CHAPTER 14
As my lips tinged with the soft touch of her skin, my mind wandered places that I could no longer fight. I spent several years fighting, and the memories of Afghanistan were some of the most horrible that I often tried to forget.
We as Americans were in danger at every turn. Women and even children were a threat to us, and I shuddered as I thought back to the many times when I’d seen bodies blow up from bombs they were willing to attach to their bodies to cause our deaths. Not only that but they were ready to die by our hands in the name of their religion, some at the age of young children who were probably told to do what they did. How could anyone be so willing to die when they didn’t be old enough to know better?
I had shot more people fighting than I cared to think about, but Afghanistan rose in my head one of the worst examples. I had killed more people there, people in general that would have killed me if I’d hesitated for a second. I saw my pain refaced in the eyes of all of my men on a daily basis as I watched their fire die a little more each day.
The day that we’d ambushed the most famous warlord’s hideout was one of the most horrible days of my life. It was a fairly typical mission for a soldier like myself and missions like these could end all of the fighting that was going on around us. This day could make a difference for countless people, and that was what kept me moving forward with my men behind me.
I fired on everyone guarding the man first as shots rang out from all around me as I ducked forward and kept moving. The hideout was a small house in the countryside, and it was unbelievable that we’d found it at all since nothing stood out about it.
We moved deeper into the long house, and I took a deep breath as I watched blood spray the wall from another man that I’d killed to survive. We had a real element of surprise after going in on a tip given to us by some townspeople, one of the few that would ever make an effort to help us. I didn’t know what their reason was, but it was safe to assume that someone wanted their country safe again, at least, safe enough to raise their family and give them something of a life.
I heard the screams behind me as I kept moving forward and shooting. I didn’t know how many of my men were shot nor how many of the enemy were down. When you led a group of guys, you kept going to obtain your goal.
Our goal was in the next room, and the dangerous leader was shot and killed. I could relax once my buddy had pulled the trigger and we could take a head count before we went back to base with the good news. They had lost twenty men, and several others were injured.
We’d lost three in the attack, something that would always resonate with me. It wasn’t the day that I lost Joe, but it was the day that changed all our lives forever. I wasn’t the only one that was suffering from this illness inside of me.
In addition to attacking one of the most prominent and dangerous men in Afghanistan, we were also exposed to a sulfur mustard agent that was being stored nearby. It struck quickly, and I had been diagnosed with a rare form of lung cancer just a short time ago. My life in the military ended with what felt like a lot of insincere apologies and little hope for survival.
I took it further and kept obsessing over all of my bad choices in the war. I had hurt so many people in action not to mention in my life dealing with it that I decided it was a punishment for all that I’d done. God had taken my best friend away in the form of a land mine shortly after this infamous attack to start and cursed me with this incurable disease. In some ways, it seemed fair given the horrors that I had endured and caused.
I’d loved before all of this happened, a part of me that thought I was dead inside.
This trip was an honor to those loves, those times in my life. I had to see them one last time, to say goodbye and let them know that I was sorry for everything that had happened. They deserved to know that before I was gone.
They thought I was just passing through before I went back to duty, but the truth was I was never going to go back. I was never going to see another war again. I might be lucky to see another year and die before I was thirty years old.
Melissa. Her bright green eyes and infectious smile had filled my head before I remembered that day that we came to an end. She was my first love and such a bright soul that deserved everything that life was giving her now after so much pain. I dreamed about her a lot after we’d ended and wondered if there was anything that I could do differently.
What did it matter now?
Angela was my second love in life, but I was already so damaged that I only managed to hurt her along the way as well. She was like an angel with her golden hair and blue eyes, and I could admit deep down that Elsa reminded me of her a little bit. Elsa was her own light altogether, but Angela had been so good, and I’d ruined that as well. I ruined everything as a result of my choice to join the Army right after high school when I might have had a chance at a normal life otherwise. She was another one that haunted in my dreams as I replayed her tears and pain, but she was going to get the proper apology from me and the closure that she deserved.
Marion was the one that really haunted my soul. She had been the nail in my emotional coffin, and I frowned as I thought about her. She was the love that I fought harder to keep and her big brown eyes always stared at me in my dreams with their silent scream for help. Her full lips trembled when she cried, and I always screamed at her trying to find her before I woke up thrashing.
