by Amanda Boone
“Luke…I’m so sorry.” She said the words barely above a whisper.
“Don’t be. I was lucky. A few my buddies weren’t nearly as lucky as me. Plus, I had a good run at it. Four years ain’t too bad.”
“Why didn’t you tell me?”
“Not really how you want to start a conversation with a pretty girl. Plus, it’s over now. I can’t go back and change things, so it doesn’t matter anymore.” She reached across the table and very gently sat her hand on top of his. Her ocean blue eyes burned into his with concern.
“Luke…”
“Let’s talk about something else, okay?”
“Yeah, okay.”
“So…how does your boyfriend feel about you being at dinner with your charming ex?” She shot him a devilish smirk.
“That was smooth.”
“Was it? Been tryin’ to think of a good way to bring that up all day.” Luke chuckled. The moment of silence that followed had his heart in his throat. What if she was dating someone? How would he take that news?
Serena scrunched her nose, making a face at him. “No boyfriend. How does your girlfriend feel about it?”
“Ah, so you’re interested,” he teased. “No girlfriend.”
“Oh, sorry.” She made a dramatically surprised face. “Boyfriend?” She couldn’t even get the word fully out before she burst into laughter.
“Real funny.”
“Well, you did spend the like four years surrounded by nothing but men.”
“Hey now. We had a couple women in our groups, you sexist.” His eyes glimmered as he teased her back, and the awkward tension from before quickly melted away. They sat for nearly two hours, laughing and talking as if nothing had changed between them. Luke loved every single moment he got to spend around her. Something about her radiated happiness. It was nearly impossible to be around her without finding yourself filled with warmth and meaning.
Luke could slowly feel his hands beginning to shake more and more as time went on. He cursed himself for forgetting to take his medicine before he left. He didn’t know how he could have been so stupid. Still, he was having such a good time that he chose to ignore it.
“Oh shit. Serena?” A deep voice came from behind them, heavy with arrogance.
“Nathan.” Although Serena’s voice was polite, it was obvious that she didn’t care to be talking to him.
“It’s been a while, huh?”
“Yeah, it’s been a while.”
“Damn, Luke,” Nathan said as he turned his attention back to him. “It’s been even longer since I’ve seen you round here. Weren’t you off shooting up those towel heads? If only I wasn’t flat-footed,” he said to the guy next to him. “I’d be out there putting caps in all of ’em.”
“That’s not a rule anymore.”
Anger shot across Nathan’s face, and his voice was filled with defense. “Uh, yeah it is. I talked to a recruiter senior year, same as you.” Luke was in no mood to ruin their evening by arguing the rules of the military with someone he didn’t even care to talk to at all, so he didn’t say anything else and let Nathan think that he had won.
“So, Serena, how have you been?”
“I’ve been good.” Nathan grabbed a chair from the table next to where they were seated and pulled it over, making an awful screeching noise on the floor. He flipped it backward and sat with his legs on either side of the back, his arms crossed, leaning across the back of it.
“Yeah? I heard you were almost done with your teaching degree.”
“Yes. I only have one semester left.” It was always obvious when Serena didn’t want to talk to someone, because she would say the bare minimum required to be able to get by. Normally he couldn’t get her to stop talking.
“I wish we’d had teachers like you around when I was in school. Bet you could teach me a thing or two.” He eyed Serena up and down, not concerned with how noticeable it was. The tone of his voice made Serena’s skin crawl and Luke’s blood boil.
“If you don’t mind,” she said politely. “We’re in the middle of a date.”
“A date?” Nathan asked while letting out a mocking laugh. “With this guy?” As he leaned in closer to her, she could smell the whiskey on his breath. “Wouldn’t you rather go out with a real man?”
“All right,” Luke interrupted. “You’ve said hi. I think it’s time for y’all to go now.” Nathan didn’t even turn to look at Luke. He kept his eyes plastered on every square inch of Serena.
“I wasn’t talking to you. I asked the lady a question. I could show you a good time if you’d let me.”
