“You have impeccable timing, Janine,” she said.
“Don’t I know it, so….?” she said letting the question hang in the air.
“So, what?” Kristina said, knowing exactly what her friend was talking about.
“Oh my god, Kristina, I’m going to punch you. Did you find him?” Janine said excitedly.
“Actually, I did. We spent the entire afternoon with each other. It was nice,” she said, intentionally leaving out his breakdown.
“Do you think you’ll get anything good from him for the story?” she asked.
Kristina put her head down. The damn story. She knew that was why she was here, but whatever Danny was going through was more than just headline-worthy. She felt torn.
“Hello? Kristina, you still there?” Janine said.
“Yeah, I’m here. Look I’ve got to go. I’ll call you a bit later, okay?” Kristina said.
“Okay, but make sure you do. I have to tell you about my date.”
Kristina laughed. “Sure, I bet you’re dying to tell me, too?”
“You have no idea. Hurry up!” Janine ordered before she hung up.
Kristina’s mind went back to Danny. From the looks of his home, he was drinking too much in an attempt to try and deal with whatever hell he was in. She didn’t know if he would, but she wanted to talk to him about it. Not for her story or her job, but from one best friend to another. Making up her mind, Kristina grabbed her key and coat, and then, headed out the door.
It wasn’t long before she was knocking on Danny’s door. When she got no answer, she tried once more. A loud crash came from inside, followed by a curse. The door yanked open and Danny stood in front of her, wasted. The strong smell of alcohol wafted from him, even though it had only been a few hours since she left him at his car. He must have came straight home and started drinking.
Kristina looked into his eyes and her heart broke. It was as if the man was lost. He was one of the strongest people she knew; but, whatever happened broke his spirit.
“Tina?” he said, as if just realizing she was there. “What are you doing here?”
“I wanted to talk to you about yesterday. But, um…” she let her sentence trail off. She was now unsure of herself and wondered if this was a good idea. She didn’t want to see him like this. It reminded her too much of how her father would look and smell when he drank.
“I can come back,” she said starting to back away.
Danny felt a sudden panic well up in his chest, as he watched Kristina walk back to her car.
Don’t let her go, he said to himself. “Kristina!” he called after her. He would have gone to her, but he felt unsteady on his feet. Kristina stopped and turned around.
“Yeah?” she said.
“Um, you can come in. I, uh, actually would, uh, like someone to talk to,” he said.
She seemed to think it over before walking back to him. She placed her hand flat on his chest. “If I stay, no more alcohol, okay? It’s too hard,” she said, as she looked pleadingly into his eyes.
Even through the alcohol, he knew she meant because of her dad’s drinking problem. He knew how much that had hurt her. His decision was made quickly when he saw the uncertainty in her eyes.
“It’s a deal,” he said, grabbing the door for balance and stepping back to let her inside.
He watched, as she made her way to the kitchen and looked in the cabinets. He wished he didn’t have the haze of alcohol shrouding his mind. He wanted to see her as she really was. She was beautiful. He had always thought so. Now, she was all grown up with a sophisticated grace that he found so sexy.
He watched her float around his kitchen, as if she lived there. The smell of coffee soon wafted from the small room. Kristina brought him cup after cup of very strong coffee, until his balance was back. She sat quietly and watched him; but each time his cup ran low, she refilled it.
“Tina, if I drink anymore I’m going to burst,” he said, as she topped off his cup.
A small, pretty smile played at her lips. “I’m sorry. I used to do that to my father, too. Guess I go a little overboard with the coffee.”
A comfortable silence settled over the room. His thoughts remained on the beautiful woman before him. She chewed at her bottom lip, fiddling with every piece of anything she could find. He knew she was avoiding starting a conversation.
Danny sat back in his chair and dove head first into Pandora’s Box. “What’s on your mind, Kristina? Only time you use to act like this is when you wanted to say something and you didn’t know how.” She chewed her bottom lip, her eyes focusing on nothing. “Tina, please. If you have something to say, just tell me,” he said, looking at her.
She took a breath, her eyes finally meeting his. She sat forward in her chair. “I know that we’ve been apart for years, but there is no one else that I can say I trusted as much as you.” She paused. “I hope you feel the same way about me.” She didn’t wait for him to answer, but continued, “It’s apparent that something is going on with you. I don’t know exactly what happened, but I know its taking its toll on you. I’m asking as your friend, Danny. What’s going on with you that you seem to be falling apart?”
With every word she spoke, Danny felt as if wounds that had never really healed were being torn open, yet again. He knew that the things that Tina had witnessed last night deserved an explanation, but he didn’t know if he could tell her. He hadn’t uttered a word about his ordeal to anyone, not even the military psych they had sent him to when he was called in. It was just too hard to talk about what happened, especially to a complete stranger, but it was something he would never forget.
