Page 6 of Wrong Number, Right Soldier
“Yeah, I better go. It was nice talking to you, Saylis, again. Thanks for accidentally calling me.”
“FaceTiming you,” she corrects. “Don’t even try to downplay my creepy.”
“You couldn’t be creepy if you tried, Saylis.”
“Bet. Can I call you again sometime?”
“You canFaceTimeme, as often as you want. It’s late there. Actually, we’ve got formation in ten minutes, I gotta get movin’. You should get sleep.”
“Mm, I really should. Goodnight, Trey.”
“Goodnight, Miss Saylis.” I pause. “How do you spell that, by the way?”
And she tells me. With that smile. Her sweet, bright voice. Those black-ringed blue eyes reducing me to mindless pieces.
I hang up on the best morning I’ve had in a long time. If it’s possible…the best morning ever. And it happened out here, of all places. Here, where I’ve come toexpectthe unexpected—
But not likethat.
Three
Saylis
I no longer sleep. Between studying my brains out and staying up late almost every night talking to Trey, sleep has become like a construct more than a real thing. And you know what, I don’t even really miss it. I can sleep when I’m dead.
We have an almost-routine. Trey wakes up an hour earlier than he normally did; so, around four a.m. his time—I know I just said I don’t miss sleep, butthatis madness. We FaceTime for a bit until he has to get some work done, and I crack the books. At six his time—ten p.m. here in Texas—they do formation. He’ll usually have some time afterward, and we’ll talk some more. Then, he’s busy, and I’m sleepy, but he’ll get a block of time where he can talk around lunch, so if I want to catch him then, I need to wake up byat leastfive a.m.
And wake up, I do. Like clockwork.
We carry on like this for weeks, talking to each other almost every day. I tell him all about my friends and my life and we go over some of my study notes to prep for my exam. He tells me he has all kinds of reading and study materials too, but he won’t share them with me—not because they’re classified, but because he’s embarrassed. He won’t read out loud in front of me, but he has nothing to be ashamed of: we are very different people who are good at different things. I wouldn’t last a day in the military. Trey says he never finished high school, and barely passed the Army entrance exams.
I think it’s nice, to have different skills, different minds. It’s why we have endless things to talk about—not because we have the same experiences to share, but because we have none. We bring new perspectives to every conversation, every topic, each and every day.
And hisstories! I live for them. Even if they are only the goof-off stuff I know he’s curating just for our talks. Troops wouldn’t need to be out there for ayear, away from their homes, their families, if there wasn’t more to it. I just get the feeling he only tells me the goof-off stuff. And that’s okay. I’m here for it. Even if only armed with my heart, my ears, and my sleep deprivation.
I’msoclose to finally feeling ready to take the state test. There’s a part of me that realizes it might be irresponsible to keep up this thing with Trey, at this pace, knowing what I have to be taking care of. But the timing is what it is. I can’t put him off—not one call or chance to say hi or see his face. He’s not in a combat zone in Kuwait, but I don’t know a lot about the Middle East, if I’m being honest—the geography, the conditions, the many current conflicts—nor what he could be sent out to do. Or who or what could pay a visit tothem. I try to do some research, but the information is vast, overwhelming, confusing, conflicting. Quite frankly: not helping.
And he can’t help much, either. Not over the phone. All of this is so far out of my wheelhouse, I feel a little bit lost about it. So I’ve stopped trying to understand everything, except just this: I have to pick up the phone when he calls. No matter what. Because morbidly, what if it could bethe last call?
“You’re getting tense, honey,” the massage therapist says in her dulcet, but firm tone.
“Sorry, a lot on my mind.”
“Not in here. Open your eyes,” she says to me, and I peel them back slowly. “You see any of those worries in this room?”
I see a low-set, dim purplish lamp in one corner, hear woodwind music playing softly from invisible speakers, smell the faint, grounding fragrance of vetiver and lemongrass.
“No,” I answer. “It’s heavenly in here.”
“So relax, honey. That is your only job right now. Also, turn over.”
As she holds the sheet up I gingerly flip over onto my stomach. Relax. Only job.
I breathe in, and exhale everything out.
Getting a massage seemed like a great idea to not only quiet some of the worries I’ve been having lately—worries that have been climbing higher and higher right along with my feelings for Trey—but to also address the issue of my posture, which I’ve been neglecting. The ideal position for studying is probablynotcross-legged on a feather-top mattress hunched over an open textbook and scrawling out notecards against the side of my knee.Your knees are not a lap desk,Saylis, I silently chide myself—for the umpteenth time.
My hips, shoulders, and knees have taken the brunt of it. But as she works lower down my back, my lumbar muscleskill.
