Compromising

by C. C. Brown

I was fanning him down when I heard Dalton’s voice behind me, worried and irritated all at the same time. “What the hell are you two doing at this type of party?”

  “What are you doing here is the real question,” I answered, rising much too quickly and suddenly feeling the effects of the jungle juice.

  “I couldn’t find Johnson, and when I texted him, he told me you guys were here. Why? These meatheads are out of their minds drunk. What the hell, Cassie?”

  “Don’t lecture us,” I slurred, hot flashes ravaging my body as sweat began to coat my skin. “You must be Ben,” I said, reaching out my hand to his.

  “Ben, this is Cassie, and this is Johnson. Sorry you can’t meet sober people tonight.”

  Johnson flew to his feet, stumbling a little but catching his balance enough to face Dalton and scream out his frustrations. “You bring your out of town ass here and have the nerve to be condescending towards me? Some fucking nerve, Dalton. Some fucking nerve.”

  I looked between the three men, feeling guilty for the jolt of excitement that I felt with each passing moment. This was juicy, and even though I knew it was wrong, I wanted to hold my front row seat to this show. Ben looked completely mortified, and for a second I wondered if he had known that something was going on with Johnson. Of course, bringing Ben around Johnson would be risky, so I decided that he knew and that he just wasn’t used to confrontation. Either way, this was better than anything I had going on, and I was interested in seeing how it would play out.

  “You are drunk and embarrassing yourself. We will talk about this later. Now is not the time, and this is certainly not the place,” Dalton harshly whispered in Johnson’s ear, holding him steady before he fell over.

  “Does Ben know about me?” Johnson asked, looking back and forth between the two men.

  I never got the chance to hear his reply because, in a split second, I was down on my knees, sweating like a pig and puking incessantly. My stomach roiled with every movement, swirling and jumbling like a terrorizing ride on an unforgettable roller coaster. This was far from enjoyable, and I wanted off, but the vomit just kept coming. Dalton held my hair, allowing me to puke without the fear of a curtain trapping it towards my face.

  “I feel hot, Dalton. Like I’m going to faint.”

  “Shit!” He growled, picking me up in his arms.

  My eyes rolled around and shut. Darkness took over as the concerned voices of Dalton, Ben, and Johnson filled my head. Dalton wasted no time interrogating Johnson, wanting to know who gave me a drink and exactly what was in it. As soon as Angelica was located, she was herded out to where Dalton stood, holding me in his arms.

  “What the fuck did your steroid injecting friends put in Cassie’s drink?”

  I came to, opening my eyes to find a glossy scene just before me. My head was fine, but my stomach continued to roil, making me feel like round two was on its way up.

  “Nothing. She had some of the jungle punch that everyone is drinking. What happened?”

  “I’ve never fucking trusted you, and you just proved why I was right about you all along. You slipped something into her drink, you jealous bitch.”

  “Fuck you, Dalton. I didn’t do anything.”

  “What the fuck do you call this?” Dalton asked, handing me off to Ben. “She’s been throwing up, and blacking out. All after she drank whatever the fuck that concoction of yours was. Not to mention Johnson is sick as well. I ought to have your ass written up for this.”

  “Dalton, you’re overreacting—”

  “Overreacting? I know you supposedly befriended someone who you hated with a passion, and now, when she shows up to your party, she and my roommate are fucking sick and puking their brains out.”

  “I’m just a roommate now,” Johnson slurred.

  “Shut up! We have to get Cassie to a hospital and fast. I don’t know what she drank, and I’m scared she might have been drugged.”

  Angelica yelled something as Ben carried me away, following after Dalton, who had Johnson draped over his shoulder. I was much too sick, feeling much too vulnerable to say anything, but I instantly felt safe. No matter what, I knew that Dalton would take care of me.

  “Take her keys and drive Johnson in her truck. I’ll take her in my car,” Dalton ordered, taking my keys from my pocket and tossing them at Ben.

