CHAPTER TWENTY-SEVEN
“HANG ON,” BRIDGETTE said to Talia, who was on speakerphone. She made a U-turn and came to a fast stop on the side of the road in front of Chopstix. Her laptop and purse flew off the passenger seat. “Darn it. One sec.” She put the car in park and leaned over to pick up her things. The bracelet Bodhi had given her slid down her wrist, and a pang of longing shot through her. She hadn’t heard from him since he’d left almost two weeks ago. Not that she’d expected to, but she’d thought his training was only for a week, and she’d hoped he might be as lonely for her as she was for him. When she’d bought Louie his new backpack for kindergarten, he kept talking about how he couldn’t wait to show it to Bodhi, piling more longing onto the already mountainous ache. Every night when she put Louie to bed and tucked him in with Jeter, his Yankees hat hanging on the bedpost, she had to stifle her heartache. She’d cried herself to sleep more nights than not, but she considered getting up, showering, and working all day a major success. Dinners, however, were another story.
“What are you doing?” Talia asked. “It sounds like you’re all worked up.”
“I’m late picking up Louie, and I almost forgot to get dinner. I stopped too fast and all my crap fell off the seat.” She set her things on the seat, feeling rattled. “Okay, I’m back. Remember when you mentioned advertising outside of Sweetwater? Can you help me figure out where to advertise? I thought things at the shop would slow down, but it’s been really busy.”
“Of course. I’ll do some research tonight and let you know what I come up with.”
She breathed a sigh of relief. “Thank you.”
“How are things? Any word from Bodhi?”
Bridgette grabbed her purse and got out of the car. “No, but I didn’t expect to hear from him. I just hoped.”
“I know. Maybe his training ran longer than expected.”
“Or maybe he’s better at sticking to plans than I am.” She leaned against the car, knowing she should be rushing into the restaurant, but she needed a moment to tamp down the burning in her chest.
She’d needed lots of moments lately. She didn’t want to admit to Talia that she’d been using the jasmine massage oil her mother made on a nightly basis, hoping her love potion might work its magic. Or that she’d broken down and sent him a text last week, saying she thought they’d made a mistake and she wanted to talk. The fact that he hadn’t responded should have made it easier for her to move on, but she’d come up with a hundred excuses in her mind about why he hadn’t, and that ridiculous tactic had given her hope.
“I’m sorry, Bridge. Want me to come by tonight and hang out?” Talia asked.
“No. It’s okay.” Her sisters had come over every night for the first week to try to cheer her up. Sometimes it worked, until they left and she was alone in her bed, staring at Bodhi’s romance novel she’d never read and the walkie-talkie that couldn’t reach him. And her phone. Her stupid phone. She’d looked at their pictures too many times to count.
“You sure?”
“Yeah. I don’t want you messing up my nightly routine of being strong for Louie and then falling apart like a loser.”
“Oh, Bridgette. You’re not a loser. You’re sad, and you have every right to be.”
Tears threatened. My cue to get moving. “Thanks for helping me with the ads. I have to run or Mom will give Louie ice cream and cookies for dinner.”
She raced through picking up dinner and Louie, and as she drove up the hill toward her house, she held her breath at the sight of Bodhi’s truck pulling out of his mother’s driveway. She sped up, hoping to catch him. The truck slowed as it passed, and she stopped her car, hope swelling inside her. The driver, an older man with gray hair, stopped beside her car, and her whole body slumped.
“Everything okay?” he asked.
No. I’m stopped in the middle of the road with my heart in my throat, and you’re not Bodhi! “Yes,” she said meekly. It was then she noticed a sign on the side of the truck for a roofing company.
She rolled up her window and parked in her driveway, on the verge of tears again. She hadn’t even given Louie the dog tags from Bodhi. It made the end of their relationship feel too real.
Louie unhooked his seat belt and thrust a picture over the seat. “See what I drew with Grandma?”
She took it, trying not to let him see her sadness. “Great, honey.”
“Aren’t you going to look at it?”
As she lowered her gaze, he said, “That’s me and you and Bodhi and Dahlia. See what I’m holding, Mom? What do you think it is?”
Emotions clogged her throat, and she tried to swallow past them. Louie had been fine with his friend Bodhi leaving. He didn’t need to see her lose it.
“It’s Jeter! I miss Bodhi and Dahlia, don’t you?”
A tear slipped down her cheek, and she turned away. “Uh-huh.”
“Why are you crying, Mommy? Because you miss them, too?”
She shook her head. “No. I just had a hard day.”
He climbed over the seat and wrapped his arms around her neck, making her cry harder. I suck so bad. She held her breath, trying to stop crying so she wouldn’t upset Louie.
“I’m sorry you had a hard day, Mommy.”
He was so sweet. He didn’t need to see this. Wasn’t this what she and Bodhi were trying to keep from happening? Wasn’t this the exact reason they’d made their here-and-now plan? She wiped her eyes and straightened her spine, forcing herself to pull her shit together for her son’s sake.
“We can make a fort and eat dinner in it,” Louie suggested. “Or make green slime. Or we could play superhero. Want to play superhero?”
Life was so easy in his eyes. Friends came and went. The road to happiness was paved with slime and forts and pretending to be someone else. She brushed his hair from in front of his eyes and kissed his cheek.
“You can be Spider-Man, and I’ll be Batman,” Louie suggested.
Spider-Man sounded a lot better than Sad Mom.
“Yes. I would love to play superhero. I want to be the best superhero there is.” The kind who never cries in front of her son.
THE SMELL OF sulfur permeated the cold night air. Rapid gunfire and heavy artillery blasts sounded like deadly fireworks, competing with the sound of blood rushing through Bodhi’s ears. His team had successfully completed their first mission and were redirected to help a task force of Special Forces soldiers and Marines who had captured two suspected insurgent leaders. They were ambushed, and trapped in the kill zone. The enemy pummeled them from three sides with machine-gun fire. Bodhi shouted commands into the encrypted satellite radio as he ran out from the cover of his truck, armed with seventy-plus pounds of equipment, to rescue a fallen soldier. He hoisted the man over his shoulder, returning gunfire as he carried him to safety inside the truck. An explosion rang out, sending Bodhi into the air and blowing him back with magnum force. He slammed into the earth, and his head snapped back. Bodhi cried out in agony as he tried to open his eyes, pain searing through his limbs and chest. One eye refused to open; the other was blinded by sand. He tried to sit up—his mind racing to the soldier in the truck. He listened for other members of his team, but the gunfire and chaos were too immense. Bridgette’s voice sailed through the darkness—I will always love you—just as another explosion rang out, and the world faded to black.