“Honestly,” Serena said slowly, nervously. Her scared eyes darted to Luke. “You’re making me very uncomfortable.”
“Listen here. You’d be lucky to get to go out with me.” Anger rose in Nathan’s voice with each word. “Ain’t nobody good enough for you? You spoiled bitch.”
“That’s enough,” Luke growled through clenched teeth.
Acting as if he hadn’t hear him, Nathan cupped Serena’s chin in his hand. “Might be a bitch, but you’re as hot as always.” With a look of disgust on her face, she forcefully pushed his hand away.
“Please, don’t touch me.”
“You’re kidding right? Like you’re some kind of princess?” As she stood to walk away, Nathan grabbed her arm and pulled her back.
“She said not to touch her.” Luke’s voice boomed with anger. In one swift motion he pushed the chair Nathan was sitting in, which caused him to go flying to the ground. Luke tried to silently talk down the anger that was rising inside him.
Nathan looked around when he hit the ground as if he was confused about how he had ended up there. Anger covered his face as he pieced together what had happened. “You kiddin’ me?” he yelled at the top of his lungs. At this point they had gathered the attention of everyone else in the building, and a crowd was beginning to form. Nathan drunkenly got to his feet and pushed Luke.
“Listen, I don’t want to fight you,” Luke said. “Sorry I shoved you—” Before Luke could finish his sentence, Nathan shoved him again.
“Scared of me, Luke?”
Luke’s hands began to shake even more, and he closed his eyes to try to regain focus on the situation that he was losing. At that exact moment the front door slammed, and having already been agitated, this pushed Luke over the edge.
It was something he could never explain. It was as if his body was taken over by someone else. He felt terrified and liberated all at once. After that, it all went black. The next thing he remembered, he was kneeling over Nathan’s body with blood-splattered hands. Serena’s terrified voice echoed in the background around him. He looked at his shaking hands, dripping with red, as if they weren’t his own. Slowly the confusion subsided and he realized what he had done.
Horrified with himself, he stood and looked to Serena with wide eyes. He knew that this was it, that she would never speak to him again after something like this. Gathering himself, he bent down and extended his hand to Nathan, who flinched away from him. “I…I’m really sorry.” Luke struggled to get the words out. “I didn’t mean to—”
“Just leave me alone,” Nathan interrupted in a meek voice. Luke looked around at the crowd that was now looking at him with fearful eyes. Unsure of what else to do, Luke turned toward the front door and took a few steps in that direction. Instantly the crowd parted. Most people couldn’t pinpoint the moment things went wrong, but he knew this was that moment.
*
“It’s never as bad as you think it is, sweetie,” Luke’s mother said comfortingly as she poured a cup of tea. “Here. It always calms my nerves.” Luke took the cup with shaking hands and tried his best to make it to his mouth without spilling it.
“Ma, I knocked out a guy in front of half the town.” Tears welled in his eyes as he recalled the events of the evening. “We were having such a good time before he came.”
“This event doesn’t take away from that. It doesn’t change the chemistry you had.”
“Yeah, it does.” He took a deep, shaky breath. “Kind of cancels out the good when it ends with that much bad.” Luke’s mother fought back tears as she watched her son slowly eroding before her eyes. Her heart ached for him. She poured herself a cup of tea and sat beside him on the couch, trying to calm herself and put on a strong front. “Ma, I really messed up. I hurt him. I hurt him real bad, and now half the town’s going to be scared of me. They’re going to think I’m a monster.”
Luke thought back over his past few tours overseas and all the things he had seen, all the things he had done. “Maybe I am a monster. Maybe it’s not possible to come back from all the things I have been through like Dr. Collins thinks.”
His mother put her hand under his chin and pulled it gently toward her, forcing his downward-drawn eyes to look at her. “Now you listen to me.” Her voice shook as the tears she had been trying so hard to hold back slid down her cheeks. “When your father died, you did everything you ever could to make sure that I was taken care of. You enlisted in the Marines straight out of high school because you knew you had a greater purpose. You volunteered for two extra tours in Iraq because you wanted to stand beside your brothers. Now that…that don’t sound like a monster to me.”
