Page 44 of Inseverable (Carolina Beach)

“Hey, it’s me,” Trin tells her.

“Where the hell have you been?”

“I went for a swim to clear my head. Callahan found me.” She takes a moment to smile at me. “I’m with him now.”

“You’re kidding.” Her voice drops. “Did you show him your titties?”

Seeing how Trin doesn’t answer right away, for Becca, that’s as good as hearing, “yes”.

“Holy fuck. You did didn’t you?” she squeals. “Hey, Trin’s over at Callahan’s showing him her titties.”

“No, shit,” Hale calls from a distance.

Trin covers her face when she catches my grin. “I have to go, Becks. Look, I’m sorry I worried you.”

“Aw, sugar, you can make it up to me by telling me all the dirty little details later. Bye now.”

“It was your idea to call her,” she insists when I start laughing.

I stroke her hair when she settles against me, trying to warm her rapidly cooling body.

“Where were you?” she asks. “You were gone a long time.”

She means when I took off without telling her. “I had some things to take care of,” I admit.

“I was worried.”

It’s what she claims, and I believe her. But while she’s not demanding more of an explanation, she does want to know why I left as abruptly as I did. I don’t really want to talk about it, but it’s because it’s her that I can. “A buddy of mine from the Army died.”

She lifts her head so she can see my face. “Oh, no. I’m so sorry.”

I shrug like it doesn’t affect me even though it damn well does. “The funeral was yesterday in Oklahoma. I left as soon as I heard to get there in time and drove all night to get back.”

“Were you close to him?” she asks cautiously.

“I served three tours with him,” I explain, my mind drifting away from her and back to my time back in Iraq. “During one of our raids, he was in a Range Rover that was struck by a missile. The rest of the boys inside were killed. He was considered lucky to have survived.” I huff. “I’m not so sure he’d agree. He lost his left arm and part of his face, also suffered permanent brain damage that affected his nervous system.”

“That poor man,” she says. “How did he die?”

I play with the strands of her damp hair, but I can’t look at her when I answer. “He killed himself, Trin. He couldn’t handle what happened. It wasn’t just the combat, his disfigurement, or even his girl leaving him when he came home. It was all of it, and more. No one would give him a job or a chance. He lost everything back in Iraq, including all those men who died when that missile hit, and what did he get in return? Absolutely nothing.”

We wait in silence for a while. When I finally bring myself to look at her, I see nothing but tears pooling in her eyes. “I’m sorry for your loss and for everyone who loved him,” she tells me, swallowing hard. “But most of all, I’m sorry for him, and what he must have gone through.”

My attention travels to the ceiling when that all that anger that flared at his funeral returns full force. “I know suicide is the worst kind of sin,” I say. “A straight ticket to hell. But I refuse to believe in a God that wouldn’t show mercy to someone like Billy. Someone so good, but so sick with grief, he sought peace the only way his beaten soul thought he could get it.”

I don’t realize the extent of my emotions until Trin’s fingers splay on either side of my face and she kisses my eyelids. Her touch is warm and delicate, something I could have used when I watched Billy’s parents drape their bodies across their son’s casket.

Christ, seeing them like that, and all those familiar faces breaking down like they did, it brought everything back in one cruel blow, triggering a slew of vicious memories and further riling all the ones that have been eating me alive.

“I believe your friend is in heaven, and whole, and loved,” she says, her own tears falling. “I’m only sorry he couldn’t find that peace here on earth.”

My arms wrap around her as she settles against me. “Thank you,” I whisper, not realizing how bad I needed to hear those words until they fell from her lips.

In the quiet that passes, I’m sure that she’s fallen asleep until she shifts her weight, and that gentle stare finds me once more.

“Callahan?”

“Yeah?”

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