“Marry Me”—Thomas Rhett
SEEING SERA BREAK DOWN was one of the most traumatizing things I’d ever seen. And trust me, I’ve seen a lot. It was cowardly of me to leave, but I didn’t deserve to share my pain with them. I was an outsider. Not that I hadn’t prepared myself for that. I knew when I joined the Marines that I was essentially cutting ties with Tyler and Christian, and hell did it hurt, but the worst was Sera. She was my everything, but she belonged to one of my best friends. That was something I knew I couldn’t stay around to watch, and the driving force behind my leaving home.
Growing up, I had held myself away from her, other than being her friend. It felt wrong to be obsessed with my best friend’s kid sister. Yeah, she was my best friend too. At least that’s what I told her. It was easier than telling her the truth—that I was in love with her and had been since I was five. It had been as if my soul recognized hers immediately. Like we had lived before, and when we met again in this life, there was a connection.
You know how when you’re standing under power lines and sometimes you hear that buzzing as the current races along the wires? That’s how I felt every time I was around her. Like there was this energy current that connected us. My skin felt her when she walked in a room.
As we got older, I began to lust after her, and it made me feel awful. She had looked at me like her best friend or big brother. Feeling that way made me feel like there was something wrong with me. There was a certainty in me that said she would have been repulsed had she known how many times and ways she haunted my dreams and fantasies. Besides, I knew I was kind of like the neighborhood stray, with my parents being absent most of my life and my grandparents raising me. There was no way I was good enough for her. She was an angel.
When my lust for her became more than I could deal with, I started hooking up with girls who I thought would make me forget my thoughts and fantasies of her. They were easy to come by. After all, it was Texas, and anyone who was a decent size and had any talent at all played football. Not to mention none of us three guys lacked in the looks department, and we were never short on girls who wanted to be able to say they had been with one of the “three musketeers.” Hell yeah, we knew people called us that. We didn’t care; it made us laugh and think we were hot shit.
Never in a million years would I have told her how I visualized her in my mind anytime I had my dick buried in a girl’s mouth or somewhere else. Especially if I was high. Fuck, I may have even called them by her name during those times. Though I was pretty good at hiding it, weed and I were really good friends back then, so it may have happened a lot. Thankfully, she never heard about it, but then again, the girls I used were usually older. Yeah, I said “used.” Because I always knew none of them would be girlfriend material, despite what they may have hoped for. They weren’t her, after all.
Then when Tyler broke the unspoken code that she was off-limits because she was Christian’s sister, fuck, I lost my shit. I beat myself up for being the one who sat back and “did the right thing.” It should have been me. Instead, he had gotten to her first.
Despite how bad it sucked watching them date, it was worse when he completely ensured she would be his. Fuck, that was an awful day—the day Tyler asked her to marry him. It absolutely gutted me and was the catalyst for my entry into the Marine Corps. However, no matter how bad that tore me up, seeing her at the funeral service was so much worse.
Anytime she was in pain, it eviscerated me. It always had. But this type of pain? It was too much. He was her husband, but he had been one of my best friends too. It made me angry because I didn’t know how to deal with that type of pain. Which was why, instead of being at the graveyard watching my friend get buried and being there as support to his wife, I was at the gym. Where I wasn’t really supposed to be. My doc would be pissed, but it was either I work out my frustration there or I fell apart.
No one knew I had come home for my convalescent leave. Well, other than my immediate family. Not that I had gone home for the funeral. I hadn’t even known. It was just shitty fate, I guess, because up until about a month or so ago, I had been deployed. Then Erik and I got shot, so we were sent back. He was back home in Iowa on convalescent leave while I was here. I had made my family promise not to tell anyone I was home because I didn’t want to deal with people.
Either no one cared to notify me, or I had missed the messages due to our team being extremely… uh, mobile. Either way, I still hadn’t had notification.
Maybe that was a lie. The little voice in my head had to poke at me and stir up guilt. There had been numerous e-mails from Sera, but I had deleted them without reading them. It was part of my most recent attempt at cutting her out of my life, in hopes that I would one day get over her. It made me feel like a big piece of shit because she might have been trying to let me know what had happened. No, I’m sure she was trying to let me know. Guilt gnawed at me from the inside out.
The only reason I knew he had died and when the funeral happened to be was because my family asked if I was going the minute they picked me up from the airport. They’d had no idea I didn’t know. It had felt like someone pulled a rug out from under me. I fucking swear to God, I almost passed the fuck out.