  I was loaded into the car and sped back to base, bypassing the guard shack at the front gate as Dalton hurried us to the emergency lane of the base hospital. A longing feeling tugged at me as I remembered the last time I was here, in Alex’s arms, hoping and praying that Allen hadn’t irrevocably damaged me. I hated that I was back in the place where I had felt my lowest, and my better half, my partner, my life line, wasn’t here to make sure that everything was okay.

  Fear instantly gripped me as I thought back to that drink, and how stupid I had been to take a cup of something that smelled like death without knowing exactly what was in it. Alex would be so angry with me. Tears fell down my face as I thought about how helpless he would feel, knowing what I was going through, and how lonely I felt without him by my side.

  “Pfc. Cassie Bennett,” Dalton said to the nurse at the counter. “She was at a party, and I think she’s been drugged. My roommate has been as well.”

  The nurse checked me in and immediately took me back to a room where my clothes were removed and I was dressed into a gown. My stomach still rumbled and rolled, making me sick as sweat began to fill my face. If they could just make this feeling go away, I swore to myself that I would never drink again…ever!

  “What did you have to drink, hon?” the nurse asked. She was a young civilian who looked no older than myself.

  “Something called jungle juice. I was at a party,” I managed to make out before vomiting into the bucket she had placed on my lap when she first came in.

  She wrote meticulously while watching the clock and taking my vitals. A tray sat to my right, and she immediately started an IV, pumping fluids into my body as I continued to expel whatever was lingering around inside of me.

  “I’ll just need to get some blood from you. Okay, Cassie?” the nurse yelled as if I were going deaf.

  I nodded, feeling exhausted and worn out. The prick of the needle was barely noticeable as I drifted off into what felt like a year’s worth of sleep. When I awoke, Dalton was sitting uncomfortably in the chair by my side, staring at the sterile, hospital walls. His face lit up with excitement at the blinking of my eyes, making him sit up and take my hand in his.

  “How is Johnson?”

  “He’s okay. I just left his room about thirty minutes ago.”

  “Where’s the nurse? What did they roofie me with?”

  “Shhhh…” he chided, placing a wet cloth on my forehead. “We don’t know yet. Still waiting on test results.” He kissed the top of my hand, then stood and paced the room.

  “You know, when these test results come back, I’m personally going to see to it that Angelica never wears our fucking uniform again. It’s one thing to dislike a person, but to fucking drug them…and not just you, but Johnson as well. I can’t deal with this. This has gone much too fucking far, and she is going to get her due.”

  “Dalton,” I croaked, my mouth dry.

  “Don’t Cassie. Just don’t. I feel like I need to be Alex right now, bashing people’s fucking faces into walls and shit. I’m fucking pissed about this.”

  “We’re still in the hospital,” I weakly murmured.

  “I don’t care! This envious, spiteful bullshit could have seriously hurt you and Johnson. I fucking hate—”

  The nurse walked back in, her face full of surprise as she barged in on Dalton’s tirade.

  “Is she going to be okay? Please tell me she’s going to be fine?”

  She flashed his a quick smile, then turned back to me. “Cassie, you are going to be just fine.”

  “And what about Johnson? How is he doing?”

  “We’ll get to him in a minute. But Cassie, I need to ask you some questions.
Did you eat anything at this party? Or even before it?”

  “No,” I mumbled, utterly confused at what this had to do with anything.

  “How much of that punch did you have?”

  “Just one cup. It was a full cup, but only one.”

  “Okay.”

  “How much is in my system? How long as I going to be here?”

  “You weren’t drugged at all, Cassie. You’re pregnant, and the effects of drinking with no food on your stomach and apparently very little water caused your body to break down.”

  The rest of her words fell on deaf ears. She continued explaining things, but as her mouth moved, her words dissipated into thin air like particles of water. She hadn’t just said what she’d just said. There was no way what she was telling me was true, and even if it were true, I couldn’t believe what she had just told me.

  “Cassie…Cassie,” she called out. I turned and looked her in the face, my eyes bloodshot and burning. “We’ll have the OB come in and see you. He’ll go over what steps you need to take next. Congratulations.”

