Page 74 of Keeping London (Flawed Heart)

I freeze. Big streams of tears course down my cheeks. I release the breath that I didn’t realize I had been holding.

“Who?” I ask hesitantly even though I’m not ready to hear the answer.

She sucks in air between sobs and chokes out, “David.”

“No!” I scream, hysterical now. “No! No! No! Are you sure? No!”

She doesn’t respond to my nonsensical cries with her words, instead letting out wails of utter heartache and devastation. I’ve never heard such tangible sounds of pain before. Maggie’s miles away, yet I feel her despair weighing down on me, like a blanket of sadness.

We continue to cry together on the phone. I have no words. I don’t even know what to say. I’m so sad for her, for Loïc, and of course…for Cooper.

How could this have happened?

I see stories about deaths of soldiers on the news all the time. It’s pretty commonplace in today’s world. Typical responses—That’s too bad,That poor guy,He was so young, orHis poor family—go through my head when I hear of those incidences.

But to have that soldier be someone I know?

Devastationdoesn’t come close to describing the pain burning inside me.

I know Cooper.

I love Cooper.

His smile, his laugh, his sense of humor, the way in which he loves Maggie, his importance to Loïc—all of it coming together renders him irreplaceable. Every little thing that made him who he was makes this hurt so much.

There will never be another David Cooper in this world ever again.

I will feel his loss every day for the rest of my life.

I will never again hear his jokes, have him make me a delicious meal, or feel him pull me into a hug. I will never see a smile on Maggie’s or Loïc’s face that was put there by Cooper, and this maybe hurts the most.

A smile caused by Cooper is something precious. It was real, big, and infectious. When I saw someone smiling because of Cooper, I couldn’t help but smile with them. Cooper’s joy had a way of pulling everyone in and taking us all on a journey with him.

If one knew Cooper, they loved him.How many people in the world can I say that about?

I can think of only one—and now, he’s gone.

He’s gone.

Poor Maggie. I will mourn Cooper forever, but what about her? How will she go on?

“Wha-what happened?” My voice shakes.

“A grenade.” Her words are barely audible, but I react as if she screamed them in my face.

I gasp, and my body recoils as I lean away from my phone. Yet no amount of distance between Maggie’s voice and myself will make the words any less true. I squeeze my eyes shut as the thoughts of Cooper’s body being blown up enter my mind.

I can’t go there. Oh my God, I can’t.No, no, no.I shake my head back and forth.

“I’m…so…sorry,” I cry for lack of anything more profound to say.

Maggie’s continued sobs are her only response.

I’ve been sitting in the same spot for at least an hour…maybe two? I haven’t been able to move since hanging up with Maggie. The range of emotions that course through me are paralyzing. I’m still having a difficult time with believing that my phone conversation with Maggie actually happened. It’s all so surreal, a freakish nightmare from which I desperately need to wake up from.

But, as much as I wish it were something my mind conjured up in my sleep, I know it’s not. It’s real.

Cooper’s dead.

---