Yelling through each exhale during the last lift of my bench set, I racked the weights and sat up. Fishing around on the floor under the bench, I grasped the towel and scrubbed the sweat from my face. The throbbing in my thigh was evidence I had probably done too much, but I didn’t give a flying fuck. Raising the leg of my shorts, I assessed the angry red scar on my leg. Shit, a few inches more and it might have hit my dick. Now that would have been a bad day. Getting shot in the damn thigh while I was trying to keep my battle buddy from bleeding out was shitty enough. Losing my dick? Fuck that, you might as well shoot me dead.
Moving on to the dip bars, with Guns N’ Roses blasting in my headphones, I brutalized my body a little more. By the time I had pushed through three sets of forty, I was dripping sweat, and I knew I was done for the day. The last two hours had been an intentional, self-imposed torture session, but I was beat.
Limping slightly, I made my way to the shower. The gym was dead today, and I was glad of it, because I was in no frame of mind to deal with peopling. As I grabbed my gym bag from the locker I’d shoved it in, I saw my phone was lit up with a missed call from Erik. Making a mental note to call him back, I slid my shower shoes on, dropped the phone in the bag, then stepped into the shower stall and turned the water on as hot as it would go.
Fuck, I couldn’t believe Tyler was gone. Scalding water sprayed my back, and I wished it would peel away the layer of self-loathing and shame that encapsulated my entire being. Hanging my head, water ran down over my face, converging at my nose and mouth to run to the drain in a thick waterfall. When I couldn’t hold my breath anymore, I tossed my head back, sending a spray of water slapping against the wall behind me. Air gusted into my lungs with a gasp.
Sera’s face filled my head; her different expressions overlapped and created a collage in my mind. Every expression, unique and precious, stored away in my mind to be pulled out on cold, lonely nights in caves, deserts, and hard bunks. I’d loved her for what seemed like my whole fucking life. Even as I stood at the back of the church where one of my best friends was being honored and remembered, I had coveted his wife.
Just the thought of her had my dick surging toward the picture in my mind. Wrapping my hand around it, I squeezed, imagining it was buried inside her. In my imagination, I saw her head tip back, eyes fluttering, mouth slightly parted in ecstasy as I drove into her relentlessly. Her dark blonde hair cascaded across the pillow, and breathy moans slipped from between those luscious lips. When my mythical Serafina screamed my name in her release, I felt my balls tighten and electricity gathered at the base of my spine. My own release exploded from my cock and hit the shower wall in front of me.
Yeah, I was ten kinds of fucked up, and unfortunately I couldn’t find it in me to care. She was the one temptation I fought daily, but fantasized about just as often. My soul might be damned to Hell for the things I’d done, but I wouldn’t go near her and taint her with my sins. Sera was goodness and light, whereas I was darkness and hate.
Finishing up in the shower, I wrapped a towel around my waist and dug through my gym bag for my phone. Too tired to dress, I sat on one of the benches and waited for Erik to answer.
“Hey, man, you doing okay?” Erik had been my battle buddy and good friend. Like me, he had been through some shit that pushed him to walk away from a lot and join the Marines. Maybe our two fucked-up souls had sensed each other; whatever it was, the bond between us had always been extremely strong. He and I had gone through training together and had then been paired up when we joined the Force Recon unit. He and my team were some of the few people I really trusted.
And Bertha, of course. That’s my rifle, but don’t tell anyone I named her. I’d get so much shit for that. She’s my girl and so far hasn’t let me down. Kissing the crucifix hanging from my neck—the one my grandparents gave me after completing catechism when I was fifteen—I sent up a silent prayer for that to never change, because that would mean my time on Earth was done. I wasn’t ready for that shit, no matter how many bad things I’d done.
“I’m hanging in there, man. How about you? You up and walking yet?” He had taken a bullet right to the femoral artery, and I thought we were going to lose him, but that fucker had some crazy-ass luck.
“Yeah, but it hurts like a bitch. Trying not to take a lot of those goddamn pain pills, but fucking A, it’s tempting. My mom’s been trying to coddle me the whole time I’ve been here, and I finally had to tell her to stop because I couldn’t stand it. Now she keeps ragging on me about why I had to join and put my life on the line, blah, blah, blah. Don’t wanna talk about all that fucking crap, you know?” He ended with a groan. “Fuck, it’s even hard to sit down after I’ve been up.”
“Quit whining, you pussy. What doesn’t kill us makes us stronger and all that shit.” I couldn’t hold back my laugh as I messed with him.
