Chapter 9
CHAPTER
NINE
JESSICA
I couldn’t save him. Because of me a family is going to get a visit from the Chaplain. I should have been able to save him.
We get back to base and get all the wounded into the medical tent and the civilians are led to their accommodations.
I walk in the tent and Rachel looks over at me.
“Jessica,” she calls out.
I can only shake my head as I walk over to the sink and wash my hands. Langston’s blood is still under my fingernails. I scrub my hands until the skin burns, but it doesn’t come off. Not really. Not the way I need it to.
“Jess, that’s enough. If you keep scrubbing, you won’t have any hands left,” Rachel tells me as she turns the water off and leads me over to a chair.
“That’s number six,” I whisper.
“There was nothing you could have done, Jessica. The wound was too much,” Rachel whispers with tears in her eyes.
“I know,” I say quietly, but I feel lost.
She takes me back to our tent and I sit on the edge of my cot, staring at the floor.
I replay it again and again. The pressure on the wound. The IV. The adrenaline. The moment his pulse slipped away like sand through my fingers. I did everything right, and it still wasn’t enough.
Noah comes to check on me. He doesn’t say much, just sits beside me, silent. That helps more than anything else could, but when he leaves, the silence turns cruel again.
I open my notebook. It’s filled with names, dates, and notes. Soldiers I’ve treated. Lives I’ve touched. I flip to a blank page and write:
Private Langston Chest wound. Time of death: 18:42 I tried.
I stare at those last two words. They look pathetic, weak, but they’re the truth.
I tried.
Later that evening, I walk to the edge of the base, where the desert stretches out like an open wound. The stars are sharp tonight, like shattered glass scattered across the sky.
I think about Langston’s family. About the promises I made when I joined. To heal. To protect. To never let anyone die on my watch.
I broke that promise, six times now.
I stay at the edge of the base longer than I should. The desert wind picks up, tugging at my sleeves, whispering through the wire fence like it knows my secrets.
I think about my brother. About the day the Chaplain came to our door. My mother collapsed, my father didn’t speak for hours. I stood there, numb, staring at the folded flag like it was a lie.
I wasn’t there to save him, just like I couldn’t save Langston.
I hear footsteps behind me. I don’t turn. I already know it’s Noah.
He stops beside me, silent for a moment. Then, “You shouldn’t be out here alone.”
“I am alone,” I say.
“No, you’re not.”
I finally look at him. His face is shadowed, but his eyes are clear. Steady. “I wrote his name down,” I whisper. “Langston. In my notebook. I always do, every soldier I treat.”
“That’s not weakness,” he says. “That’s honor.”
I shake my head. “It feels like failure.”
He doesn’t argue. He just stands there, letting the silence settle between us.
“I made a vow,” I say. “No one dies on my watch.”
“That’s not a vow,” he replies. “That’s a burden.”
I blink, startled by the truth in his voice.
“You carry it like armor,” he continues. “But it’s cutting into you.”
I look down at my hands. They’re clean now, but I still see the blood. “I don’t know how to let it go.”
“You don’t,” he says. “You learn to live with it. You learn to let people in.”
I glance at him. “Is that what you’re doing?”
He nods. “Trying.”
We stand there, two broken people in a broken place, trying to stitch ourselves back together with words and silence.
“I’m scared,” I admit.
“So am I.”
He reaches out, hesitates, then gently takes my hand. His grip is warm, grounding.
“I don’t know what this is,” I whisper.
“Me neither,” he says. “But it’s something.”
And for the first time since the moment Langston died, I feel like I can breathe.
After a while of standing at the edge of the base and looking out, but not seeing anything, Noah speaks. “You need to get some sleep. Let Captain Kim handle everything,” he tells me as he walks me back to my tent.
I nod, allowing him to lead me back. I don’t know how much sleep I’ll really be able to get, but I know he’s right, I should let Rachel handle the medical tent tonight. I’m not in the head space to handle anything right now.
“Get some rest and I’ll let Captain Kim know,” he tells me, as he kisses the top of my head and I can only nod.
I lay down and only then does it register that he kissed me. Granted it was my head, but the man kissed me.
I close my eyes, with thoughts of Noah on my mind.