Page 5 of Legacy
Aarabelle
Sugar Cookie
I haven’t thought about quitting once, but I have thought about passing out, screaming at a BUD/S instructor, marching back to the women’s compound to feign menstrual issues, and just flat out punching the commanding officer in his face. I’m wet. I’m colder than I’ve been in my lifetime. I’m covered in freaking sand from scalp to pinky toe. How did the sand get into my socks? Why did I think this was a good idea? How can such a sunny climate get so damn cold at night? How much longer until I start hallucinating? Will I ring the bell in a sleep-deprived stupor and not remember it in the morning? Can I swim to Hawaii? It’s so close on a map. Would a shark eat me? A meg?You’re going crazy, Aara.Dad told me I’d start to go a little mad during Hell Week. Humans aren’t meant to function in a high capacity without sleep. SEALs are, though. I take in a deep breath and calm my thoughts. Someone grunts from behind me, and I take solace in knowing everyone feels as miserable as I do.
Always, right when I’m on the brink of collapse, the glorious words come. It’s like they’ve studied when too much actually is too much. “Naptime,” shouted through a megaphone. The voice is harsh—new. Change of shift. Again. It’s the only way I’ve been able to accurately measure time passing. Collectively, we put the heavy log down. It’s a jerky, weird movement from stiff muscles and lack of body awareness this far in to the week. It’s Thursday and this is our second nap. The first time I slept arrived Wednesday, which feels like a lifetime ago because Hell Week began on Sunday. Walking without the weight on my shoulder feels like trying to jump out of quicksand in Super Mario. Is it possible to get out? I don’t know.Keep hitting the jump button, Aara,I tell myself.Keep going. Keep going.The tent I enter has bare bones camp cots that look like a luxury mattress in a five-star hotel. Leaning down, I go face first into the PVC pipe on the edge, my eyes already closed.
Usually, on a normal night, it takes me at least thirty minutes to fall asleep as my mind replays my day, and my brain organizes my worries. It’s hard to shut it off and power down. It was really bad in college after cramming for a test. The knowledge refused to take a back seat to my exhaustion. Even as a child I’d lay awake wondering what would happen if an axe murderer broke into my house. I hate sleeping because it seems like a waste of time. Right now though, my body slack, and covered in wet, dirty clothing, my brain gives way. Blackness overtakes me in a matter of seconds. Which is ironically the amount of time it feels like when they’re screaming into the megaphone to wake us up. That couldn’t have been three hours. It felt like half a second. I swallow a mouth full of spit down my dry throat, and wretch myself to the sitting position.
It’s not a soft, easy rising. We’re being yelled at to go eat before we begin a new evolution. From zero to one hundred in mere seconds. I rub the sleep from my eyes while I drop into the line jogging from the tent to the chow hall. It’s over the embankment, set up in another larger tent area. My stomach growls—waiting for the impending calorie festival where we are allowed to eat as much as we can. Even still, I’m burning more than I can consume, and my whole body feels it.
There are SEALs in uniform watching us from the grinder, perched against poles, casually talking to each other, like we aren’t having the worst week of our lives. They are just here to gawk, and have nothing to do with the running of training. I’m sure they’re taking bets on when I’ll drop out—ring the bell of defeat. I see it, and all the helmets lined underneath it of the men who couldn’t hack it. Being this close to the bell gives me pause. No one quits after a nap or after eating. It’s during the hard, tiresome nights when it feels like the sun has betrayed you and your body can’t take anything else. Dad told me it’s all mind games. That when my body fails me, grit will push me on. My eyes are still heavy, my mind is foggy, and yet my boots are propelling me forward at a brisk jog.
The guy behind me bumps me with his shoulder and I go down hard, face first in the sand. More freaking sand. I swear, I’ll never go to the beach and deem it relaxing ever again. I spit it out of my mouth as I glance up to see his tired face.
“Sorry, Dempsey. I stumbled.”
He doesn’t offer his hand, he goes straight for the food. We get ten, maybe fifteen minutes to eat. I don’t blame him. I look down at the sand and pull myself to my knees as nimbly as I can. My uniform is dry now, but it was starched so it makes an awful crunching noise anytime I move. A hand extends down into my line of vision. Without taking the offered hand, I stand and eye down the person.
He smiles and a dimples pop on his cheek. “Have a nice trip?” he says.
