Page 6 of I Promise You
We all have shed our sweat, blood, and tears and given up any chance at a normal everyday life at home. As long as we’re special operators, it’ll be anything but ordinary.
Fuck, I don’t know how much more of this shit I can take.
“I’ve gotta go home. Noel wants me home before dinner so I can help her put our twins to sleep.”
Despite Rooker being home for such a short amount of time, he’s been disconnected from his family. He’s been with Grim and me, ensuring we’re not going to try to kill ourselves from a traumatic mission that killed Paul. I don’t blame him. Sometimes, I regret choosing this as my career, and killing myself seems like an easy way out. Still, I couldn’t do that to my parents.
Death can take any of us whenever it’d like, and we’re flirting with the damn dark force whenever a deployment comes around and I’m pretty damn sure I’m not ready to wine and dine Death just yet.
“Danny?” Rooker interrupts Grim's intense trance. It’s the first time I’ve everheard Rooker call Grim by his first name.
He doesn’t respond, but he looks at Rooker with stressed, puffy red eyes bleeding with sadness. He lifts his head, acknowledging him with a quick nod.
“Call me if you need anything,” Rooker tells him while searching for his car keys in his pockets.
Danny turns away from him, grabbing a cigarette out of his pocket.
“I’m fine. Go home to your wife, rest, and spend time with your girls. I’m sure it won’t be long until we’re back on another mission.” He lights a cigarette, and my heart drops at the mention of another deployment.
Another fucking deployment?
We just got back home.
Rooker walks away to find his car in the parking lot.
Grim’s phone rings. He reaches into his pocket and sighs as he looks at the screensaver.
“Hello?” his deep voice responds professionally.
I look back at the crowd disappearing, and everyone who attended the service is now leaving.
“Yes, sir, I’m on my way. I can be there in thirty minutes.”
Grim hangs up and turns to me with a stern look on his face. He wants to say something; I know it, but Grim never says much. He’s quiet. He’s always been that way, never truly shows emotions, and that’s what makes him the most dangerous out of all of us. He's been in the Navy for so long that he's probably desensitized to feeling anything. He most likely can’t feel shit, and I don’t blame him.
“Admiral Ravenmore and other higher-ups called me in.”
He’s still like he’s frozen, and he’s staring at Paul’s tombstone. He doesn’t want to leave.
“Do they need us all to go in?” I ask.
He shakes his head, clenching his jaw.
“Hey man, just go. They’ve put him under already. Service is over,” I encourage him.
“That’s not it.” He puts out his cigarette under his boot. “I feel like I need to say something to his family, and I just can’t fucking find the words.”
I nod, looking at the ground.
“No matter what you say, they won’t like it,” I murmur through heavy breaths, shrugging my shoulder.
He has every right to feel like he’s at fault.
That mission haunts me. I can’t imagine Grim.
When I reached Grim that night in Iraq, he was with Paul until he took his last breath.
He starts popping his knuckles and shakes his head.