  I looked over to Dalton and burst into tears, followed by the violent eruption of another round of putrid vomiting. My mind raced with how this had happened, what Alex’s reaction to it would be, and how I would ever gather up the courage to tell him.

  The more I thought, the sicker I became. Dalton did everything in his power to try and calm me down, which did nothing for me. Three nurses and the doctor filed into the room, each of them hurriedly moving to take a task in trying to stabilize me. Dalton held my hand, never letting go as pills were placed into my mouth and forced down my throat with a long gulp of water and the massaging of one of the nurse’s hands. Fans were placed in my direction and turned on while my blankets were changed over me. The doctor began talking, and the room started spinning, making me fling my head back against the pillow, praying that it would stop and the nausea that accompanied it would go away. This was my worst nightmare come true, and the person who I wanted most was the same person that I wholeheartedly feared.

  The inner turmoil of having such conflicting emotions led me to break down emotionally and I laid in the bed, attempting to listen to the doctor speak to me as tears rushed down my face.

  “We’ll just give you a moment, Pfc. Bennett,” the doctor said before leaving Dalton and I alone.

  He stared at me with concern etched into his face, his big blue eyes begging me to speak, but I couldn’t make out the words. The tears slowed, but my breathing was still erratic. Pregnant? The word was terrifying, so much so that I couldn’t bring myself to speak it. I had been here before. Pregnant by someone who I loved, but unmarried and unsure of the fallout that was to come. I felt stupid and low, painfully aware that history was repeating itself, and I was allowing it to happen.

  “I have no idea why you’re so distraught. You are going to have a beautiful baby with the love of your life. And if it’s the alcohol, I’m sure you’re fine. It’s early.”

  I regained my composure, then finally brought myself to speak. “Dalton, it’s not that simple.”

  “What’s not? You’ve said yourself that Alex wants babies with you. Well, here you go.”

  My eyes burned as tears threatened to spill out again. “We speak in future terms all of the time. I highly doubt he meant right now. I sure as hell didn’t. I’m unmarried and pregnant. This is not what I had planned for myself.”

  “So get married. It’s not like you two weren’t planning on getting married anyway. And besides, if you two weren’t stubborn as hell, you’d be married right now.”

  Silence fell over the room as I took in Dalton’s words. I understood his standpoint but still felt uneasy about the situation. The facts were the facts: Alex was gone, we weren’t married, I hadn’t been drugged, and I was indeed, pregnant.

  My head began to spin as I came to grips with my reality. Fear gripped me and held me down, never allowing my mind to travel to the possibility that Alex would be thrilled by this. I couldn’t get there. We had plans for a family, but not this soon in our lives, and knowing that things would irrevocably change for us was another step into the unknown. The unknown held greater powers that any other entity in our lives. It was big, dark, and terrifying. It had me in its clutches and wouldn’t let me go.

  No matter what Dalton said, I couldn’t find my way out of it.

  “Hey, Ben just texted me. Johnson just has alcohol poisoning, no drugs. Thought you’d be happy to hear that.”

  I forced a smile, the pain of it not allowing my face to stay in that form for too long. “I’m happy to hear that.”

  Dalton sat down on the bed next to me and held my head to his chest as he rubbed the back of my head. “Cassie, it’s scary right now because you’re allowing your mind to go to the negative. Think about the positive. You and Alex, creating life is awesome.”

  “I wish I could be so optimistic.”

  “You can, and you will. Just stick with me. I’ll help you get there.” Dalton pulled away, kissed my forehead, then stared into my eyes.

  “We are a lovely pair, aren’t we?” I asked, finally allowing a bit of humor to filter through in my voice. “The knocked-up girl, and her man-whore best friend. Like peanut butter and jelly.”

  “Spaghetti and meatballs.”

  Laughter burst from my body, shocking us both. My emotions were all over the place. One moment I was a crying mess, and the next I was unable to contain my amusement. It was a strange place to be in.