They’d all meant so much to me and always would. I’d written myself off as a dead man in a living man’s body, destined to feel nothing before my real end came. I never thought I’d ever feel anything like I had for them, each different in its own way but still loving and warm.
Melissa, Angela, and Marion were the real loves of my life sprinkled among the flings and one-night stands I’d given my cold body to. My heart was dead even as I was in their bed or mine, pleasing them so much that they stall wanted to come back for more, as Chloe did. I was just going through the movements to keep my head above water as I knew that I was drowning inside, and the diagnosis only solidified that for me.
Once I’d heard about that and Joe was gone, I dropped off the map and only saw family. Friends were a thing of the past and women even more so. I knew that I was going to die, and it didn’t matter if I said goodbye to them, even when the women that had sparked my life still deserved to hear it.
I think that seeing them happy would resolve some of my pain. I didn’t want to do it alone and coming across Elsa in this time of my life seemed like another chance at having my own angel, even though I didn’t want to think about that goodbye too deeply. It might be the worst one. Was it selfish of me to bring her along on my last hurrah?
I was too fucking addicted to care at this moment, and I knew that I was clinging to the way that she made me feel and the things that she did to me inside. This was a benefit for both of us at the end. I was on a road trip already, and she was celebrating her freedom, so what better way than to do it together?
That was what I told myself anyway. Anything to ease my own pain and suffering, since I didn’t deserve much more than that. God had seen to that taking away my father, Joe and so much more. If I could show this beautiful woman some good times and live in her innocence for a moment, I might deserve a better spot when I was finally gone.
I needed to keep her safe at any rate, and I’d promised her family that with every intention of seeing it through. I understood the fear and the anger that was in their eyes as they watched her leave with me, but I wasn’t going to hurt her. I would show her what I could of the world as I said goodbye to a few other people and feel like I did something right in my life once I was done in this world.
Elsa would have her light someday, once she’d figured out her path in this world. Damn it if her curiosity and enthusiasm didn’t fire up my soul a little bit once I knew that she’d wanted to be out there, to see what it was she was missing. That was a rare spark in a person, and she deserved to see it turn into a fire. In would be there to see the light as long as I could.
CHAPTER 15
Elsa
I watched as he seemed to slip into something dark as we kept driving on. His thoughts seemed to be consuming him, and I crossed my arms over my chest as I fidgeted next to him in the quiet car.
I picked up my phone here and there to see what I could find on it. There were so many videos to watch on that application that I’d come across, some sweet and funny and others done to music that made me uncomfortable. There were words in the songs about sex, and I didn’t understand that, apart from what I was feeling for Aidan. That didn’t feel dirty like the music did, but like it was coming from a good place.
He’d rocked me the first night I’d met him with that wink and his charming smile. I’d never met anyone with such a natural ability to command a room with his words and his stories and that said a lot coming from a girl that survived on conversation. The world that he described to me when we were talking about phones seemed cold and unfriendly at times, and I was curious to know if others saw him the way that he saw me. He was a bright light in a dull world and even though there was a great depth of pain inside of him, Aidan had forever changed what I’d known.
I thought back to the night in the barn when he was exercising and the way that my body could hardly handle the way that it was feeling inside. If this was an attraction, I considered it a gift that I needed to cling to. The way he held my attention and laughed at me without meaning any harm was just a plus in my book as if he was genuinely entertained by my new found freedom.
I had no idea where we were headed. I knew that he’d mentioned seeing the Grand Canyon and New York, but I didn’t even know when that was. I just knew that my first kiss had just made me feel things that I never knew possible, and a part of me wanted to demand that he stop the car again. I wanted to kiss him until I couldn’t breathe and see if it calmed down my jumbled feelings inside, or if it was even as good as I imagined it would be. I wanted him to want me that way and to see myself giving in to this man that walked into my life as if it was a sign of some sort. It had to be.
I glanced at him as I saw him frown next to me.
I couldn’t do the things that were racing through my mind. I knew nothing of how to please a man. I didn’t even know how to start a kiss or if I’d even be good at it. I knew what he’d told me before he stopped the car to kiss my cheek but I had a glimpse of what was in his past with that text. A man that was as handsome as Aidan had to have a host of women in his past and what could I do that was better than what they’d done? How could I be any different? “I need to ask you something, Elsa.” His voice broke into my thoughts, and I looked at him as he fidgeted in his seat.