He looked at Kristina and saw the concern in her eyes. She was never a stranger to him. He saw that she cared about what was going on and it was up to him to put her at ease. He decided, at that moment, that he would try to talk about what happened to her.
“Tina, I’ve witnessed things, even had to do things in Afghanistan, that you wouldn’t dream in your worst nightmares.” His voice caught at the last word. “It’s something that lives with me every day. It’s like I can’t get the memories out of my head.”
His eyes were clouded. The images that haunted him flashed in his mind. All the screams and gunfire, he couldn’t stand the constant roar in his head. He looked at the bottle he had been drinking from earlier and he suddenly wanted a drink. He wanted silence, something to keep his demons at bay once more.
“Danny, I know this is hard for you and I don’t want to force you to do anything that you’re not able to do right now. I just want you to know I’m here for you. You do know that, right?”
Danny looked at his friend, his first love. She was the only person he had ever counted on. She was offering him something that no one else had, a chance to vent without judgment, a chance to unleash without someone calling him crazy when he was done. Maybe it’s what you need, he said to himself.
Kristina got up from the table and grabbed the cup Danny had been drinking from.
“I had been overseas for about a year before it happened.”
She froze midstride and looked at him. He stared off into space, the memories were as fresh as if it happened yesterday, not six months ago.
“My unit was assigned to a low traffic area. It was supposed to be an easy assignment, just watch the roads. Make sure no one snuck up on us or came through unexpected. This particular night, I was on watch with a fellow soldier. All was as it should be or so we thought.
“We had been there for about three hours when I heard rustling off to my left. I listened in, thinking it may have been a wild animal. When we heard the noise again, I told Private First Class Watson I would go check it out.”
Kristina had sat back down, but Danny didn’t notice. He was back to that night.
CHAPTER EIGHT
Danny held his rifle at the ready, as he walked slowly towards where he heard the noise.
“Whose there?” he called out. “Come out, now.”
He got no respons
e. He crept closer to the trees. He was just about to enter into the brush when he heard a sound he would never forget.
He turned slowly. A gun was aimed at his head. The young boy who held it was yelling at him in his native tongue. He could see Watson coming up behind the boy.
“Da silahk janiban!” Danny shouted. “Put the weapon down!”
The boy kept his gun pointed at him and his eyes were locked on Danny’s. Danny repeated the demand once again, but the boy shouted back. When a shot rang out, Danny thought he was hit, but it didn’t make sense. He didn’t feel any pain. His eyes went back to the boy who had turned behind him. Watson lay on the ground. Another boy stood behind him, this one older. He shouted to the young boy who spun his gun back on Danny. Time slowed for Danny, as everything happened at once.
He shouted over and over, “Da silahk janiban! Da silahk janiban! Put your weapon down!”
Danny knew it was no use. He saw the boy flip the safety off his gun. Danny closed his eyes briefly before he pulled the trigger. The boy fell to the floor. Danny’s gun immediately went to the other boy and he fired once more. Tears were in his eyes as he looked at the boys. Life so young, gone, and by his hand.
***
“Why wouldn’t he put the gun down?” he said to no one in particular. “He would still be alive, the older boy, too, if they had just dropped their weapons.”
Kristina moved from her chair to sit on the floor in front of Danny. She watched as different emotions played across his face.
“I can’t get the images out of my head. All the shooting, the bombs, the killing. It’s with me every day, but killing those kids. It makes me sick. It doesn’t seem to matter to me that they were armed and had every intention of killing me. I killed two kids and I can’t handle that.”
The raw pain was written on his face. Suddenly, Kristina felt the need to reach up to Danny and pull him into a hug. “It’s okay, Danny. You had no choice. They were gonna kill you.”
He looked her deep in her eyes.
“Sometimes, I wish they had.”
CHAPTER NINE
When Kristina left Danny’s apartment later that night, she could have cried. His story had been heart wrenching. The pain inside him was a living thing.
She hadn’t known what to say to him or how to make things better for him, even for just a little while. All she could do was offer him support, hug him when he needed to be hugged, hold him, and tell him it would be okay, even if she didn’t know if she spoke the truth.
She asked him if he would seek professional counseling and he immediately rejected the idea. He told her he couldn’t imagine talking to a complete stranger about what happened. She decided not to push him on the issue. Instead, she would just be there for him, as best as she could.
Back in her hotel room she dialed Janine’s number.
“Yeah?” she answered.
“I’m screwed,” Kristina told her friend.
“Whatcha mean?” she asked.
“I can’t use him for the story. Not now. I just can’t.”
‘What’s wrong?” Janine asked. “Did he find out about the story and refuse?”
“No, it’s nothing like that. It’s just,” she searched for the words. “He’s dealing with some heavy duty shit. He opened up to me tonight. He trusted me enough to tell me what happened to him overseas. I could never betray his trust and use that against him.”
