Chapter Thirty-Nine

Briggs

Left.

Right.

Left.

Starting out slow, I pick at the heavy bag in front of me with taped wrists instead of gloves, knowing how much damage I could do but needing the pain to feel relief. I’ve become a masochist of sorts, reveling in the burn. sounds through my earbuds on repeat. I never thought I’d be the type of guy to have a song that reminds me of a woman, but as it turns out, I’m just that fucking guy. If there was ever a song that represented how I feel—about me, about her— it’s this one.

It’s days like today when I have to force myself to breathe, when I see her face so clearly I feel like I can reach out and touch it. Her voice echoes out my name, and I’d give anything to answer, anything to let her know I’m still forcing these breaths out only for her. Last night I let the anger win and purposely picked a fight with a guy twice my size. With every crack of my whiskey-fueled knuckles, I felt a sick satisfaction. But even the rush of adrenaline I’ve been craving wasn’t enough to stifle the emptiness that followed when I brought him to his knees. Empty. Hollow. Hurt. I’m a born fighter, and even with all my training, I can’t defeat the one thing weighing me down. I miss her. I need her. I need her. I need her. And she’s not mine.

Warming up, I slowly tick off a lick for every day I spent with her in that bunker, until the song picks up, the violin sounds, and heavy drums kick in. Pain streams through me inside and out as I match the building rhythm double-time with my throws. Though my fists scream for relief, I know I’ll refuse them until my chest stops constricting the way it does every time I think of her. The irony of it is that I finally get it—I understand why she had to leave me with my heart in my hands the way she did. When you find this feeling, you have to do anything you can to keep it.

That realization does nothing as I thunder out my ache, my split knuckles scraping against the tape.

No amount of reasoning helps the hurt, erases the longing.

Doesn’t curb the anger, doesn’t ease the pain.

I still love her. I’ll die loving her.

My arms finally give out as the song ends, and I hug the bag to keep from collapsing.

It’s nearing one in the morning when I come stumbling up the stairs from another night out with the guys and a notification chimes on my phone. Bracing my back against the wall, I squint my eyes in an attempt to stop the screen from moving. Who’d be messaging me this late at night?

“Damn, Briggs…that chick already blowin’ up your phone?” Connors chuckles, fumbling with the keys to unlock our room as I mess around on my phone, still trying to figure out where that tone came from. “You fucked her in that bathroom, didn’t you? Dude, I need to get captured so chicks’ll fall all over my dick too.”

My eyes roll as I recall bits and pieces of what went down with Emily on the back seat of her car in Rox’s parking lot earlier tonight. “I didn’t fuck her in the bathroom.” I’m not lying. “I didn’t even give her my number. You know me better than that.”

Our lock sticks, and watching Connors’s drunk ass fight with it is giving me a good laugh.

“That was Facebook,” he supplies, as he slams his hip into the door and it finally pops open. “Try Messenger.”

Of course, he knows the app by the damn tone. The man has more social media and dating apps than I could ever keep track of.

Following his instructions, I pull up Messenger, but there’s nothing new here either. “I don’t know how to work this shit, man. I don’t see anything.”

“Give it to me.” Connors snatches my phone from my hand and starts clicking away. “Here, it’s Kathryn. Y’all aren’t friends, so it was in your other messages folder.”

“My wha—” My train of thought is lost when I see her name in bold letters: Kathryn Scott.

Ambling over to the couch, I stare at the unopened message in disbelief. I do the math. Four months. It’s been four months without a word. Connors reads my expression. “You all right, man?”

“I’m good. Give me a minute?” His eyes slowly rake over me. “Yeah, sure, I’m gonna hit the shower. Sure you’re okay?”

No. Fuck. No.

“I’m good.” By the time he clicks the door shut behind him, I’m staring at the phone in my hand in a daze. For as long and as hard as I wished for any word from her, it’s fucking surreal that she’s just a click away, and I don’t waste another second.

Briggs,

Remember when I said we couldn’t speak after parting ways in Germany? It was the day I broke your heart. What you didn’t know was that I was breaking mine too. I thought they’d be enough—my husband and my son. That I’d get home, and everything would go back to the way it was…

Before the war.

