Page 6 of Strangers in Love

She stepped up next to Freedom, and I followed so that Mom was between the two of us. Anyone watching would think that we were on either side of her to give her support, but Freedom and I both knew that Mom had always been the strong one, the real rock in the family.

“He’s scheduled to have a triple bypass in the morning,” she said as she took his hand. “I kept telling him to have his cholesterol checked, but you know how he is; hates doctors.”

“But he’s going to be okay?” I asked it because I knew Freedom wouldn’t. She’d take whatever Mom gave her and not press for anything else, but I needed to hear it.

“He’s going to have a hard time of it, especially at first, but yes, the doctors believe he’ll make a full recovery.” She squeezed his hand. “But there are serious changes in store for him. You hear that, darling? Changes to what we eat. More regular exercise.”

“You don’t need to worry about that right now, Mom,” Freedom said quietly. “Why don’t you have a seat and rest? Aline will sit with you, and I’ll go talk to the nurses, find out what we need to know.”

“I can do that,” I volunteered. “You can stay with Mom.”

Freedom shook her head but didn’t look at me. “Stay here. I’ll take care of the details.”

There wasn’t any point in arguing with her when she was like this. She had it in her mind what was best for all of us, and there’d be no changing her mind. She’d been the same when she’d decided we’d both live in an off-campus apartment when I came to Stanford instead of me living in a dorm like I’d planned to do. The same when she’d decided she’d be the one to tell Mom and Dad about our plans for this fall.

It’d been my idea in the first place, but she thought I didn’t have the common sense to determine when was the appropriate time. As if I’d do something stupid like spring it on Dad as soon as he woke up from surgery. Or before surgery. Or Freedom might think I’d get so excited about doing some good for people who needed it that I’d wake Dad up right now…

I gritted my teeth and pushed the thoughts out of my head. My imagination was running away with me like it sometimes did when I was stressed. If Freedom had been so worried that I’d speak out of turn, she wouldn’t have just insisted I be the one to stay with them while she went to talk to the nurses. I was reading too much into her normal desire for complete control.

“Let’s sit down,” I suggested to Mom as Freedom left the room.

I pulled over the more comfortable looking of the two chairs and put it behind Mom. She sat down as I reached for the other chair, not even glancing my way when the feet of the chair made an unpleasant sound as it dragged across the tile.

I wasn’t surprised she only had eyes for Dad. They’d fallen in love the moment they’d first seen each other, and there’d never been anyone else from that moment on. Dad had been thirty. Mom twenty-one. Forty-three years of marriage, and they’d never even looked at another person.

Maybe one day, I’d have something like that, but I wasn’t in a rush. I had things to do. Right now, however, nothing was more important than being here with my family.

Five

Eoin

I neededto get the hell out of here.

If I didn’t think it’d be an insult to everyone who’d died and been injured worse than me, I would’ve walked out as soon as I could manage it on my own and damn the consequences. Being here just reminded me of everything that’d happened. Of everything I’d lost.

If I’d been in a civilian hospital, maybe it would’ve been better, but I was still army, and when we got hurt as bad as I had, this was where they sent us. Landstuhl Regional Medical Center in Landstuhl, Germany. Military run, so I saw men and women in uniform every day, and each time I saw one, it was like a fresh punch to the gut.

I closed my eyes and tried to push everything out of my head, tried not to think at all, but I’d never been able to manage that, no matter what most of my teachers had claimed when I was growing up. When I hadn’t been paying attention in school, it’d been because I’d been thinking of something else. Most of the time, it’d been girls, but hey, it hadn’t beennothing.

The things that kept crowding into my head now weren’t about women. It was all ugly shit. Memories of what’d happened that day. Memories of this hell I’d been in ever since. The calendar on the wall across from me said today was the seventeenth of April, which meant it’d been more than a month since the ambush, but I could still picture everything as clear as if it’d happened yesterday. Hell, clearer sometimes. The sights. The sounds. The smells.

The doctors kept saying that I needed to rest, that my body and mind both needed to heal. I wanted to tell them that I didn’t give a shit about how my body healed and that my mind never would. Not really. Sure, someday I might be able to stop thinking about it every minute of every day, but it’d still be there. Reminding me that I had no right to be alive when better men had died.

It’d be hard to forget when I could see it whenever I looked in the mirror.

Not that I’d done it more than that one time. Once had been enough. Now, I avoided anything that could show a reflection. And I felt like a fucking coward every single time I did it.

I’d gotten off easy, no matter what the doctors said.

The bullet that had gone through my calf had come out clean the other side and hadn’t hit anything vital. The one in my shoulder had needed dug out, and it’d done some muscle damage, enough that I was going to need to do more physical therapy after I was released. At least it was my right arm in a sling and not my left or I’d be doing a hell of a lot less for myself than I already was. I was a leftie like my mom had been.

The cut on my face that I’d gotten from either the first explosion or the Humvee flipping went from my left temple to just under my mouth. I’d barely missed losing an eye. It’d almost gone completely through my cheek, and I’d only been allowed to start eating and drinking regularly a week ago. I had some nerve damage there, making that side of my mouth not quite curve right when I smiled, but I didn’t give a fuck about that. It wasn’t like I’d be smiling a lot anymore.

I shifted in my bed and winced as my still-healing muscles pulled. The second explosion, the one that had…I closed my eyes, unable to even think the words.

In addition to all the destruction the second explosion had done to the others, my faulty body armor had been damaged enough by the first explosion and the wreck that I’d gotten more than a dozen pieces of shrapnel buried in my torso. Some had been from the bomb itself, and those had gotten infected. The ones in my back had only been from my body armor but hadn’t been as deep.

The other pieces of…shrapnel…I didn’t like to think about where they’d come from. One of them had gone into my chest at just the right angle to avoid my ribs and had ended up only centimeters away from my heart. I didn’t remember it happening, and by the time I’d been coherent enough to understand, it’d already been removed, leaving just the surgery to recover from. Nothing to think about.

---