by Nella Tyler
“Well, I’m worried about you,” she said. “You’ve lost weight since I last saw you.”
“I haven’t been eating much lately.”
“I know this is a tough time for you, Laurie, but you wasting away is not the way to deal with it.”
“I think….”
“Yes?”
“I think it would be easier if I knew how to make Chase feel better,” I said at last, choking out the words. “I just feel so helpless. He’s hurting so much, and there’s nothing I can do about it.”
“You need to let him be sad,” Beth said gently. “Braden was his hero, and his death was a complete shock. It’s going to take a while. You might have to accept the fact that this will take time. You won’t be able to make his pain disappear that fast.”
“He’s so distant,” I said, my voice shaking over the words. “He’s so…removed from everything. I speak and it’s like he doesn’t hear me. I’m standing right in front of him and it’s like he doesn’t see me.”
“You need to give him time, Lauren,” she replied. “I know that it’s hard and I know you’re hurting too, but you need to give him time.”
“I know,” I sighed as tears pricked my eyes. “I know.”
“How are you doing?” Beth asked after a moment.
“Me? I’m holding up,” I nodded.
“Have you had time to process everything?”
“What do you mean?”
“I mean have you had time to process your own grief?” she asked gently. “Braden may not have been your brother, but you did love him, too. You lost someone, too.”
“I did love him,” I nodded slowly, realizing she was the only person who seemed to have recognized that. “I don’t think it’s even sunk in yet.”
Beth nodded and took my hand. She held on until I started to realize that I needed to mourn, too. I loved Chase and I wanted his pain to ease, but I had my own pain to work through. I wondered momentarily if Chase had even realized that.
I spent the next few hours talking to the mourners and standing beside Mrs. Morgan when she had the strength to finally face the funeral hall. Afterwards, Chase and I slipped away, saying goodbye only to his parents before we made our way home.
I breathed a sigh of relief as I walked into our apartment, free from the smell of fresh flowers and mourning. I moved into our bathroom to change out of my black dress and into something comfortable and unrestricted. When I entered the bedroom again, Chase was lying in bed with his eyes fixed on the ceiling.
I wasn’t sure whether or not he wanted me close, so I moved around to my corner of the bed and sat down on the very edge of it as I removed my earrings. When I adjusted my position and turned to Chase, he was looking at me with his dark-brown eyes. After a moment, he reached his hand out towards me.
Thrilled with this unexpected gesture that had been absent in the last few weeks, I slipped my hand into his and allowed myself to be pulled to his side. My head hung over his as I traced my fingers over his chest and stomach.
Suddenly and without warning, Chase pushed me down against the bed and got on top of me. His face hung over mine now and I could see the range of emotions flitting through his eyes. His hands slipped up my skirt and pulled down my panties. Then his lips were over mine and I couldn’t speak. I could barely breathe.
I was not so naïve to interpret his need for sex as desire for me. That was not what this was. He wanted a distraction from the pain; he wanted to feel something other than sadness and anger and loss. He wanted to lose himself for a few minutes and not have to think about anything else. I understood it and welcomed it. If this was what he needed, then I was more than happy to comply. I had wanted a way to ease his pain this morning and if this was the way to do it, then that’s what I would do.
I arched my back and helped him remove his clothes, as well as my own. He was clumsy; his hands were more rough than usual and his kisses were harder and more painful than normal, but I welcomed all of it.
When he pushed inside me, I saw his jaw tighten like a reflex and he closed his eyes for a second, as though trying to concentrate. He pumped at me without any real fervor or passion and I realized that he was simply going through the motions. It was all part of the distraction. I held onto him as best I could. I kissed him and touched him and tried to draw him out of his head, but I knew there was only so much I could do.
A few minutes later, he rolled off me, panting lightly, and I felt cold air rush around my naked body. I grabbed my dress and slipped it on, having no desire to be naked, and then I turned to him.
“Do you want to talk about him?” I asked on an instinct.
Chase was silent for so long that I thought he was just going to ignore me, but then he started talking. “I was bullied once in school,” he said abruptly.
“What?” I said, propping myself up on my elbow. There was very little I didn’t know about Chase’s life. We had met when we were both kids and anything that had happened before our meeting had been shared a dozen times over. It shocked me that I didn’t know about the bullying.
“It was only the one time,” he explained in a hushed voice. “I was seven and had just started school. There were a couple of boys about a year older than me that decided I would make a good target. They followed me home shouting insults about my haircut and my missing front tooth. Braden saw them at it.”
“He stopped them,” I said.
“He did,” Chase nodded. “They never looked in my direction again. By the second day of school, everyone knew I had a scary big brother and was not to be messed with. I never had any problems with bullying after that.”
“I’ll bet,” I said with a small smile that Chase didn’t return.
“He was five years older than me. In my head, he was a grown man when I was still eight years old, but he never stopped hanging out with me. He never stopped being my friend. He was the one who taught me how to ride a bike and how to swim and how to set up humane traps to catch rabbits that we were just going to release later. He never made me feel like I was a nuisance to have around, even when his friends were over and I was a pain in his ass.”
