“Shit!” Avery spat. She sucked her finger for a moment, then shook the pain out of her hand. A soldier cutting a large hole in the wall lifted his safety goggles.
“You all right, Adams?” he asked, but replaced his glasses and revved the saw before she could answer.
Looking at the mess of wires in front of her, Avery knew she had to start over. At least with that one, she thought, tracing the cable back to the wall.
“Do we have another five-gauge?” Avery yelled over the noise. No one answered. The team was dispersed around the room, focused fully on their own tasks—breaking through walls, running wires, testing circuits. White dust filled the room like puffs of baby powder.
If Avery had known that joining the Signal Corps would mean managing an electrical construction team, she would have branched engineering, like Hannah. As it was, she could barely program her own television remote, let alone rewire and encrypt an entire building’s communications system. But who wouldn’t jump at the chance to work with the most elite unit in the entire Armed Forces?
“As in black ops, D,” Avery had told Dani over the phone several months earlier. “Special Forces.”
“Aren’t they out somewhere hunting Bin Laden?” Dani had asked.
“Yeah, well, I guess the hunt’s on hold,” Avery replied, spooning cereal into her mouth. “They’re home and I’m the cable guy.”
Dani had burst into laughter and Avery had followed suit. It was completely absurd. But Avery lived for the kind of life-changing events that morphed into great stories. Plus, she had a simple philosophy on life: Say yes. Figure the rest out later.
When Avery stepped outside, she took a deep breath of fresh air. New York’s false springs were really just extended winters—snow rarely melted at West Point until mid-April. But spring in North Carolina was proving to be a different experience altogether. The sun warmed her skin. Fresh grass, verdant green, emerged all over post. A cool breeze wafted across her face surprising her with its kindness. Soon, everyone will be discussing their summer plans, Avery thought before she realized that wasn’t true anymore. All of her friends were professionals now. There was no such thing as summer break anymore.
In that way, Major Gaines’s top-secret project had come at the exact right time. She needed a distraction from normalcy because normal—in the real world—sucked. Josh hadn’t called. He hadn’t written. Not even an e-mail. Not even a text message. But for months, she’d checked the mailbox extra carefully, imagining he might drop a love note in the mail in some grand romantic gesture to win her back. As if guys did shit like that anymore.
Every time, the stack of mail looked exactly the same—coupons, advertisements, People magazine. Her life had become like that pile of junk mail. Perfectly, absolutely unremarkable. It made her itch. And it made her run.
In addition to the PT workouts she did with her soldiers on post, Avery had taken up running again, nearly as intensely as she’d trained in high school. She logged fifteen, twenty, sometimes thirty miles a week, at night and on the weekends. She needed to sign up for a race, because at least then she could justify the amount of time she was spending in her running shoes. It was better to have a goal than to run with no destination. And that’s how it had felt to Avery lately—like she was running fast with nowhere to go.
IN THEIR LAST meeting, Major Gaines had looked over Avery’s final binder of plans with a surprised nod of approval and handed it back to her.
“The fact that I’m entrusting this to someone so junior should feel really good, Lieutenant Adams,” he’d said. “This could be big for your career.”
She knew he was probably full of shit—just trying to psych her up for a job that was going to dominate her life. But she’d taken his words to heart. Achievement in the Army was about all she could take home to impress her parents at the moment. When she’d explained how she’d be spending the New Year at Christmas, her father had grunted.
“As long as you’re not deploying for Bush’s ridiculous personal vendetta in Iraq,” he’d said. “Fine by me.”
“It’s not a vendetta, Dad,” Avery had said, surprised that she was taking up for a president who’d never earned her vote. “Saddam Hussein is a horrible guy.”
“The world is full of horrible guys, Avery,” her father had replied.