“Ma—”
“You are a good man,” his mother interrupted before he could finish. “One mistake doesn’t change that. Do you understand that?”
Luke nodded slowly. “But what if she doesn’t understand that?” A tear slid down his cheek at the thought of never seeing Serena again.
“Oh, honey. If she doesn’t understand that, then she’s not the one for you. You deserve someone who will love you no matter what, but don’t give up on her yet. She’s a smart girl.”
Closing his eyes, he tried to block out the memories of earlier that night, the sound of her terrified voice. “I don’t know, Ma. I think I really messed up. I didn’t even get a chance to tell her about what was really going on with me.” At that exact time, a muted knock came from the front door. His mother slowly got up and walked to the front door. He could hear quiet, mumbled voices before she returned to the front room.
“Well, now’s your chance. Serena is here.” Following a few feet behind her, Serena entered the room hesitantly. He stood quickly and took a few steps toward her before stopping short. His mother excused herself and left the two in impending silence.
“Serena, I—” Before he got a chance to speak, she interrupted him.
“Can I talk first, please?”
“Course.” He motioned for her to sit and, once she did, did the same.
She sat down in a chair across the coffee table from him and looked him directly in the eyes. “Luke, that was absolutely terrifying. I—”
“I know. I’m really sorr—” He began to ramble before she lifted her hand and cut him off again.
“But, I want to thank you.” Luke’s forehead creased with confusion. “Thank you for standing up for me when many others would have walked away. Thank you for respecting me enough to know the way he was treating me wasn’t okay. That is the Luke I remember.” She took a deep breath and looked at her hands, which were clenched tightly in her lap. “With that being said, there was another Luke there tonight that I didn’t recognize. Where did all that anger and aggression come from? The Luke I grew up with wouldn’t have hurt a fly.”
“Serena, I’m so sorry. More sorry than you could understand. You gotta believe that I never meant for that to happen. I just got angry, and I snapped. I really thought I had changed. I didn’t think that would happen again.” Once the words left his mouth, he cursed himself for saying them. He had told her more than he’d ever intended to. Now she would be scared of him for sure.
She looked at him with concern painted across her face. “Again? Meaning that this has happened before?”
Luke took a deep breath and prepared himself to tell her all the things he had never told anyone else. “’Member how I told you I was in Arizona doing physical therapy on my shoulder?” She nodded. “Well, it wasn’t the only thing I was there for. I didn’t just come back from war with a screwed up shoulder. I also came back with PTSD. Did a lot of therapy while I was there too, and I thought I was getting better. I really thought I was, but the flashbacks to the attack…they kept happenin’. I was out joggin’ one night with my headphones in, and a guy behind me grabbed my arm to tell me my keys had fallen out of my pocket. He had been hollerin’ at me but I didn’t hear it.”
Too scared to see the expression of disappointment on her face, he kept his eyes on the ground as he continued. “I wasn’t expecting it, and I just snapped. I blacked out like I did tonight, and when I came to a cop was pulling me from this guy. A random stranger.” Luke said the words with disgust as tears began to well in his eyes again. “That was about a month into therapy. After that my doc decided that just therapy wasn’t going to cut it anymore. I was too far gone. So she prescribed me some pills. Apparently lots of military members take them and say that they help. They might help with the blackouts and flashbacks, but the side effects are what get you.”
He cleared his throat, trying to swallow down the tears that threatened to expose themselves, before he continued. “They made me shaky, irritable, and exhausted. That’s why I didn’t take them today. I didn’t want you to have to cut our date short because I was tired. I wanted to be the person you remembered from high school, not some poor idiot who needed meds just to make it through a normal day. When he pushed me, something in me snapped. I blacked out, and the next thing I remembered, I was kneeling over him on the floor.”
