Page 108 of Crazy for this Girl

Laynee Reese is within my grasp and sights, ones I’ve looked down so many times to save my life and my brothers’, and once I have her, I’m not letting go.

Laynee is a ghost. A memory of when times were good and when my childhood ended. I became a man in thirteen weeks, my thoughts plastered and submerged in hot summers with Laynee and not with the hundreds of strangers that would become, not only my new family, but people I would have to somewhat let in.

I was deployed to Iraq and experienced things I never could imagine. We were always on the lookout, always under the radar, always trying to stay a step ahead of the enemy. I’ve killed men, and I’ve watched my brothers get blown to pieces. I’ve cried into my pillow and begged God to let me go home.

I’ve contemplated death at my own hands more than once.

Whenever I could get a message out to Laynee, I did. I made friends with one of the communication guys and sporadically sent things to her. I never had long, since many guys and girls wanted to do the same thing I was doing, but it made my time over there less fucked. Less hopeless at times, keeping my scattered brain narrowed in on what lied on the other side of this war.

But when I got back to the States, I wasn’t the same Cal Harper anymore. I betrayed us both when I couldn’t unlock out of my own head. My opportunities were plenty, like she said, but I wanted to remember things as they were and not what they had become. It was the only thing that kept a barrel of a gun off my temple—to breathe another day because Laynee was still in this world.

I could’ve done everything differently, except my mental state was dark and scary, even to myself. I wanted death on days when I didn’t hear back from her. Depression became my new best friend, my own karma for not telling Laynee where I was, what had become of me, or even giving her a clue.

I wanted her to remember me as I was, and if that was a giant asshole at least she’d recall me in some way.

I thought when I got back, things would go back to normal. I could sit down, find her, and have a simple conversation. However, I couldn’t sleep or eat, memories devouring me alive into fits of nightmares and flashbacks. My therapist’s diagnosis of PTSD was a harder pill to swallow because I’m too prideful; nothing was wrong with me while everything in my life was haywire.

My driver stops along the grassy edge of the graveyard, remaining in his seat because he knows from the last time that I don’t need him to open the door for me. I’m not a CEO of a billion-dollar hotel company right now, and I want some peace.

I’m currently a selfish bastard who isn’t mourning much of his dead fiancée’s death but his lost daughter. She’s the only thing that makes my soul feel chipped away at and tender. I placed hope in that small little girl that it would transform me back into the loving and caring goofball, and not the beat-up soldier who saw too much war and too many of my brothers and sisters killed within the throngs of mayhem.

However, while my heart will never allow my daughter to go, it’s time I say goodbye to her mother and move on with my life. From the moment I buried Leslie here, in her hometown, I went against her parents’ wishes and had our daughter buried in California so I could be close to her.

Another selfish, fucked up thing I needed to keep myself grounded and moving.

It’s another thing I needed to apologize for. That, and my verbally saying out loud that I never loved her the way I should have. How I wasted her time when she could’ve gotten more from someone else because as long as Laynee lives strong in my head, there’s no one else that’ll ever compare, relate, or have me whole-heartedly.

Fuck knows I’ve tried to move on because Laynee didn’t stop dating. I wasn’t going to stop her once she had a man she was crazy about.

Oliver.

I didn’t need to look him up to know he wasn’t good for her, even though I did anyway. Oliver Abner had three children from two different women and had the court coming for his ass on back child support.

Laynee never mentioned that he had kids during the times she did speak to me. He was a fucking con, about to fuck over my best friend and hit her with the stress, debt, and lies that he fed her.

And it wasn’t going to happen.

It didn’t fucking happen because I had his ass fucking arrested for evading. He deceived Laynee in more ways than kids and his buried lies. Not only did he not have a job where the court system couldn’t garnish his wages, but he was trying to get her to buy them a house. She had already bought him a new car, told me how much she worked to save up, and that she allowed him to borrow hers while she rode her bike every morning and night.

Oliver didn’t need the car. In fact, the stupid asshole used it to hit the bar. How he afforded said drinks, you may ask?

Stolen credit cards.

And one credit card was in Laynee’s name. The investigator I hired said that every single transaction was made at one bar, one hotel, and none where my best friend swiped it.

So not only was he a crook, but he was a liar, a cheater, and not going to be pulling my Laynee down with him.

He did anyway, though.

Somehow, he got her to start paying down the credit card bills. He wrecked her car, and they became behind on rent.

That’s when I pulled the plug on Oliver Abner three years ago and also the one on me.

She visited him in prison a few times. I know that again from my investigator. I was dating Leslie while taking care of another girl who held my heart for decades.

I would never allow Laynee to fall if I could help it. I don’t care how right or wrong it was. I lost no sleep over it when I paid off the credit card, closed it, and demanded the credit card company to throw away the paid in full letter.

Laynee Reese was mine and always would be no matter who she dated, married, and ended up dead with. However, with the way I treated her and left her high and dry, I could never breach her existence the way I wanted to.

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