Chapter Twenty-Seven
LEE
14 years earlier
I spent six months in security forces when a spot opened up in the flight school. I had an opportunity to join, and I took it, I chased my way up the chain and after nearly three years of training, I was a full-fledged pilot in the United States Air Force, and I was assigned to Eglin AFB in Florida; a far cry from the nineteen-year-old boy I was back in California.
From my post in Florida, I began to let my guard slip when I ran into a familiar face at a local bar on the anniversary of the night I met Ellie: my birthday, but not my birthday. I came in here to drown my memories of her, and I tried to walk away but he had already recognized me, and I wasn’t sure how to turn my back on my best friend.
“Lee?”
Dane called from across the bar as he walked over to me.
“Is that you, man?”
He was drunk, shit-faced, actually.
“I’m dreaming, aren’t I? Man, you have haunted me for years.”
He sat down at the bar, and I sat next to him, not saying anything, just looking at him. I missed my best friend and it never hit me how much I missed him until right now.
“Can you talk in dreams or is this like an in-between world. Shit, am I dead?” he looked around and I just had to laugh.
“You’re not dead, Dane. I’m here, it’s me.”
I probably shouldn’t be saying this out loud. But I could really use a friend and what better friend to get me through tonight than the guy who’s known me since I was eight.
“Hey, buddy, why don’t you walk with me? You shouldn’t be drinking anymore anyways.”
I walked Dane back to my apartment; I lived off base, just under a mile from the bar, and was just starting to furnish it so there wasn’t much in the living room other than a sofa and a TV sitting on a coffee table that was being used as a TV stand. I had to hold him up as he staggered up the two flights of stairs and into my apartment. I sat him down on the couch and went to fill up a cup of ice water for him. We sat on the couch, not saying anything for several minutes and then he broke the silence.
“How are you here?”
he asked, looking at me. I took a deep breath and let it out slowly before starting my explanation as to how I’m not dead.
“Before I say anything, Dane, you have to swear to me that none of this leaves this room.”
He blinked.
“I mean it, man, swear.” I said.
“Okay, I swear.”
He says and leans his head back on the sofa.
I went through it all; told him everything from the man in the hoodie, to the campfire, the CIA guys and my new false name and finished with telling him about my new career in the Air Force which is what led me here.
“This is real life, Dane. There would be serious consequences if any of this got out, you have to promise me that you won’t tell anyone you saw me.”
“I won’t tell anyone… except Liz, can I tell Liz? I tell her everything and…”
“NO!”
I cut him off.
“Not even Liz.”
I looked him dead in the eyes and he raised his eyebrow at me then nodded.
“You mean to tell me, you’re still with the same girl from high school?”
I asked him, laughing.
“That I am.”
He sighed.
“The one and only; she had me hooked, what can I say. Actually, after you died, I got an off-campus apartment, and she moved in with me. We moved here just after I graduated. I took a job with a start-up aircraft engineering company and I’m a project manager. We got done with a meeting late, and the team and I met up at the bar for a drink before heading home. But one beer turned into six and I was waiting it out so I wouldn’t get home trashed. Liz hates it when I drink.”
He rested the empty glass of water on the arm of the couch and got up to use the restroom. I pointed him in the direction of my small bathroom and got up to put the glass in the sink.
“I can’t believe it’s really you, Lee. There are so many things I want to tell you. Will you be in the area for a while? Can I stop by for a drink every now and then? I mean, as long as no one knows?”
Dane was leaning against the kitchen counter, his hands shoved in his pockets.
I thought about this for a minute. Could I keep our friendship a secret and still be the new me? I decided I didn’t want to let go of this piece of my past, maybe he could check on Ellie and tell me about her, maybe I could still be a part of my old world until the two worlds were allowed to merge: only seventeen more years, right?
* * *
My stay in Florida was short-lived and I was sent on assignment to South Africa for three months. Knowing I wouldn’t be back for a while, I met up with Dane and gave him a spare key to my apartment. I asked him to keep it clean for me and to check the mail every so often. In return, I agreed to let him crash there anytime he needed a break from Liz or on the rare occasion like the night we met again, was too drunk to get himself home.
