Page 37 of Fight Or Flight

“Now you’re mocking me.”

My face grows serious and I shake my head.

“I assure you I am one hundred percent not mocking you.”

She eyes me skeptically for a moment before saying, “Fine, but it’s my turn to ask a question now.”

I honestly don’t know whose turn it is. I’m just enjoying the easiness of the conversation. She can ask me ten questions. Twenty. As many as she wants. We can forget all about the pizza and sit here in this booth until they throw us out.

“Where do you see yourself in five years?” she asks, folding her hands on top of the table.

Okay, I take it back.

Couldn’t she have asked if I prefer boxers or briefs or maybe what color they are?

Stalling, I bite the inside of my cheek and contemplate my answer. Until recently, I’ve never really felt a dire need to be anything. Like, when I sat down with the high school college advisor and he asked what I wanted to major in, I told him I wasn’t sure. I didn’t want to be a lawyer or a teacher. I had absolutely no desire to be a fucking doctor and don’t even get me started on finance. Numbers give me hives.

My advisor wouldn’t let it go, though. According to him, if I wanted to be accepted to a decent college, I should include a major and speak of my dreams in my admissions essay. Meanwhile, I was perfectly fine going to a community college. Fuck Harvard and screw Yale.

But the more thought I gave my future, the more I reverted to my past. I was born from sacrifice and that right has never stopped following me. They say when you survive an awful tragedy it’s your duty to make your life count for something. Punching a timecard doesn’t quite meet the mark, but serving my country…well, that seems like an honor. It feels like I’m accepting my destiny.

I just haven’t told a soul other than my recruiter.

Not my college advisor, and certainly not my parents.

My mother would lose her shit if she knew I was enlisting after graduation.

But as I lift my chin and stare into Brooklyn’s eyes, I suddenly have the urge to confess my deepest secret—that I want to honor her dad’s sacrifice by making one of my own.

“In five years I see myself as a staff sergeant in the United States Army.”

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