She hated to admit it, but every day, as men came home from deployments with combat patches stuck to their uniforms, Avery had started to worry that her empty sleeve looked weak in the hallways of their offices. More than a year had passed since she’d graduated from West Point, and most of her classmates had deployed to Iraq or Afghanistan, or, like Hannah and Tim, at least had a date on the calendar. With every passing month, the fuzzy square on Avery’s uniform sleeve felt more and more like a barren garden plot: no fruit to show for her labor.
Shaking that thought from her mind, Avery marched diagonally across a field of grass, toward the tool shed.
“One, two, three, one!”
“One, two, three, two!”
Her eyes roamed from the ground in front of her to the bearded men finishing a training workout to her right. Eight men in a semicircle had dropped to the ground to complete a round of push-ups.
Gaines had been pretty clear with his instructions: get in, get out, and don’t let anyone know you were there. It had taken Avery about 3.4 seconds to break those rules.
The lean, blond-haired man leading the workout wasn’t tall—five foot nine at best. But he was barrel chested, with a gold beard and calf muscles that looked like steaks. Sweat glistened on his bare shoulders as he pressed into the ground, like someone had oiled him up for a photo shoot. He had a sleeve of tattoos on his right arm that spilled onto his chest. His face attracted the sun and shadows in a way that accentuated his beard, his straight nose, his gray eyes. Avery felt her insides go weak as he stood, hands on hips, and locked his eyes on hers.
They’d been doing this every day now for a week.
Avery quickly ducked into the tool shed, closed the door behind her, and tried to catch her breath. Holy shit, she laughed to herself. She stared at a wall of wrenches, wires, and cables. What was it she needed, again?
The one thing she didn’t need was another failed attraction. Heartbreak always pushed Avery into a cave of isolation, and after the whole debacle with Josh had imploded, she’d vowed to be single forever. Relationships didn’t work for her the way they did for everyone else. She was either too trusting and got burned, or too suspicious and exhausted the guy’s patience. She either acted too serious and scared the guy away, or acted too cool, leaving the guy confused about her commitment.
At times, the psychologist in Avery wondered if her issues stemmed back to high school. She’d been just fourteen years old when Matt Maloney, a senior, had spotted her in the high school cafeteria. After a few weeks of flirtation, he’d invited her to his house, where he’d carefully and patiently taught her how their bodies were designed to fit together. And then, two months later, Avery had crawled broken into her bed, the physical pain of his betrayal and disregard too heavy for her to stand up straight. Days later, her mother sat on the edge of her bed, stroking her daughter’s cheek until she’d finally stopped crying.
“Don’t you ever let a little shit do that to you again,” her mother had said.
It was the most profound profanity her mother had ever spoken. And it was what Avery had repeated to Hannah when Tim cheated—only Hannah ended up marrying the little shit. Hannah may have forgiven Tim for his unfaithfulness, but Avery never would.
They were all little shits, really. Her high school boyfriend. The one at West Point, he-who-would-not-be-named. She knew it wasn’t healthy, thinking about John Collins. But for some reason, lately, she couldn’t get his green eyes out of her mind. Her memory played tricks on her, reminding her of all the mistakes she’d made—showing up to his room, breaking it off so abruptly. She wanted to find a wrinkle in time, a place to jump back and do something different that would change what
he’d done.
Avery remembered walking into her dorm room at the end of their sophomore year, clueless that e-mails were transporting images of her naked body around campus.
“What’s going on?” Avery had asked. Dani and Hannah were there, waiting for her, their eyes puffy from crying. Dani held a stack of papers in her hands.
And then her world had fallen apart.
“He won’t stop unless he’s caught,” Dani had said after showing Avery the photos.
Avery didn’t cry. She simply stared at the white cinder-block wall, feeling cold and numb. “Everyone will know that I slept with him. They’ll know I ratted him out.”
“He didn’t just do it to you,” Hannah had said. “He did it to all of us.”
The world seemed to conspire to teach her the same lesson over and over again. You couldn’t trust anyone.
In the tool shed, wire-cutters, stacks of batteries, and cables littered the walls, sorted on shelves and hanging from hooks. Avery’s eyes scanned the equipment until they landed on the wire she needed, and she reached for it, feeling its weight in the palm of her hand. If only there were tools like this to rewire her heart, she thought.
