Page 97 of Break

Her soft giggle warms me. “We all have to be lucky in some things. Apparently, Monopoly is my calling.”

We’ve been snacking and playing for the last hour while asking random questions to get to know each other better. I was able to share a bit about my time in the service with her, which she found fascinating. The majority of her questions circled around the different countries I’ve traveled through.

“What was boot camp like?” Mina asks, moving her thimble seven spaces.

“It’s actually called basic training. I may be wrong, but I’m almost positive that all the branches call their trainingbasictraining, except for the Navy.” Her thimblefinallylands on one of my properties. “Pay up, darlin’,” I tease as I hold out my hand for her cash.

Counting out the bills, she muses, “I wonder why only the Navy calls it boot, and not basic?”

“I’m not sure. I’ll look it up.” Pulling out my phone, I do a quick search and read aloud for her. “The term ‘boot’ originates from Navy and Marine recruits in the Spanish–American War back in 1898 who wore leggings called boots. So, I suppose it just sort of stuck from there.”

“Huh. I guess that’s interesting. I wonder what they looked like.”

Clicking on photos, I scroll through photos as she scoots over to my side of the board to look over my shoulder. Her giggle startles me, and I tilt my head toward her with a smile. “What do you find so funny?”

Her eyes are dancing with mirth as she points at the phone. “Those look ridiculous. Why would you wear socks, then pants, then another pair of socks over the top? It reminds me of when I was younger and tucked my pant legs into my socks so they wouldn’t drag in puddles when I was walking.”

Bumping my shoulder into her, I keep my eyes locked on her face. “I dunno. I bet you looked cute with your pants like that.”

Christ, she looks so fucking happy right now that I want to kick myself in the ass for blurting out my next question. I’m not even sure where it came from and I’m normally good at thinking before I speak. Conversation is so easy with her when normally I struggle when speaking to others.

“Do you have any happy memories of when you were married to Danny?”

I’m relieved that she takes the time to think about my question and isn’t offended or upset by it. I think I asked because it’s important to know that she’s had at least some good in her life.

“I do,” she answers after a moment. “Ethan, it wasn’t always bad to the extreme. There were a lot of those moments, but most of the time, we just existed. I wouldn’t say I was happy necessarily, maybe happy that I wasn’t in trouble, but I felt like I was in a neutral state. Danny’s abuse didn’t happen every day.”

She chews on the tip of her nail and looks at me, maybe looking for my reaction. “Some days, we just moved around each other doing our respective jobs with minimal communication. But now and then, there would be a moment where a little hope would flare inside me that things could get better. So yes, I think I could say that I have happy moments from when we were married.”

I consider her for a few moments, thinking through what she’s said. Part of me wants to argue and remind her that just because he was nice on one day doesn’t mean she should have been happy to accept it. The other part of me hears the truth in her words and I understand them.

The guys and I have been hating on Danny out of earshot from Mina, but therewasa reason we were friends with him. Those reasons are gone now, and I don’t miss what we’ve lost in him, but I think I understand what she’s trying to say.

“Tell me about the memory, please.”

Mina doesn’t move away from my side when I set my phone down. Instead, she leans against me. “There was one night, maybe six or seven months after we were married. He had gone out with some friends for the evening.” Casting a quick glance at me, she reaches down and tugs out some grass to keep her fingers busy. I know I wasn’t one of those friends because I was stationed well away from here at that time. “When he got home, he was pretty drunk-”

My growl interrupts her, but she pats my hand to reassure me. “Just hang on, big guy. I promise, it’s not a bad story. I told you, it’s one of my happy memories.”

I can only manage a jerky nod, but I also flip my hand under hers to thread our fingers together.

“Danny doesn’t handle his alcohol well, but that evening, he did. Honestly, it’s probably because there was a big storm heading toward us, so they had left the bars early to beat it. He was…playful. That’s probably the best way to describe him. He was happy and laughing and joking around. Anyway, once the storm picked up, all the power flickered off.”

Mina smiles slightly at the memory. “It was late spring, but we had a week of really high temperatures and the storm was bringing in a cold front. The house was humid, sticky, and hot, plus there were tornado sirens going off, so we headed to the basement to stay cool and safe.”

I bite my tongue to not interrupt her, but I can’t understand why this was a happy memory. She must notice my confusion, because she laughs softly.

“I know it sounds like it was a terrible night, but when we got to that basement, Danny found these monster-sized flashlights to keep us out of the dark. We spent close to an hour down there doing those little puppet shadows on the walls, making up stories, and joking around. Surprisingly, Danny was quite good at them and tried to teach me a few different animals. He never once made fun of anything I said, only laughed along with me. It was probably one of the easiest moments I had with Danny.”

Memories of when we were younger, sleeping over at my friends’ houses, bombard me. That’s something that we all used to do a lot before we hit our teens. I hate admitting that he was good at anything, but he was good at that. Is it wrong for me to feel relieved he shared something wholesome with her, purely because it was a memory he enjoyed with us? If it is, I’m feeling it anyway.

Wrapping an arm around her slight shoulders, I tuck her into my side and press my lips to the crown of her head. “I’m glad you have that memory.”

Sighing, she murmurs, “I am too. For just a moment, I thought that maybethiswas the turning point for us. Maybe we could have a real marriage where we were both treated as equals. I thought that if we had that one good day, maybe the next would be good as well… and then the next. It didn’t work out that way, but it was still a great night for me.”

I’m not sure how to respond because part of me wishes that thingshadgotten better for the two of them after that moment. Her life could have changed drastically four years ago. I wouldn’t wish four years of pain and suffering on her, so I feel guilty when the thought, ‘if it happened, she wouldn’t be sitting here with me’, filters through my head.

There would be no ‘us and Mina’. Is it worth her suffering? Absolutely fucking not. Nothing is worth what she’s gone through. What I’m struggling with right now is justifying my happiness. She’s here with me now, which only happened because Danny didn’t give her that turning point she wanted in that one evening.

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