Page 4 of Wrong Number, Right Soldier
I think I’m pretty decent at the setting the example part. I’m killer at the discipline (let’s be honest here). It’s thefinding the right wordspart. Words,theright words, have more power than anything we might use here on an enemy. Words can inspire, or they can diminish. They’re used to create, and destroy, educate or mislead. Cut, or cure.
Words? Yeah, fucking amazing.Fucking terrifying.
So that’s another reason I get up early, going over these mentorship modules and leadership progression fundamentals. Growing up, “smart” had never been a word used to describe me, but now, I’ve been promoted to the point I’m expected to sound like I know what the fuck. Now the Army is my life, always will be; I’m here to make it a damn good one.
And goddangif the hours don’t move forward like molasses, if I’m not focused onsomething.
I keep my phone on the table next to me, in case Mom calls. It’s late where she’s at, so I don’t think she will. She usually calls around dinner, when it’s her lunchtime. The first deployment, it took us a while to figure the rhythm, and Mom would worry. This time, we’ve got it down, and she doesn’t call every single day like she did. Mostly she just DMs me reels that I have to carve out whole chunks of days to catch up on. But I watch every single one, knowing she thought of me with each send. It’s sweet, her trying to keep me entertained.
So I’m a little surprised when, not seven minutes in to my reading, my phone does ring; no one else calls me but Mom. I’m even more taken aback when I realize it’s a FaceTime call…from an unknown number.
I’m not in a classified location, but Iamon deployment for the U.S. Army. Answering a video call from an unknown number…unsettles me. But, it’s the same local area code where I’m from—maybe an old friend? Could it be a friend of Mom’s?Did something happen?
The secondthatthought flashes hot in my brain, I swipe the call to answer.
Immediately, electric blue eyes rimmed in black stun me—and every word that’s ever been in my brain dissolves into ether.
“Oh, um, hi.” Her pretty features shift around like shuffling puzzle pieces, as she takes in the backdrop surrounding me, those blue eyes eventually narrowing on the ‘U.S. Army’ stitching of my fatigue shirt. “You’re not…Derek. Is Derek…there?”
“We’ve got a Derek. Davis?” I ask.
“No.” She glances down at a business card. “It’s long… I don’t really know how to pronounce it, the consonant-to-vowel ratio is…intense. So probably wrong guy,” she says to me. “I’mconfused, though. Where…are you? Did I just callthe military?” Her eyes widen to saucer-sized.
“Kinda.” I grin, entertained by the way her thoughts seem to stream into words the moment they form. “This is my phone. Maybe you dialed the number wrong?”
“Apparently so. I’m so sorry to bother you.”
“Pfft, definitely not a bother. Being stuck out here for a whole year, it’s nice to get a phone call, even if it’s a misdial.” I look right at her. “Can’t say that I’veevergotten a FaceTime call, not even from my mom. She refuses.” I chuckle.
“Stuck out where?” she asks again.
“I’m in Kuwait.” I reach out, so my phone’s camera takes in more of my surrounding workstation. “Not exactly aHome and Gardensspread, but hey, at least I got a pillow this time.”
“When did you not have apillow?”
“First deployment, years ago. Totally sucked ass.”Words, you idiot. She’s a gorgeous woman, not a squaddie.
To my surprise, she laughs—a bright, uninhibited sound. “It’s crazy that you can take calls from there. I mean, it’s really cool though.”
“Yeah, well hey, I’ll let you get back to your phone call you actually wanted to make. Derek tralala.”
Smiling, she mumbles, “More like trlrlr,” effectively teaching me in that moment the difference between a consonant and a vowel. “There was a nine that looked like a four. I guess…it was nine.” Her smile falls slightly, but I don’t think she meant for it to show. “Dang ink blotch.”
“Ha. Well. Nice talking to you, though…uh—” I fish for her name, with no idea why. I have her number now. She lives in my home city. Along with over a million other people. But I know I’ll never see or talk to her again. This was just a random, crazy thing.
“Saylis,” she actually tells me her name.If we ever do talk again, it’ll be a good long discussion on stranger-danger. Then she reads my name stitched on the other side of my fatigue shirt. “Rivers?”
“Trey.”
“Nice meeting you, Trey. I’m sorry again.”
“No please, don’t apologize, it was really nice to talk to you, Saylis. Have a good night.”
“You, too. Bye.” She gives a little smile, and a little wave, and then a little swipe—and she’s gone.
For a long moment, I just blink at my phone screen. She was…the loveliest surprise. I definitely shouldnotgo in to her number and add her to my Contacts. She meant to call Derek.At almost nine o’clock at night her time.
Don’t do it.
