Page 9 of Anders and the Girl Worth Fighting For
Are you sure this is what you want?” My mom urged again as I packed my last box up to put in storage. I didn’t want to saddle my mom with caring for my things while I served. She had too much on her plate. So I sold what I could and packed away the rest for a time when I could unpack in my own home.
“Yes, momma. I’m sure,” I said, tired of having this same conversation. She’d tried to change my mind at least fifty times since I told her I planned to enlist.
“If this is about your dad…” she started. It was a now familiar tactic she used to try to guilt me out of this.
“It’s not about dad,” I said. It was a little about my dad, but I wasn’t going to tell her that. Her stories of him made him out to be a hero. Is it any wonder he became this massive figure in my mind? Someone to measure up to. Brave, strong, exactly the kind of person every man should aspire to be. How could I not at least try to measure up to that?
“You’re just so young,” she started again. She refused to lift a finger to help me pack. A tactic to stall me longer and keep me talking. It was just as well because that would just be another thing to fight about when I inevitably insisted that she didn’t need to help and that she should work on her garden or paint, something relaxing with her time off for a change.
“You were young when you had me,” I reminded her. “So was Dad when he joined. Heck, he was young when he died, too.” I shouldn’t have brought it up, and I kicked myself mentally for saying it. My dad died young, only a few years older than I was now.
I shook off the thought. It didn’t matter now. What’s done is done.
“Mom. I want to do this. I want to do it because I couldn’t live with myself if there was a way to make you safer here at home and I didn’t do it. I want to do it because you work so hard for me and it’s my turn to work hard for you. I want to do this because everyone deserves to grow up in a country where they are safe and free. I want to do it because someone has to. You taught me to always give back to my community, and this is my way of doing that. I’m enlisted. The contract is signed. I want this for my life.”
I stopped packing and crouched down in front of her as she sat at my childhood desk. I grabbed her hands and brought them to my mouth for a kiss on each. They were still so smooth. She was still young, not even forty, yet. She had so many good years left and I wanted to make sure she could live them to the fullest.
“You deserve a good life, momma. You’ve given so much of it to other people. Let me give some of my time back to you,” I vowed as I kneeled at her feet.
“Oh sweetie,” she said as she brought one of her hands up to my face, “that’s not your job.”
“Yes, it is, momma. It’s my job because I say it is.”
Her shoulders slumped. “I’m not going to win this, am I?” She brushed the hand that had been on my cheek through my hair in a familiar gesture.
I chuckled at her capitulation. “Nope.”
The overhead lights broke through the darkness of my sleep. The image of my mother fading and the familiar ache filled the space only she could exist. I blinked my eyes open. They were heavy and resistant to my efforts. Faint beeping sounded from somewhere and tape pulled at my skin from the IV. I lost the battle with my eyes and blackness crept back in. I stopped fighting it and let it pull me back under.
“Sir,” I said as I stood at attention in my commanding officer’s office. “We need to go back. I have reason to believe that there’s a group of kids camped in one of the abandoned buildings. We can’t leave them there. Not if the chatter is correct and this place will be flattened by drone.” I petitioned the Major for this new mission only minutes after returning from our last. It was unlikely to work, but I had to try.
“We have no resources for a non-emergency rescue mission right now,” Major Moran said. He didn’t even look up from his paperwork as he responded. I clenched my hands to keep from pounding his desk to get his attention. Leave it to brass to ignore that important things.
“Thank you for the update on today’s mission,” he said, as he waved his hand in my direction. “You’re dismissed.” He still didn’t look at me. I stood there for a minute too long while I tried to control myself before turning to leave. I wasn’t going to get a green light from Major “Moron.” If I pushed too hard, I would only make my squad a target for his wrath.
“Let me guess, he said no,” Icebox said when he saw me.
“This isn’t what I signed up for,” I ground out in response.
“We were all naïve once,” he said, as he handed me a granola bar.
“We were all sold a bill of lies about protecting people,” I clarified, unnecessarily because he knew just as well as I did what our jobs really entailed.
“That we were.”
“Is it really so bad that I want to keep doing that? That I want to do the job I enlisted to do and not the bidding of some brass that’s never set foot over here?” I asked as I tore into the bar.
“Of course, it’s not bad,” Icebox said gently. “It’s just not how things are.” He was practical. Sometimes, I think he even liked it out here.
“Fuck, man. I’m not sure how much longer I can keep doing this,” I admitted. We were well away from any listening ears. “It’s too fucking much and not enough all at the same time.” I rarely let myself be this fucking sad out loud, but Icebox wouldn’t judge me. I was sure of that.
“You know me, Tink, Duke, and Grey will follow your lead on anything, right?” He said as we continued walking towards the edge of the base.
“Yeah. I know.”
The next time I woke up, a nurse was changing out my IV.
“Master Sergeant. Good. You’re awake,” the nurse said as he finished with the IV and turned to me.
