For seven months, I’m in the desert. My time in Virginia was short. Killian is stationed there, too, so we started hanging out again. It still bugs me that I haven’t seen Carey even once. I wanted to, but I was afraid I’d get weak and ask him about her. Since the day Spider was killed, I’ve been seeing a therapist. I’ve talked to him about Mac. And as stupid as it sounds, time heals all wounds.

I still love her, and I always will, but I’ve started accepting things. Mac is happy with Dad and their baby, and I’ll never be part of her life again.

It still hurts, but it’s getting easier. I’m not constantly reminded of her, especially since I’ve started seeing other women. It was about time. Seriously. What guy abstains from sex for years? In a few months, I’m turning twenty-four, and apart from that one time with Mac, I haven’t had sex since I was eighteen. It drives you crazy.

It’s not that I’ve turned into a man whore, either, like I used to be back in high school. But I go out and have fun. I haven’t met the right woman yet, though. None of them have even come close. And nobody ever will. After five years without sex, it’s just baby steps, I guess. Baby steps.

After talking with my therapist, I’ve met up with Devon a few more times, too. He finished his degree and is working as a journalist in D.C. Ava’s doing her Ph.D. at Georgetown. The two of them are still together, which makes me happy and sad at the same time. But it was great to see them again. It’s like no time has passed.

And now I’m out on my second deployment. Seven months total. I’m six in. In one month, I’m going back to Virginia. I’m planning to go back to Force Recon after that. I still have to do some more training, but after that, my former dream could still come true.

The boys in my unit are cool. I’m on one team with Jackson, which is great. So far, our lives have been spared—knock on wood. It took me a long time to process what happened that day, but the command center has stopped investigating and decided nobody could have foreseen the attack. Still, it was the worst day of my life. Spider dead, Fire dead, Pitbull dead. Jumbo’s still in rehab. Fire survived but later shot himself because he couldn’t live with his injuries. Florida’s suffering from PTSD and hasn’t been admitted back into service. I went to see him once. He wasn’t doing great.

Of course, I realize this stuff hasn’t left me completely, either. The fireworks on the Fourth of July in Virginia were an absolute nightmare for me. I thought I was back in Afghanistan. Once, a car near me misfired, and I threw myself on the ground right there in public. But it’s not just me. A few others did the same thing—it sounded like a shot, which wasn’t unusual in that neighborhood.

And now we’re back here. Back to the groundhog days.

“Hey, Killer,” Jackson calls.

“Jax?”

“This old dude on the bus sees a punk with a red Mohawk,” Jax says without preamble. “He keeps staring at him. At some point, the punk gets sick of it and yells at the old dude, ‘Come on, man, didn’t you ever do anything stupid when you were young?’ ‘I did,’ the old dude says. ‘I used to fuck chickens when I was young, and I’m wondering if you’re my son.’”

I smile. Count on Jax to make you laugh even when things look dark as midnight. Kind of like Joey.

“The guys here look like they might be fucking chickens, too,” Meatball says.

As a kid from Cali, I consider that a racist comment. As a Marine who’s seen them trying to kill us left, right, and center, I don’t give a fuck what jokes people make about the T-Men.

“I thought they were fucking each other,” Rabbit throws in.

“Man-Love Thursday,” Jax says, making everybody laugh. Apparently, here in the south of Afghanistan, especially in Kandahar, relationships between men are pretty common. Jax likes to imply the guys fuck each other on Thursdays so they don’t feel lust on holy Friday.

Normally, jokes like that would get me upset. But over here, nothing is normal. I don’t make jokes like that, but I don’t protest them, either. Like I said, I’m not a fan of the Taliban. I would never do the things some other soldiers have done, especially in Iraq, and I would always speak against them, but I’m not going to shed any tears about the T-Men bastards, either. I’ve seen too many good men die.

“What are you going to do when you get back home, Killer?” Jax asks.

“Fuck,” I say, making everybody laugh. I guess that’s what we’re all going to do when we get back to the States.

“Want me to get you a chicken?” Meatball calls.

“They’re all yours, man, I don’t want to impose,” I say, making them laugh again. We’re out in a convoy, on our way to a COP, a combat outpost where forty to a hundred and fifty soldiers are stationed. From there, we can start missions into the hinterland to drive the Taliban out of the area.

“There’s enough of them out here,” Meatball says, looking confused when everybody laughs.

I shake my head in amusement. It feels good to laugh sometimes, even if it’s just about Meatball’s stupidity. But I’m still looking forward to getting home. Even if that just means sleeping in my barracks in Virginia because I still haven’t managed to get myself an apartment.

Just like the first time over here, it’s the sand that gets to me the most. It’s everywhere. No wonder it’s called moon dust. It’s so fine it settles in every last crack.

“We should go for a little stopover in Germany,” Jax says, ripping me from my own thoughts.

“Why?” I ask.

Rabbit grins broadly. “Legal whores.”

I shake my head. “I don’t need them. I’m not as ugly as you are.”

Jax laughs. “But it would definitely be better to get our fill before we have to go home and take care of our girlfriends. Otherwise, they’ll be sore when we’re done with them.”

Once again, I wonder how women can stand being with men. “And you think your girlfriend would still want you after you fucked a German whore?”

“Not one, man, ten! One for every day.” Meatball laughs. “Germany is the holy land, man.”

I shake my head. “In my opinion, there’s only one thing that takes a joe to Ramstein.”

“Which is?”

“A helicopter. Taking him to the hospital, half dead. So I don’t want to go to Germany.”

“Killjoy,” Meatball grumbles.

Rabbit laughs. “But the legal whores…”

“Go to Vegas,” I retort.

The guys let me have the last word, in part because I’ve been made commander of our team. Jax has been here longer than me, but I’ve gone up through the ranks faster, which is kind of fucked up.

Turns out life at the COP is no different from life at the base, except we don’t have a mess hall here. We only get ready-made meals, which taste of nothing if you don’t pour loads of Tabasco on them. Which, in turn, makes them super spicy. We all look forward to the day we get to go back to camp. Sometimes we tell each other what kind of food we’re looking forward to most. Mess Hall 6 has a Mongolian barbecue. That’s my current favorite.

We talk about food like we talk about women. To distract ourselves and keep ourselves from going crazy. My team’s full of crude bastards, but really, they’re faithful boyfriends and husbands. Especially Rabbit, who’s always writing to his wife or talking to her on the phone. He would never think about sleeping with another woman. But that’s what they’re like: barking dogs who don’t bite. They like to talk, but really, they’re decent guys.

Over the next few weeks, there are a few small skirmishes with Taliban, but nothing a Marine wouldn’t get through. After all, we’re part of the most advanced military in the world, and our opponents are mostly just shepherd boys brainwashed by their mullahs. I can’t stand to think about it, or I’ll start feeling sorry for them, and I don’t need that. Pity is for pussies.

We don’t really have time to give much thought to anything. We patrol and protect our small fort. We eliminate their strongholds, making the area safer, but they keep shooting up like mushrooms all over the place. You kill one Taliban only to turn around and face another ten.

We could actually learn from them. Troop motivation. Recruitment. But their methods don’t have much to do with freedom. And our operation is called Enduring Freedom, so things are different for us.