“Okay, laugh it up, you fucker. What the hell are you doing right now?”
Biting my lip to keep from laughing again, I finally couldn’t hold it and laughed anyway.
“Uh, just finished at the gym, actually.”
“Jesus. You’re a crazy motherfucker, you know that? I’m sure you haven’t been cleared to do that, just as I’m sure your workout wasn’t light. So I’m not even gonna ask what all you were doing.”
In my mind, I could see him shaking his head at me, like he often did. “Mmm, yeah, that’s probably for the best.” My chuckle faded off as the throbbing in my leg reminded me how right he was.
“You should come up here before you head back to base. I could show you around and you could meet my family. Then we could head back together.” Murmured voices and rustling in the background told me he was probably getting “coddled” by his mom again. “My mom says she really wants to meet you. Since you’re the hero who saved my life and all.”
Fuck, I hated being reminded that he almost died on me, and I seriously fucking hated being called a hero for doing my job.
“Mmm, I’ll think about it. My abuela is planning a small family barbecue for me, but after that I might be able to get away a few days early. It was supposed to be big, but the timing is shit.” Memories of times gone by with Tyler had my words trailing off, and silence overcame me. He would never be present to welcome me home again. The reality hit me like a sledgehammer to the chest.
“You there?” Erik’s voice broke through my reverie.
Fuck. “Sorry, yeah. How much time do you have left?” Even though our con leave started around the same time, we never discussed exactly how long the other had since I went home before he was released from the hospital. Not because I wanted to, but because he made me promise to go home to my family as soon as I could, even though I wanted to stay with him.
“I still have a few weeks, but I’m going back to base to finish my time. Then I’m out.” His words stole my breath. We had been together in Force Recon since we were both PFCs. “I can’t do this anymore, man. I’m tired. Tired of killing, tired of kicking in doors, tired of putting my life on the line for people who don’t give a fucking rat’s ass about whether we live or die trying to keep them safe. I’ve tried to run from all the fucked-up shit in my life, and it worked for a little while, but I’m worn out.”
“Goddamn it, Jaeger. I get what you’re saying, but we’re a team. You’re the only person in this whole fucking world I truly trust 100 percent. What the fuck? I thought you said you were in it for the long haul? That was our plan, right?” Maybe in the back of my mind I understood what he was trying to say, but it felt like he was abandoning me.
“Fuck, man, you think I don’t feel like shit? I’m not bailing on you. We have a good team. No one is going to leave you fucking hanging, and I’m not trying to, but my head just isn’t in it anymore, and that’ll get not just me but everyone around me killed. I can’t live with myself knowing that. That’s not something I would want to do to you. Being the reason you, or one of the other guys, were killed? No way. It makes me feel bad enough that you got shot because you were saving my ass. You should’ve….” He didn’t finish his sentence, and I knew it was because he didn’t want to hear my response to the garbage he was about to spew. In resignation, I hung my head. His rationale made sense, and I knew it, but it didn’t make it any easier.
“Don’t. You know I just did my fucking job. We don’t leave our brothers to die, and you would have done the same for me. Jesus, man.”
His harshly exhaled breath told me he knew arguments would be futile.
“I’ll pay for your plane flight if you’ll come up here. I’m not trying to take you away from your family though, so if you really don’t want to, that’s cool. Just think about it, man.” His voice sounded strained, and I knew he was having a hard time. But hell, so was I. Maybe I needed to get away from here and all the memories it held anyway.
“You don’t need to do that, and yeah, I’ll think about it. I’ll call you tomorrow and let you know.”
“Sounds good. Take care. Later, bro.” As he was disconnecting, I heard him telling his mom he was pretty sure I was coming. There was no holding back the wry smile that crept across my face. Damn, I missed having him to talk to.
Lighting up a cigarette as I walked to my Jeep, the first drag filled my lungs. Breathing deeply, I felt the familiar burn dumping a small euphoric rush to my system as the nicotine hit me. You would think as much of a gym junkie as I was, I would kick this habit, but it was my only crutch since joining and being unable to smoke other things. Once I felt myself relax, I paused outside my Jeep to rapidly finish the last few drags. I didn’t smoke inside my badass baby. Field dressing the stub, I shoved it in my pocket, then exhaled the last of the caustic smoke in a wispy trail skyward.
Telling Erik I was taking a day to decide was a formality to let my family know, because I already knew I would be going up there. This place held too many memories for me.