Janine was silent on the other end of the phone.
“So what are you gonna do? You know Cooley’s gonna be pissed,” Janine said. “Although, I can’t find it in me to care.”
“Yeah, I know. He’s just gonna have to be happy with the two profiles or a third, if I can find someone else.”
“So, it’s that heavy, huh?” Janine asked.
“Yeah, it’s that heavy. I have no idea how to help him either. I mean I’m not a doctor or nothing, but shit, I would like to take some of this off of him. He’s being crushed beneath the weight of it all,” Kristina said, as she thought back to earlier this evening.
“All I can say is be there for him. Let him know he can count on you. Beyond that I’m as lost as you are, sweetie. Maybe he’ll seek help when he’s ready,” her friend said.
“Yeah, I had already planned on that. The man has a lot to deal with. If he doesn’t start dealing with it, it’s gonna eat him alive.”
“That’s some pretty messed up shit, Kris. Let me know if I can help.”
“I will. Thanks, love. I’m going to shower and pass out. It’s been a long day.”
“I hear ya. Call me tomorrow.”
“I will,” Kristina said. Then, she disconnected the call, as she looked at her bed. She never made it to the shower because she was asleep in seconds.
***
Danny paced across his living room. He wanted to scream. His head hurt from all the noise going on inside. His glance kept going to the Kettle One on the coffee table and his mouth watered for a drink. Shaking his head, he kept pacing.
“Take a breath,” Kristina told him, “It will pass, Danny. Just breathe.”
He looked at Tina, as she sat in the only other seat in the living room. They were in the middle of their routine. She offered her support when he had a bad moment, like he was having now, and every time he made it to the other side.
From talking to her this past week, he also realized the alcohol was causing him to deal with things in all the wrong ways. Admittedly, it was the only way he knew how, but it wasn’t working. It was just making him an alcoholic. He hadn’t realized how much he had been drinking until Tina had lined up all his empty bottles of Kettle One. When she had finished counting, he cringed at the number. After returning from Afghanistan, a haze of alcohol had settled over him, especially since he didn’t know what to do with the feelings that welled up inside him.
He kept pacing, trying not to look at the bottle. He didn’t know how he was going to do it, but he wanted to find a way to deal with this without liquor. He glanced at Kristina and thought about how she made all this easier. He wasn’t afraid to express how he felt around her.
If it all became too much, he knew he could break down and she would be right there, offering him support. She didn’t press him to talk, but instead waited for him to speak about his feelings. It meant the world to him that she was here. He didn’t know what he had done right to have her helping him through this; but, he counted his lucky stars that she was.
As Danny paced, the screaming in his head slowly lessened and the tightness in his chest began to ease. The two faces that haunted his dreams faded, but didn’t disappear. He was starting to think they never would, but at least the panic he felt when he saw them seemed to lessen. It seemed like each episode was a little less painful. He stopped pacing and wiped the sweat from his forehead.
“How are you?” Kristina asked.
Danny took a couple deep breaths. “Better.” It was all he could get out.
Kristina nodded her head and rose from her chair. Grabbing her keys, she looked at Danny and said, “Now, give me your credit card.”
He looked at her like she had grown a second head. She laughed deep in her throat, the laughter actually reached her eyes. It made her even more beautiful, if such a thing were even possible. “I’m just trying to buy you some groceries. You have nothing to eat here,” Kristina said.
He reached in his wallet and pulled out his debt card.
“I’ll be checking the statement,” he said, joking with her.
She gave him a dirty look before she walked out of the door.
CHAPTER TEN
The next week was a busy one for Kristina. She somehow found the time to fly to Chicago and do an interview with a mother who had been in the Air Force for six years. Once the interview was over, she rushed back to the airport. She couldn’t wait to get back to Humble. She never thought she would ever say that, but she wanted to hurry back to Danny.
She tried to tell herself that it was because she wanted to make sure he wasn
’t drinking. She knew it was a lie. She enjoyed the time she spent with him, getting to know him all over again. She was starting to remember why she fell in love with him all those years ago. Even in tough moments, when he was at his worst, she admired him because he fought so hard to not break. He had been doing well in his plan not to drink, only slipping once since he began.
It was a short flight, but it seemed to drag on for an eternity. She sped to Danny’s house once she reached her car. The entire drive, her mind was on Danny.
She felt antsy. She wanted to see his handsome face. She loved the way he smiled even when he wanted to do nothing but cry. She wanted to see him run his hand through his hair when he got frustrated or hear his nervous laugh when he got through one of his attacks. She was utterly in love with the man and she knew it. There was nothing she could do to stop it and she wouldn’t even if she could.
Hot Extraction: SEALs, Marines, and Infantry - A Military Romance Boxed Set Page 40