am. After he got out of Afghanistan and came home, he up and left everyone and everything he knew back in Ohio and moved around. Nobody could locate him—not his family, not his friends, not the people he served with.”
I felt fear and anxiety lance my belly, piercing me deeply. This was it.
I knew he’d been running from something. Something terrible.
“Did he do something wrong?” I said.
They all exchanged glances.
“Are they going to arrest him or something?” I asked, my hands fluttering as the thought bubbled to my lips, unbidden.
Lance was the first to smile ruefully. “Quite the opposite, actually. Zack isn’t some deserter. He’s not getting court-martialed for breaking the law.”
“No?”
“He’s a war hero, ma’am.”
Brant spoke next. “He saved our lives over in Afghanistan. We got ambushed in Kabul by a large group of Taliban fighters,” he said.
“We lost three of our brothers during the skirmish,” Lance said, “and five others sustained major injuries. It was a bloodbath.”
Despite the crowds surging around us and past us as we stood in the middle of busy Yawkey Way outside Fenway Park, I felt like the six of us were totally alone.
Everything else seemed to drop away as the enormity of what they were telling me took hold.
I recalled Zack’s tattoo of the tombstone with the word Kabul etched into it—that tattoo which I knew meant something. But I’d had no clue just what it meant.
“I’m so sorry,” I said, feeling completely at a loss to absorb their pain and suffering. I could see it still in their expressions, in their eyes, which looked much too old for the eyes of people just a little older than me.
“Zack took on the enemy singlehandedly,” Lance told me. “He drew them away from our position, allowing us to escape with our wounded. But as a result, he ended up being out in the wilderness by himself, fighting and avoiding the Taliban for four days.”
“He was alone for four days?” I said, my skin chilling.
“Yes ma’am,” Caden replied seriously.
“We were finally able to locate him on that fourth day,” Lance said. “He was severely dehydrated, he’d sustained a bullet graze along his calf muscle that had become infected and septic. He was in bad shape, so they shipped him back to the states to be treated and then he was released from further duty overseas and honorably discharged.”
“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 sai
d.
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.