Page 7 of Strangers in Love

Until one asshole orderly had decided to tell me that what the doctors had pulled out of me hadn’t been metal or glass.

It’d been bone.

Leo’s bone.

I’d almost ripped the stitches in my face when I’d thrown up after hearing the truth.

I’d already known he was dead, just like Doto and three other guys from our squad. Pats and Manx had made it out with only a few scratches. The other squad that had made up our section had lost Bart and two other new kids whose names I couldn’t remember. The rest of their squad had survived with mostly minor injuries.

Our commanding officer, Staff Sergeant Ryerson, had taken a round to the leg too, but the bullet had shattered his bone. They’d saved his leg, but he probably wouldn’t ever see action again. He’d saved five of us, myself included, before he’d gone down. Ryerson had been flown to Germany too, and despite his own injury, he’d been waiting when I’d woken up. He’d been the one to give me the tally, to tell me that Leo hadn’t made it.

A part of me had already known, just like I’d known that there hadn’t been much of Leo to ship home. Just his battered dog tags and some…pieces. Sometimes, I wondered if Ryerson had known that one of those pieces had been that fucking bone they’d pulled out of me, if he’d chosen not to tell me, or if no one had told him. I’d never asked because I didn’t want to know.

A lot of days, I wished I’d been a little closer or that the blast had been a little stronger. Just enough extra force for it to kill me too. Kill me with either the explosion itself or with a part of my best friend, a man who had been like another brother to me since we’d been kids. A man who should have been the one to survive because he’d had so much more to offer the world than I ever could.

I opened my eyes and looked to my left at the picture sitting there. My parents had flown here the day they’d heard I’d been moved, and they’d brought a few things from home. Some of my own clothes. Cards from family. A couple pictures that Evanne had drawn for me. And a photo. I didn’t know which of them had picked it, and sometimes, I hated them for the reminder, but other times, I needed to see it. I needed to look at those two eighteen-year-olds in their khaki shorts and green shirts, grinning as my older brother, Alec, told them to stop fucking around so he could take the picture. The last one before we’d left for basic training. This had been the one that he’d given Da and Mom.

My chest tightened painfully as I remembered how hyped Leo and I had both been, how convinced we’d been that we’d save the world. That nothing could touch us. No one was quite as stupid as a teenager who thought they were invincible.

We’d lost that attitude during our first tour when we’d lost a man in a skirmish, but neither of us had ever regretted enlisting. We had family we loved, and we’d do anything for, but we’d chosen the men and women who fought alongside us as our family too.

Both Leo and I had always intended to keep going in the army as far and as long as we could. No wives or kids for us. Just our brotherhood. Sisterhood too. There had been a few of them. And that was how we treated them. We didn’t fuck them or fuck with them. We protected them when they needed us to and had their backs when that was what they needed.

Protected them.

That was a laugh.

We couldn’t protect shit.

Icouldn’t protect shit.

Leo had always been there for me, had never given up on me, even when I’d been the biggest bastard in the world. His convincing me to go into the army had saved my life. I had no doubt about that. And how had I repaid him? By letting him get blown up.

I’d as good as killed him.

And let’s not forget Bart and Doto and Azz and TC and Catz. They were dead too. I might as well claim their deaths. Doto had still been alive when I’d left him to save Leo. Totryto save Leo. I shouldn’t have left Doto there. I should’ve gone back for him. I should’ve gone back for all of them

A knock on the door pulled me back from the edge of that dark hole. Not because I didn’t deserve to spiral all the way down and feel every single second of being a piece of shit who couldn’t save anyone from anything. No, I let it pull me back because the doctor didn’t deserve me being rude.

“Ready to get out of here?” Dr. Newman asked as she walked into my room. “I’ve got your discharge papers right here.”

I blinked, needing a moment to actually process what she’d said. “Discharge?”

She frowned. “I spoke to you about it yesterday.”

Although I didn’t remember that particular conversation, I nodded anyway. “Yeah, I remember now. Sorry. My thoughts were…somewhere else.”

“It’s quite all right.” She smiled as she came over to my bed. “Your medical records are being sent over to Camp Parks. You have an appointment at one-thirty tomorrow, and they’ll schedule your physical therapy at that time. And, yes, you have to continue with your therapy if you ever want full use of your shoulder again.”

“I wasn’t going to argue with that.” I steered the conversation back to what I really wanted to know. “Camp Parks?”

“Yes.” She checked the tablet in her hand. “Dublin, California. That’s where you’re going.”

I frowned. “I don’t understand.”

“I might be able to explain.”

A familiar voice had me looking past the doctor to see the last person I expected standing in my doorway.

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