I watched as his phone lit up beside him on the seat and as he lifted it to see what it was, I reached forward and turned the radio on in the car. I’d seen him earlier when he was playing music on his phone and with the push of a few buttons, something was playing in the car. I was so used to the old time hymns that we sang in church that repeated the same words from a past that my community was not willing to move away from.
This music was soft strains of something with something that sounded like the organ in the background sometimes and a gritty voice singing so many emotions as I listened carefully. It wasn’t anything like any songs that I’d heard in my life before and I looked over as Aidan started singing along to the song that was playing. It reminded me of something that had been playing on his phone before, and I wondered if I’d heard this.
The car seemed so full for a moment as we drove along and he kept singing as I watched. The songs changed, but he knew them all, and before I knew it, Aidan was adding his charm into them as something seemed to lift from him. They shifted from darker to lighter as he kept right up, dancing in his seat a little bit as I couldn’t help but laugh at him. It was infectious, and I clapped along to the beat of one as I watched him dance slightly, so caught up at this moment. “What was that about?” I asked him as the song ended, and his face broke into a broad smile.
“Sex and drugs, Elsa.” I frowned. It was so catchy, and Aidan looked at me at a stoplight. “They made a good beat, and you would never know it of you didn’t pay attention to the words. That was a hit song when it came out, and I think few know what it’s really saying.”
“I can say that the songs I grew up singing said exactly what they meant. There was no hiding anything,” I told him in a somber voice as I still heard that beat playing in my head. “Did that song promote that kind of behavior? Did young people like me even know what it was?”
“I don’t think so, on both counts. For people away from the Amish lifestyle, we have our own long rumspringa. That’s what I think at any rate. It’s less traditional and not with as much…fanfare, but I did it, and my brothers and my friends did it. Our parents went through it, much like yours, and they just had to sit back and hope for the best. I never wanted to do anything because of a song that I’d heard or even what my friend was doing next to me. I just did what I wanted to do. That song that just played? It just makes me want to move along to the beat and sing along as I laugh about the meaning.” He nodded at the radio. “This song here, this is the Bestir Boys. Hear that beat and just their voices? That is what they were known for. So simple and really easy at the end of the day, but amazing music. I couldn’t get enough of these guys a few years ago.”
“The Bestir Boys?” I asked as he smiled and nodded.
Aidan sang along to the song as he bopped in his seat and I even nodded along a few times. I liked this. “You like music?” I asked him as he smiled and nodded. “I always did as well, but I always knew there was more than just the songs from the hymnal. I just had no way to hear it before, but this here in the car just plays it freely.”
“The car radio. Something almost as important as the car itself, in my mind. As a kid, I’d record my favorite songs on these tapes that I had. It was horrible quality. Then there were what we called compact disc's and MP3 players and now there a host of radio stations on that phone of yours. You can go back into any decade and just listen to what they sang about.”
I could see that Aidan was passionate about music, and I stared at him. “Do you play anything?”
“I learned a little guitar along the way. Nothing that could get me anywhere, but I wanted to join the military anyway. We always listened to music on our down time there. It held us guys together when times were hard, and we could all relate.” I sensed pain in his voice when suddenly he looked at me. “I was going to ask you something. Now I remember.”
I saw him jump as his phone lit up again but I couldn’t see what it was. “What? Is it bad?”
“No, there’s just more to the trip than planned. I need to fill you in.” Aidan told me as I looked at him. “I am on leave for a bit before I go back on a tour of duty. I wanted to see three people that I was close to once because those get riskier as time goes on. They changed my life, and I just want to thank them. This will get us to The Grand Canyon, and I’ll take you to New York if I have time as well. I’d just love to have you along with me for this time.”
“Are these three people women or men?” I asked as he shook his head.
“Women. They’re in my past, and they’ve…moved on. There was just a time when we were close, and they made a difference in my life,” he explained, and I nodded. As jealous as I was feeling, I also knew that he would move on to be one of those people for me in life. “I wish I could tell you easier that life keeps going once something has stopped in it.”
“I understand that,” I told him as he looked at me. “I do.”
“So you’ll join me?” He asked, and I nodded.