Avery took a moment to remind herself of the facts. There were rules to follow. And this one, this gold-bearded, perfect-bodied Special Ops little shit, was extra shitty because he lied for a living! No matter how perfect he might have looked from the outside, he spent his entire Army career paid—no, trained—to manipulate other people for information. Road. Closed.
A sigh of relief exited her lungs. The responsible part of her brain had won the argument. She prayed that when she stepped back outside, he would be gone. She didn’t want to see his face because ultimately, she didn’t trust herself to walk through the mental gymnastics of “no” again.
Before she could leave, Avery heard the door behind her open and close. She turned, and there he was, standing between her and the door.
“Excuse me,” Avery said, lowering her eyes and trying to walk around him.
He placed a single hand on her shoulder, stopping her from moving any farther. He’d put on a beige Army undershirt, but the tattoos on his right arm were visible from under the sleeve—a bird? A skull?—the colors were vivid, black and blue. His beard was tidy and combed. He stood several inches taller than she’d originally assumed. Avery lifted her chin and looked him right in the eye.
“Please move,” she said.
“Are you married?” he asked.
Avery cocked her head to the side. “Excuse me?”
“I said, are you married.” His voice didn’t waver. His eyes were pale gray, two round clouds, about to storm.
“No,” she huffed, while simultaneously eyeing his unadorned left hand. “Now, if you don’t mind . . .” She tried to push around him, but this time, he grabbed her wrist. A folded note pressed into the palm of her hand under the weight of his thumb. And then he left.
Once the door closed, Avery found herself quickly unfolding the yellow Post-it note in trembling hands. Her whole body shook with desire and confusion.
8 PM Friday. I’ll pick you up. —Noah
So that was his name. Noah. Staring up at the single hanging bulb in the tool shed, Avery shook her head and groaned. How arrogant was this guy to think she didn’t have any plans Friday night? And how would he know where to pick her up? She found herself staring at his dark handwriting—a message written in the tiniest letters. She studied his name.
Was he the kind of man that would build a vessel to bring her to a new world? Or the kind of man that would shut her out and let her drown?
“JUST TELL HIM you’re sick,” Hannah said a few days later.
She sat cross-legged on Avery’s bed, holding a cell phone between her hands. She was waiting for a call from Tim, who was finishing his Infantry Basic Officer Leader Course.
“How would I do that?” Avery replied, stepping out from her bathroom. “I don’t even have his phone number. And what—like they’re going to kick me out of the Army for having dinner with the guy?”
She wore nothing but black underwear and a matching bra, her hair held up in hot rollers.
Things had progressed so quickly in that tool shed, she’d completely forgotten that she and Hannah had made plans to hang out tonight. But it wasn’t like they had tickets to a concert or reservations at a restaurant. When Hannah had arrived a half hour earlier, holding a pint of Ben & Jerry’s Phish Food and a rented DVD of Pride & Prejudice, Avery had thrown her head back and slapped her forehead. Hannah’s face had fallen in disappointment.
“I promise I’ll make it up to you.” Avery said, stepping out from the bathroom.
“It’s fine. I’ll watch Keira Knightley fall in love by myself. In my sad, empty house, by myself. Eating ice cream. By myself.”
Avery walked over and sat on the side of the bed. “You hate me.”
“I don’t hate you. I’m just annoyed.”
“You’ll understand when you see him.”
“Isn’t it weird that the very first question he asked was whether or not you were married?”
“So the guy doesn’t want to get involved with someone else’s wife,” Avery scoffed, then stood and walked to her dresser. “I thought you’d like that.”
“Just don’t disappear, okay?”
“What, like he’s going to kidnap me?”
“No,” Hannah chuckled.
Avery began letting down her hair from the hot rollers at her dresser and turned to look at Hannah, who shrugged.
“I leave in March,” Hannah said.