I smiled at the memories. Apart from the bullying, they were all stories I knew, but it didn’t matter. Chase needed to talk and he needed someone to be there to listen, to be witness to the amazing person his brother had been and all the memories he had left behind. Chase spoke for a long time; he spoke for over an hour without stopping. He went through his entire life with Braden right up until the point where he had left for the military.
Then his voice got soft as the night and it cracked under the weight of his pain. “It’s okay,” I said, pulling him close to me and kissing his forehead repeatedly. “It’s okay…cry,” I said. “Let it all out.”
He cried against me for a while and when he finally pulled away, his eyes were red, but empty of tears. “Would you be upset with me if I enlisted?” Chase asked suddenly.
I stared at him for a moment, taken aback by the question and the threat it promised. I swallowed hard and reminded myself that I had promised to support him in anything.
“No,” I said and I was happy that my voice didn’t shake. “I would just go with you.”
“No,” he said, and I was surprised by how harsh his voice became. “No, it’s too dangerous. I would never take you with me.”
“But—”
“Never mind,” he cut me off. “I shouldn’t have said anything. Just forget it, I’ll leave it alone.”
There was a bitterness I detected in his voice that scared me. I looked down at his face to see it had blazed over with a mask hiding his emotions. I took his hand and kissed it gently. “Chase,” I said softly, “whatever you need to do, you should do it. I’ll be there for you no matter what.”
After a long moment, he turned to me and his eyes met mine. He nodded once and then pulled me to him so that I was nestled under the crook of his arm. I was glad that my face was hidden from him because I didn’t want Chase to see the tears running silently
down my cheeks. He had his own pain to deal with – he didn’t need to see mine.
Even as Chase slowly drifted off into sleep, I lay there wide-awake wondering if he would really consider enlisting and leaving for four years without taking me with him. That had been the agreement from the beginning. No matter what, we would always stick together. We had to stick together.
Chapter Eight
Chase
I barely registered what my father was saying. He was talking about Braden and what a wonderful son he had been, but his words fell through my ears like fine sand through a strainer. Nothing caught; I just listened to his voice trying to find some comfort from the sound.
He finished with a sob in his throat, and I looked up at him instinctively. My father looked twenty years older somehow. His gray hair had turned white with grief and his dark eyes were light with unshed tears. He hunched over the microphone, his hands gripping the podium in front of him as though without its presence, he would have slipped to the floor.
He finished speaking and glanced over at his son’s massive, framed picture. He stared at it as though he could bring Braden back to life if he just focused hard enough. In the end, my mother had to walk onto the stage and guide him away. The priest was about to make his way to the microphone when I stood up, taking even myself by surprise.
I hadn’t planned on speaking; in fact, I had been sure that morning that I wasn’t going to say anything at all. But now that I was faced with lowering Braden’s body into the ground, I knew I couldn’t send him off without saying something about him first.
I walked around to the podium where the mic was set up and I took a hold of it with a certainty that I didn’t feel. I knew that everyone’s eyes were on me; I could feel their gazes burning into my skin. I took a moment to glance at my parents clinging to each other like lifelines. I gave them a small nod and then turned to the picture of Braden.
“My brother,” I started shakily. “My brother was my best friend. He was a soldier. He was a fighter, and he was a hero. The thing is…he wasn’t just a hero; he was my hero, and he was my hero long before he ever considered enlisting. He looked after me, he advised me, he taught me, and because of him, I never felt as though I was alone.
“And now…now I’m going to have to live my life knowing that I’m never going to see him again and honestly, I don’t know how I’m going to do that. All I know for sure right now is that my brother was a hero. He wanted to join the military because he wanted to live a life of purpose. He wanted to do something important, he wanted to do something meaningful, and he was brave enough to see it through.”
I stumbled at the end of the sentence and my throat constricted with all the other things I wanted to say but couldn’t. After a long moment of silence, I heard the priest at my back clear his throat gently, and I was reminded that everyone was watching me and waiting for me to finish my speech eloquently.
I glanced up and noticed that Lauren was sitting in the front row. Her hands were folded in her lap and she was looking at me with tears running down her cheeks. It was odd that I hadn’t seen her cry until this moment. I wondered if she was crying for Braden or the sad mess I had become.
“I don’t have much more to say,” I said as my voice cracked uncomfortably. “I guess I just wanted to say…something.”
With that abrupt end, I put the mic down and walked back to my seat. There was a soft murmur that ran through the crowd, but I barely registered it. When I sat back down, Lauren didn’t reach for my hand like I thought she would. Instead, her eyes were fixed on Braden’s picture and her eyes were glazed over. She must have noticed that I was watching her because she turned to me after a moment.
“That was a nice speech,” she said.
“No it wasn’t,” I replied.
She sighed. “It was heartfelt,” she said. “That’s the most important thing.”
When the service finished a few moments later, I took a deep breath and rose to my feet. I was carrying the right-hand front corner of Braden’s coffin, and I was determined not to falter. The next hour of the funeral passed in a blur of disbelief. I recognized several faces I associated with Braden and his military life, but I didn’t have the mental capacity to concentrate on much else.
