It’s dark in the dream, but I know exactly where I am. I’m with my team in a dusty town in Afghanistan.

Every single nerve in my body is tense, every muscle in my body ready to react, but these are the last moments of silence before we burst in through the door and take this house by storm.

The intel that came in today indicates there’s a terrorist holed up inside, and not just a run-of-the-mill member of al-Qaeda. It’s a high-ranking leader, passing through the area for one night only.

Three. Two. One…and go.

We move as a cohesive unit because we are one. We’ve trained together for years, been in Afghanistan for six months, and spend our days and nights together. Nobody questions the fact that it’s Davis who will kick down the door and throw the first flashbang. Why would we question it? Before I have time to think, we’re through the front door and creating chaos for everyone inside.

My stomach lurches, though I don’t show it, because the first thing I see is a woman cowering in the corner of the main room. Her face is a mask of terror and she has her arms wrapped around someone—a little girl—who is howling, her thin voice rising above the noise. I shout out the name of the terrorist we’re tracking into their faces but they don’t react. Tears are streaming down the woman’s face, but she’s not sobbing. They’re just falling, falling, falling.

Two of my buddies are dragging someone out by the arms. A third member of the squad signals to me. There’s no one left in the house. I stand over the woman and the girl for a few more long moments. They probably didn’t have anything to do with this. I feel fucking terrible that we threw a flashbang in here. It probably scared the shit out of them. But what else could we do?

I go outside then and stand at the edge of the group surrounding the man we’ve dragged seemingly from his bed in the middle of the night. His hair is tousled and he’s talking so fast it’s hard to understand, doubly hard because he’s speaking in Pashto, but somewhere along the line it starts to sound like English. I can understand him perfectly, and he’s telling me not to get back in the car. Don’t get back in the car, he says, but why? There’s no way he can possibly know anything.

He’s not the terrorist we were hunting. He’s nobody. We disregard him, shove him back into the house, and leave. Mission failed. Heads hanging low. And we get back into the Humvee. The moment my ass hits a seat my stomach turns. I shouldn’t be in here. I should listen to him. But I’m not going to. I can never go back and make another decision. I can never go back.

I wake up in a cold sweat, the hotel sheets rough against my skin. Hot bile rises in my throat, and I push myself straight up in bed, sitting up to face whatever’s coming.

Nothing is coming.

I’m in a hotel.

I’m not in Afghanistan.

Afghanistan is over, and everything is fine. I repeat the phrase to myself a few more times. Afghanistan is over, and everything is fine. 

My scar is evidence of healing. It’s evidence that everything is fine. 

I left town the morning after the discussion with Skye. I had a trip planned anyway, from prior to when she was hired on, but it was only supposed to last two days. Only the moment I got back into town, I checked into a hotel. It’s for safety, really. The fewer chances I have of running into her, the better. It’ll be best if I don’t get sucked in again, sucked into her lies.

I’m wide fucking awake, and it’s one in the morning. I feel like I’ve been sleeping for hours, trapped in this fucking dream like I’m trapped in it every night, but I only fell asleep at midnight.

Screw this.

I whip on a pair of pants and a shirt, run a hand through my hair, and go down to the hotel bar.

“Something on your mind?” The bartender is an older guy, seasoned, with wrinkled skin around his eyes. He pulls out a glass without asking what I want, and pours a beer.

“I wouldn’t be here if I could sleep.”

“Woman or money?”

I want to laugh out loud. He’s pretty damn forward for a bartender at a chain hotel, but what do I have to lose? “Woman.”

He nods sagely, and then pushes the beer across the bar to me. “How’d you screw up?”

My mouth twists into an ugly smile. “What makes you think I’m the one who screwed up?”

“You’re wound tighter than a drum, young man.” I guess his salt and pepper hair does give him the right to think I’m just some idiot fresh out of college. “And I can tell by the way you walked in here that you’re ex-military.” He shrugs one shoulder. “I know a thing or two about that. Sometimes…” He cocks his head to the side. “Sometimes we do pretty stupid shit, when the war is over.”

“It’s not over.”

“It’s never really over, is it? No.” He answers his own question. “Do you love her?”

I look down into my beer. I don’t know what kind of beer it is, and I don’t care. I just wish Skye was here. I wish I could trust her. “I don’t know.”

“Yes, you do.” The bartender laughs. “All you have to do is figure out where you went wrong.”

“I’m not the one—”

“You’re always the one,” he says, looking me squarely in the eye. “Get used to it. If you love a woman, it’s never her who screws up. And most of the time, it’s actually true.”

I take a swig of beer, trying to swallow away a certain tightness in my throat. I’m not going to fucking tear up in front of a bartender. “It’s over. It’s…complicated, but it’s over.”

“I believe you, son,” the bartender says. “I really do.”

He’s lying.

I drink more of my beer and stare at the TV screen behind the bar.

I stay there for a long time.