  “Seriously, what are you going to do about Ben and Johnson?”

  Dalton exhaled harshly, running his fingers through his hair. “I really don’t know. I like them both.”

  “You can’t have both, Dalton. You know that.”

  “I know. I just have no clue what to do about it.”

  “My love life is a fucking roller coaster, so I really don’t know what to tell you, but make a choice before you get in too deep.”

  A light knock on the door gave way to Ben slowly creeping inside. “Hi, Cassie. How are you feeling?”

  Ben was adorable. He stood a good four or five inches shorter than Dalton, but had a firm physique, and the same illuminating blue eyes that Dalton had. He was soft-spoken but confident, and I could see why Dalton liked him.

  “I’ve been better, but thanks for asking,” I replied, smiling to put him at ease.

  Ben returned my smile, then turned to Dalton, looking a bit more serious. “Can I talk to you outside?”

  Dalton nodded, then stood and followed Ben out of the room. They didn’t go far. I could see them from my bed—hands flying, shaking heads, Dalton’s stern face.

  Both guys calmly walked back into the room, and Ben gave me a hug before wishing me well, then turned to Dalton.

  “I’ll be at the hotel. Call me in the morning.”

  “I will,” Dalton somberly replied.

  My heart ached for both of them. They obviously cared for one another, but Johnson was a sticking point, and rightfully so.

  Ben walked out of the room, and Dalton plopped down in the chair next to my bed. He ran his hands through his hair again and sighed loudly. “Looks like we’re both alone and scared, doll.”

  “What do you mean?”

  “You’re knocked up, and I’m a man-whore,” he sarcastically remarked, smiling at me.

  His words brought my reality gushing back to the surface, smacking me in the face with the fact that I was indeed knocked up, and I had a hot-headed, temperamental boyfriend to spill the beans to. I took Dalton’s hand and kissed the top, then laid it down on the bed. “Peanut butter and jelly,” I softly said.

  “Spaghetti and meatballs,” he chimed in.

  We fell asleep in that position, our hands held tightly together. We were both afraid and vulnerable, but being in the company of one another allowed those feelings to dissipate, and the comfort that we seemed to bring one another was more than enough to whisk us away to a pleasant sleep.

  A sleep that I desperately needed. />
  Chapter 19

  Alex

  Shit was only getting worse the longer that I was stuck in this hell hole of a desert. I’d had little to no contact with Cassie, and it was beginning to make me lose what little self-control that I had. The kidnapped American contractors were found—beheaded with their bodies lying in an open grass field with their heads not far away. A group of kids found the bodies while playing soccer, located the Marines in the area, and the search for the men was called off.

  Sleep was hard to come by. Mortar shells pummeled the base almost every single night, leaving us on high alert with little to no rest. Luckily, the guys shooting were wholly inaccurate, leaving us more flustered and frustrated than anything else. LCpl. Avery was still a nervous little fucker, but he was doing much better since the night I’d had to damn near threaten his life if he ever discounted another one of ours.

  Not everything was shit on a stick with a black cloud hovering above it. LCpl. White received mail with pictures of his pregnant wife showing off their child growing inside of her. He teared up at the sight, making me realize that as badly as I wanted to move on with my life with Cassie, I didn’t want to bring a kid into the mix until I was out. This life we led was too much, and with two active duty parents, our kid wouldn’t stand a chance.

  Cpl. Vega revealed that he had a girlfriend, and she was moving to Twentynine. She was finding a place to stay that they would be able to call home. In this fucking wasteland that we were calling home for the next few months, any bit of good news from home was enough to put a smile on our faces. Other than that, there really wasn’t much to smile about.

  I got a letter from Cassie, just detailing the day to day shit going on with her, and as boring as it probably was for her to write it out, I held on to it. I read it over and over again until I’d damn near memorized it. Her getting up, PTing, going to the chow hall, working, then going home and doing close to nothing put a smile on my face. She was safe. She was able to move about freely and without worry which was a luxury we weren’t afforded in a combat zone.