Page 63 of No Sweet Goodbyes

Dominic

I’ve barely sealed the envelope and put Emma’s name and address on it when the front door slams open and Casey Malone walks in. “You’ve gotta be shittin’ me, man. I’ve been looking all over for you and you’re here.”

“Yeah, dumbass. This is our room. Why would I go out in that storm?”

“Because you were supposed to be at muster with the rest of us an hour ago.” He points to the clock on the wall. “What? No time for the rest of us?”

“No,” I tell him honestly. “I was writing another letter for Emma.”

“Ah.” He throws himself down on his bed, crossing his legs and propping them against the wall. “The elusive Emma, who you never speak to on the phone, who never video calls you through Skype. Tell me, Dom, why are you so loyal to a woman who clearly doesn’t give a shit about you?”

I clench my fist so tight that my knuckles crack loudly.

“Don’t,” I warn him. “Don’t talk about her that way.”

“We’ve been here four months, Dom. Four months, and she hasn’t reached out to you once. We’ve got a satellite phone, Skype, email, a dozen ways she could have gotten in contact with you and she didn’t. It’s time to move on, brother.”

“You don’t know half of what happened, Casey.”

“Then enlighten me, because we’ve got nothing but time, and I’m not liking this girl for you at all. It’s clear to me that she doesn’t deserve you. You know all about what I did to fuck up my life, and yet you haven’t shared.”

It’s my fault. In the entire time we’ve been overseas, I haven’t told Casey a single thing about the woman I ruined. The one who holds every single key to my soul.

“Her brother died over here.” His feet hit the bed with an audible thunk, and I see the dust coming off his boots, floating through the air.

“What?” Disbelief laces his voice.

“You heard me, man. Her brother. He died serving in the Marine Corps. Danny Hayes, one of the men from Birch Harbor I served with when I wasn’t Reserve.”

First confusion, then shock and realization cross Casey’s face. He knows the Hayes family. He went to school with all of us in Birch Harbor. They moved sometime in high school, and Casey even married one of the girls from our class right out of high school. Although, that doesn’t really matter since he hasn’t been home in ten years.

“What the shit, Ortiz?” He sits up and leans forward, his face laced with confusion. “You didn’t tell me that shit. Linc’s brother? From home?” He scrubs a dirty hand over his face, leaving a streak of sweat mixed with dust across his skin. “Wait. Emma Hayes. Little Emma Hayes, with the blond hair and blue eyes that we all thought would marry that douche, Edward what’s-his-name?” He snaps his fingers together and closes his eyes while he tries to figure it out.

“Stryker,” I tell him, putting him out of his misery. “Yeah. Emma. That’s the woman I’ve been writing every day.” Eyeing the satellite phone, I choose not to tell him that I’ve also been trying to call her but haven’t worked up the courage to leave her a voicemail, so there is no way she’ll know that it is me calling and not some crazy telemarketer. “And she doesn’t have blue eyes. She’s got hazel eyes.”

“Holy shit, Dominic.” He stares at me until I think he’ll wear a hole in my forehead with the intensity in his eyes.

“Yeah. I know.” I sigh deeply. “But that’s not the worst of it.”

“How so?” He scratches his nose and then waits for me to pull my shit together and tell him. “I don’t know how it could get much worse, man. You’re telling me that you spent the last four months writing to a woman who already lost someone she cared about on a deployment.”

“Trust me. It gets worse.” I pull out the dog tag that I hadn’t gotten the chance to give her. The one I hadn’t been able to use to ask her to wait. To trust her with the only thing I had handy, since I couldn’t ask Mama for her ring on such short notice. “I didn’t tell her I was deploying.” His shocked gasp almost stops me short. “I had two weeks’ notice, or a little less since the CO recalled me early. But yeah. I didn’t tell her. She found out when I woke her up after packing.”

“Oh… you really screwed up. Like really, really screwed up.” Casey leans back, eyes wide. “I don’t even think I messed up that badly.”

“You left your wife alone for like ten years, Casey. You gave her a house and took off at eighteen years old. You don’t get to talk to me about screwing up.”

“Dominic.” Casey interlaces his fingers and shakes his head. “I don’t think you understand. Take a woman who lost her brother to this job and let her fall in love with you… and then hide the fact that you’re going to the same fuckin’ place that took her brother. And what? Just expect her to be okay with it and wait for you? You’ll go home and it’s gonna be all sunshine and rainbows?” When I don’t answer him, he lets out a deep breath. “Yeah, man, I messed up. But I never messed up quite that bad.”

“I told you that it was worse.” I offer a feeble explanation. “I didn’t want to lose her, and then I lost her anyway.”

Casey gets up. “Well, let’s go, man. We’re ready to go sit on target and get the hell out of this hellhole. When we get home, you can kiss her ass and buy her all the things and beg for another chance.”

If I thought for a second that she would forgive me if I did it, I would be the one to get down on a knee and beg for forgiveness. But Emma isn’t that type of woman. She wants the truth, not false platitudes or promises that can be easily broken. Especially since I was the one to break the trust and lie to her.

Even with less than two weeks having her in my life, I would do almost anything to get her back.

“Let’s go.” I get up and slide the rifle case out from under my bunk.

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