I swallow hard. I’m too tired to deal with any trifling bullshit from men, and honestly, all I can think about is putting something into my stomach. “Good one,” I mumble, arching one brow, letting my gaze find his name tag on his uniform. “Hart.”Why does that sound familiar?
I let that be the end of the exchange and stumble a bit as I get my legs again. “Hey Dempsey,” he calls after me.
Sighing, I turn around. Smirking, Hart raises his right hand and gives me the bull symbol.
What is that supposed to mean? Rock on?Is that some sort of Henry Durnin rock star jab? Am I so exhausted that I assume everyone knows I dated that asshole? Instead of replying,I nod with wide eyes and pick up a humungous pre-plated meal and slink down in the closest open seat. I peer over my shoulder, but he’s gone. Maybe because it was the first kind gesture I’ve experienced since Sunday, but I’m having a hard time believing it actually happened.
The guy next to me is almost finished, shoving the last bite in his mouth. I didn’t even realize it was Sanders, the dude who knocked me over until right now. I’m losing it. “Sorry again for knocking you over.” His voice is clipped—a swarthy representation of how we all feel.
“Don’t apologize,” Hoffer, a candidate across the table barks out. “You wouldn’t apologize if you knocked me over. Just because she has tits doesn’t make her any different. Remember what they told us. Equal in all things.” His face is grizzled—marred with oil and he looks like hell chewed him up and spat him out. I meet his eyes and then continue eating. Sleep deprivation brings out the worst in people. This is probably what all of my peers think. Friends won’t come easy here.
This is how it’s been since I arrived. I don’t complain, don’t try to change anyone’s minds. I expected it—craved it. A testosterone riddled community isn’t going to embrace newcomers unlike themselves. Especially oneswith tits. Something they’re used to playing with in their free time, not working next to. It’s my job to prove to them that it can be done, while keeping my personality intact.
Inhaling, I smell something disgusting. Pulling out my shirt, I put my nose in my stiff collar. “Seaweed?” I make a retching noise as I exhale. When it dries it smells like burning garbage. A combination of rotten fish and festering socks. One more night, I remind myself. Just one.
“Dempsey, let’s go,” the tall man looming at the tent exit booms. He stands tall, legs apart, face weathered from years at the Teams. He wears the same look as my father—I bet they’re the same age.
“Yes, sir,” I say, keeping my chin up.
Hart. Another Hart. This time it clicks and I know Maverick Hart is the man standing in front of me, commanding me to go get wet and sandy. I remember being told he had a son at the Teams, but it wasn’t something I thought about again. He must realize I’m putting two and two together because he smiles. It’s all the confirmation I need. The dimples.
I spend the next half hour rolling around in the frigid water with my boat crew because we didn’t listen to a specific order. Rather, the instructor purposefully left out a tidbit to see if we’d catch it, and we didn’t. The other crews got to stand next to the bonfire on the beach because they’re obviously not as sleep deprived, shriveled and disoriented as we are. If you do something right, and quick, sometimes you earn a five-minute nap. My crew was not that lucky, and the hot food is the closest thing to comfort we’ve had in five days. The sun sets and the haggard torture continues.
My ears are ringing from the near constant whistles screaming in the dark night.
“Flutter kicks!” Hart yells.
We link arms in the chest deep water and kick. A simple order on a regular day, but in sixty-degree water, in the dark of night, I’m silently praying I won’t drown. My arms are shot from carrying the zodiac boat in an earlier evolution. I kick, and the guy on my right, Hoffer, dips below the surface. I can’t see him, but I feel his weight pulling me underwater. I let my feet find the bottom and I pull him up. He coughs. Splutters. Gasps for air.
“Dude, come on,” I say, heaving breaths in between words. I shake him which probably feels like a weak tap for all I’m capable of at the moment. His eyes open lazily and close again, his body once again dead weight. Sanders is on his other side and helps me pull his head out of the water this time.
“Fucking A. He’s passing out,” Sanders says loudly to get the attention of the instructor, dry on the shore. Panic strikes.
“Shut up,” I hiss at Sanders. “We’re so close. They’ll drop him from training. We need to keep him up.”
I do the one thing I always see chicks do in movies, I smack him in the face. The irony. His eyes go wide and he startles. “Wake up, man. Keep going,” I say, linking on to him tighter in case he drops again. “We’re almost done. You have this. Don’t let them take it from you. We are so close.” My voice is hoarse from disuse and from having to talk over the splashing water surrounding us. Also, speaking the words out loud gave me the pep talk I needed myself. I do have this. I won’t let them take this from me.