Serena looked at him with his head hung in shame and couldn’t help but cry. She knew she was looking at a broken man, a man who truly didn’t think he deserved better. “So that’s what happened tonight? You didn’t take your medicine?”
“Yeah, but it’s not always like that. I don’t just snap for no reason when I don’t take my meds. There has to be some type of trigger, and tonight, Nathan was that trigger.” He finally raised his eyes to meet hers, and his heart sank when he saw the tears on her cheeks. “I’m so sorry, Serena.”
“What happened that night? The night of the attack?”
Luke fought the memories that began to flood back with all his might, but he knew that she deserved answers. She deserved to understand what had happened, why he was the way he was. “We were driving through Iraq, through the southern region. Me and a couple guys were walkin’ beside the tank and a few guys were inside. It was just like any other day. We were out scoping grounds when out of nowhere a mine went off. One of the poor ol’ boys on the other side of the tank took a wrong step and set it off.”
Swallowing the lump in his throat, he continued. “There was blood everywhere. Me and the guys on my side of the tank had minor injuries, mainly from impact of being pushed to the ground at high speeds. But the guys on the other side…well, they weren’t so lucky. We lost some good men that day.” Taking a sharp breath, he tried to decide if he should continue or not, but he knew that she needed to know everything to be able to understand it. “My best friend, Ryan, he was one of ’em that didn’t make it.
“Lyin’ there, I felt so helpless,” he continued. “My ears were ringing so loud that I just knew I would never hear again. Looking all around me, all I could see were my friends’ bodies on the ground. When I was able to regain my balance and stand, I looked around for Ryan, but I couldn’t find him anywhere. Finally I found him lying facedown on the other side of the tank. I rolled him over to see if he was okay, but I could tell he wasn’t with me anymore. There was just too much blood.”
“Luke…” Serena was unable to find the words to say to comfort him. She had no idea what to say in a situation like this. There was nothing she could say that would help him.
“I think the worst part was telling his mom. I volunteered to be the one to deliver the news. I figured it would be easier for her if it was a familiar face. So I flew to Nebraska and knocked on her door. He was their only so
n. It just wasn’t fair, ya know?” All the tears he had been trying to hold back flooded his face as he buried his head in his hands.
Serena quickly got to her feet, closing the gap between them, and kneeled before him. She pulled his hands into hers and kissed his forehead gently. “Luke, I’m so sorry. I had no idea.” They both cried silently for a few moments more before she finally spoke again. “You are the bravest person I have ever known.”
“Me?” he scoffed. “I ain’t never been brave a day in my life. You wanna know how I made it through? Why I went back so many times?” With a confused expression, Serena nodded. “I kept your picture right here.” He put his hand on the left side of his chest and tapped it lightly. “Right in the pocket over my heart.”
Pulling his wallet from his pocket, he slid out a folded-up picture. Very carefully he unfolded it and handed it to her. She ran her manicured fingertips over the extremely worn image and smiled. It was an image of her from their senior year in high school. She had her head tilted back in a fit of laughter with her feet propped up on the end of the couch. She remembered that day perfectly. It was another one of the days that they had spent doing nothing together, but this particular day she hadn’t been in a great mood. He had been trying all day to get her to smile, with no such luck.
After trying everything he could think of, he slipped off to her room and slid on a pair of her short shorts. When he walked into the front room, she busted out into laughter and couldn’t get herself to stop. In that moment, he snapped a picture of her. He told her that he wanted her to keep it to remind her that no matter what, they would always be able to make a bad day better. Tears welled up in her eyes as she thought back to the feelings she’d had that night. Although she had never told him, it was the first night she knew that he was the one for her, that they were made to be together.
“After all this time?” She looked up at him with bloodshot eyes.
“You were my strength, Serena. Always have been. Every time I had a bad day, every time I missed home, every time I was terrified for my life, I took out that picture. I looked down at your smiling face and remembered exactly what I was fightin’ for. I was fightin’ for you, Serena. It’s always been for you.” Serena enveloped him in a tight hug and held on for dear life. “There wasn’t a day that I went without thinking about you.”