Before the ambush.

Before you.

But, no matter how hard I try, I can’t erase the trauma we shared. I can’t seem to forget the way my heart beat in time with yours. The truth is I’m lost without you. I thought the nightmare was over when they pulled us from that hole in the ground, but nothing could have prepared me for the war I’d face at home.

I know it’s selfish of me to ask, but, please, I have to see you one last time...

All my love,

Scottie

Stunned. I’m stunned as I read her letter a few more times. No contact. She said no contact. We never exchanged numbers or emails. It was supposed to be over, only for me it never was. Not by a long shot. Apparently not for her either. I tug at the neck of my shirt, suddenly feeling choked and feverish.

I don’t know what to do with this. What to make of it. So, I decide to snoop on her page, but it’s brand new. There are no pictures of her happy family. No photos of what she ate for dinner, or her dog, or shit she bought at the mall like all the other girls on my friends list. It’s completely blank. Even her profile picture is that generic white silhouette on the gray-blue background. She made this account with the sole purpose of finding me.

Before replying, I send her a friend request so all future messages will be where I can find them. She obviously doesn’t know how this thing works. If my roommate wasn’t such a social media nerd, I’d have never known she reached out to me at all.

“Well?” Connors is lurking next to my bed, trying to peer at my screen. “What’d Sergeant Scott want?”

To see me, but where? It dawns on me then I hadn’t clicked the link below the message. I open it up to see the contact for the Today Show.

“What the fuck?”

“What?”

“She wants to do the Today Show.”

“That’s fucking awesome, man.”

Is it? I’m not sure—all I care about right now is that she’s admitting our time apart has been just as hellacious on her as it has me, as selfish as that may be. It’s dangerous, and I know it because her confession fills me with so much hope I can barely breathe.

I realize I haven’t responded to Connors when he prods me. “So? You gonna do it?”

“I don’t know.” But I know. Of course, I’ll do it. I would do anything for this woman. She needs me.

And God, do I still need her.

“Yeah, well do yourself a favor and wait till morning to respond, so you don’t sound like a drunk asshole. I’ve done that way too many times.”

Connors has turned out to be a pretty decent guy. For about thirty seconds I contemplate taking his advice before attempting to type out a reply. But everything sounds stupid, and the letters won’t stop floating around. I can’t fuck this up, so I delete it and read over her words until I drift off to sleep.

I can’t seem to forget the way my heart beat in time with yours.

She still thinks of our time in Landstuhl. I wonder if she remembers the heat between us, and if her heart races the way mine is right now with that memory.

The truth is I’m lost without you.

Lost. It’s exactly how I’ve felt since the moment she walked away from me.

“Dude, what the hell are you doing, giving birth? The guys have been waiting for us downstairs for ten minutes now. Come the fuck on, hero.”

“Tell ’em I’m coming,” I yell through the door as I try to finish typing out a response to Scottie on my phone. I no longer feel like going out drinking on the lake with Connors and his buddies, but I know I’ll just spend my entire Saturday in this room, obsessing over another man’s wife, if I don’t. With sober eyes, realization has dawned that this favor she’s asking might lead to more of the same feelings I’ve been fighting for months.

But to see her, to just look at her again, face to face, it feels like a choice between life and death.

This can’t end well.

Before hitting send and darkening my screen, I read over my reply one last time.

Scottie,

It’s so good to hear from you, and I’d be lying if I said I wasn’t surprised in the best imaginable way, although I do wish the tone of your message was different, better. I truly hoped that life would be kind once you made it home, because you deserve happiness more than anyone I’ve ever known.

I think of you often, daily actually, and I miss you too. More than it would be appropriate to say. So, I won’t. When it comes to you, my heart will always cross the line. Just know that I still mean every word I said to you on that plane. Nothing with regard to how I feel for you has changed.

I’m here in whatever capacity you’re comfortable with. Whatever you need. Please tell me what I can do to make this easier for you because I can’t bear the thought of us both being this miserable. I can stay away if it means your happiness, but I don’t know how to do that, knowing it’s bringing you pain.

Forever yours,

Briggs

I send my response with a clear head, until a different part of her message springs to mind.

One last time.