“That’s still like, a year away.”
“Eight months,” Hannah said, correcting her. “It’ll go faster than you think.”
She sighed and placed her phone down on the bedside table.
“Just don’t go fall in love with this guy and then vanish from my life.”
In the silence that followed, anger and shame welled in Avery’s chest in equal measure. The two emotions always seemed to travel as a pair. How could Hannah say something like that? It was Hannah who had gone off and gotten married. She was the one who had gone to Sapper School. She was the one who’d barely kept in touch. Avery didn’t want to be ugly, but for some reason, she wanted to scream at her friend for not being more supportive. Couldn’t Hannah just be happy for her, for once? Instead, she had to infuse the entire conversation with worry and judgment, like Avery was about to do something unethical. But there wasn’t anything wrong with going on a date! And what would Hannah know about dating in the real world, anyway? She and Tim had coupled off so fast, she never had a chance to experience single life. She would never understand.
“There’s plenty of time,” Avery said finally. “Don’t worry so much.”
Hannah sighed. “You’re right. I’m sorry. It’s just starting to feel real.”
Now it was Avery who exhaled. “I really do feel bad about bailing tonight.”
“Don’t,” Hannah said, heading back toward Avery’s closet to peruse her clothes. “What are you going to wear?”
At that moment, they both heard the low grumbling sound of an engine coming to a stop right outside Avery’s window.
Hannah peeked out the curtain. “I think it’s him,” she said.
“Oh shit!” Avery went into hyperdrive.
“He’s on a motorcycle,” Hannah narrated. “He’s taking off his helmet. Oh my gosh. You weren’t kidding. He’s . . .”
A black silk camisole with lace trim slipped over Avery’s shoulders. She wore black jeans, and for a layer of warmth, she chose a gray cashmere sweater that hung open in the front and draped toward her knees. Her blond hair curled in big, loose waves to her collarbones, offset by a rose shade of lipstick. As Avery slipped on a pair of black high heels, Hannah shook her head.
“Wear the sneakers,” she instructed. Avery quickly switched to a black pair of high-tops.
“Oh my god, I’m so nervous.” She stood, opened her arms. “How do I look?”
“Amazing,” Hannah affirmed. “Text me if he’s a psycho and you need me to come get you.”
Smiling, Avery gave her friend a hug and grabbed her purse.
“Just lock the door behind you when you go,” Avery said. “See you later?”
Hannah nodded.
“Thank you, Hannah. And I promise I’ll make it up to you.”
Avery stepped outside and closed the door behind her.
“YOU READY?”
Noah stood on the sidewalk, dressed in dark blue jeans, a gray T-shirt, and a black leather jacket. If it was humanly possible, Noah looked even better fully clothed than he had shirtless. As Avery approached him, he held out a shiny black helmet for her to put on.
“Where are we going?” she asked, taking the helmet in two hands.
“You’re going to have to trust me.”
“I just met you,” she replied. “Of course I don’t trust you.”
He reached over and helped secure the helmet, and the warmth of his fingers under her chin sent shivers down Avery’s spine.
“And how do you know where I live anyway?” she asked.
“I’d be a pretty bad Special Forces officer if I couldn’t figure out where someone lives,” he answered. “Ever ridden on one of these?”
“Yes,” she lied.
“Good,” he said, and then placed two hands on either side of Avery’s helmet. With a smile that broke Avery’s resolve, Noah winked.
He got on the bike, looked at her, and shrugged. “So are you coming or what?”
From: Hannah Nesmith
Subject: urrg.
Date: April 12, 2005 17:29:15 PM EST +01:00
To: Dani McNalley
She did it again. We’d planned to do dinner and a movie for weeks, but when I showed up she said she’d forgotten. And had some date with a dude she met on her assignment.
At what point do I just give up trying?
From: Dani McNalley
Subject: Re: re: urrg.
Date: April 12, 2005 17:31:20 PM GMT +01:00
To: Hannah Nesmith
Beyond the Point Page 18