Once we were at the gravesite, we stood in a solemn group surrounding the massive hole that Braden would be lowered into and I felt a shiver pass through my body. It didn’t seem right that after everything Braden had sacrificed, he would end up like this. It just wasn’t fair and my brain wasn’t able to process the strange morbidity of what we were doing.
Lauren stood beside me the whole time as I tried to block out the anguished sounds of my mother’s sobbing. I felt the need to throw my hands over my ears and scream at the top of my lungs, but I had no choice but to resist the urge. Finally, when it was all over, I stood by Braden’s grave and stared down at the brown soil, contemplating how cruel death was.
People were walking past me, but I paid them no attention. I knew my parents were around, too, but I couldn’t bring myself to look at them.
“Chase?” Lauren’s voice sounded far away.
“Hmm?”
“Your father wants me to help your grandmother to the car,” she said. “Will you be okay here for a moment?”
She was talking to me as though I was incapable of looking after myself, which I found quite funny. I nodded my head and shrugged to say that I would be fine on my own. She lingered for a moment before she squeezed my arm and disappeared into the dispersing crowd. I enjoyed a few minutes of blissful quiet before I felt someone approach me.
He stood a few feet away from me, but he inched closer every few seconds. I was tempted to walk away, but I wasn’t ready to leave Braden’s grave yet.
“Chase?” the voice was unrecognizable. I was forced to turn my head to see who it was.
He had light-hazel eyes that were unsettling and wispy, brown hair that was cut close to his scalp. His face was only slightly familiar, but he was wearing a uniform so that tipped me off right away. “You worked with Braden,” I said before I turned back to stare at the brown soil beneath which my brother lay.
“I did,” he replied. “My name is William Tanner.”
“William Tanner?” I repeated as the name rang a bell. “Braden mentioned you once or twice.”
“I recruited him,” William replied. “We even served together once.”
I nodded, not knowing what else to say.
“You enlisted,” William said and my head snapped up in his direction.
“I…. Yes, I did.”
William nodded. “I saw your papers.”
“Are you here for Braden?” I asked. “Or are you here for me?”
William smiled sadly. “I suppose I’m here for both of you,” he replied. “I was coming for his funeral anyway, and I figured I might as well talk to you while I was here…if you’re up for it, of course.”
“What did you come here to say to me?” I asked with my heart in my mouth.
William glanced around as though he were self-conscious of himself. “I came to tell you that there’s a place for you in the military, if you want it.”
I froze for a moment, letting his words sink in. “You’re serious?”
“Yes, I am,” he nodded. “But….”
“But?” I repeated wrinkling my eyebrows.
“But I would like to have a conversation with you first,” he replied. “When you have a little free time.”
“What about?”
William glanced around. “This is not the time, Chase,” he said gently as he reached into his pocket and pulled out a card. “This is my number. You can call me when you’re ready to meet.”
“Next Thursday,” I said quickly. “We can meet Thursday evening for coffee?”
William nodded. “If that suits you.”
“It does,” I insisted.
“All right,” he said as he extended out his hand for me to shake. “My condolences, Chase. Your brother was a go
od soldier, and an even better person.”
“I know,” I replied.
I was still thinking about William and the military when Lauren showed up. She looked tired and drained, and I reached for her hand like I used to in the days before Braden’s death. She looked startled by the sudden contact, but after a moment, her face broke out into a smile that alleviated some of the fatigue. I knew she was wondering what had brought on the subtle change, but she would never allow herself to ask.
I knew she was hoping I had reached some amount of closure in saying goodbye to my brother. I knew she was hoping I would begin to heal and get back to my old self.
The truth was I was simply acting out of guilt. A part of me had already made the decision to join the military, and another part of me knew that I was leaving Lauren behind. I just hadn’t let the decision process long enough to know for certain if that was what I was going to do.
We drove home in silence, but I kept a firm hold of Lauren’s hand and could tell how happy she was at the contact. The fact was that I was only just starting to realize what I would be giving up if I joined the military. I had been with Lauren for nine years, and we had known each other for ten. She was half my life, and I had known she would be part of the rest of my life, too.
But something had changed. It had changed the day I found out that we had lost Braden. Things were different now, I was different now, and suddenly the plan I had carved out for my future was no longer set in stone. It had taken on the mirage of smoke and I could no longer see my future clearly. I had always promised Lauren that if I ever enlisted, I would take her with me, but I knew now that I had made that promise recklessly.
Life overseas was dangerous for a soldier, and I wasn’t about to put Lauren in the midst of that danger, nor was I going to keep her waiting while I exorcized my demons. I had a life-changing decision to make now and I knew that no matter what I chose, I would lose Lauren in some capacity, whether emotionally, physically, or wholly.
When we got home, I spent the entire day holding onto her as though she were my lifeline. I held her and touched her and kissed her as much as I could because a part of me knew that there would come a time in the near future where I would have to let her go.