When I got home from my first tour of duty, I quickly fell back into my routine: work, sleep, dream of Ellie. Dane told me this was no way to live my life, and for the second time, he tried to convince me to get over Ellie by introducing me to women at the bar. This became our Wednesday night ritual, and because no one else could know that I’m still alive, I clung to it.
Over the next year and a half, I had a total of three one-night stands. Each one of them left me without a return call. I couldn’t ever be sure, but the reason was likely because they always wanted to talk about past relationships and when I told them I’ve never put the pieces of my heart back together after Ellie left me, they put the brakes on. No one wants to get romantically involved with a man whose heart is a battlefield of memories, where they’re in an endless fight with shadows of a past love.
Instead of pushing me toward single ladies at the bar now, Dane and I choose to use our Wednesdays catching up on life since we last saw each other. He filled me in on his college years; how he joined a fraternity and almost died of alcohol poisoning until Liz found him passed out on the sidewalk and hauled his ass to the hospital to get his stomach pumped. This is why he only drinks with his work buddies anymore and doesn’t want Liz to see him trashed.
He told me that after Liz found out about Maggie’s fake pregnancy, she stopped talking to her and only recently reconnected over social media. She said Maggie is somewhere on the East Coast and has a daughter, but she never asked who the father was and doesn’t ever see pictures of them together as a family.
Ezra is married and has two little girls. He met his wife at a Padres game that his sister took him to for his birthday. They almost took each other out reaching for a foul ball that was flying into the stands and the rest is history. Dane was his best man at their wedding, and they lit a candle in remembrance of me. That gutted me. I felt like I was a cheater, two-timing my best friend with my other best friend. I wish I could touch base with Ezra but that will have to wait.
I asked Dane if he ever looked up Ellie online. He looked at me for a long time before responding, “Are you sure you want to know the answer to that, Lee?”
I didn’t hesitate because yes, I wanted to know everything he knew about her life right now. Was she married, did she have any kids, did she go to college, did she ever get over me or was she still holding on like I’ve been holding onto her?
“Hold on there, slow down. Let’s start at the beginning.”
He said, holding up his hands in front of him. He thought back to the first time he tried to find Ellie and he told me he thought it was very strange that she didn’t show up at my funeral. Afterwards, he and Ezra immediately went online to look her up so they could ask her if she even knew about what happened.
I stopped him, “Wait. She wasn’t at my funeral?”
I got up and walked into the bathroom, leaned on the sink, and looked at my reflection in the mirror. I don’t know if I want to know anything else if she couldn’t even come to my funeral.
After a couple of deep breaths in the bathroom, I returned to the couch and asked Dane to continue the story. They didn’t find anything in their initial search for Ellie online, but social media was still very new then and not too many people had profiles yet. Every year, on the anniversary of my death – I’ll never get used to hearing that – Dane and Ezra look her up, if for nothing else but to make sure she knows that I’m gone. Dane tells me that he has never found her on any of the social media platforms. One Google search showed that there was an Ellie in Virginia who owned an interior design business, but the website lacked an About page and further inquiries led to dead ends each time; there wasn’t even a last name listed.
“If you really want to know, I’ll fly to Virginia myself and see if I can find her in person.”
Dane tells me.
“No. I – I’m not sure what I would do if you came back and told me she knew I was dead and didn’t want to come to my funeral because she never forgave me. That would mean she never read my letters and didn’t know the pregnancy was a lie. It would mean that she got over me and moved on. I’m not ready to admit that might be the case.”
Dane's nod conveyed a world of understanding, his eyes full of empathy.
We shared a moment of silence before I swiftly changed the subject, “Are you ever going to marry Liz?”
I asked him.
“Damn. Okay, we’re going there, huh?”
He laced his fingers together and brought his hands behind his head, reclining himself on the couch, as if this was going to be a long discussion.
“Every time I think we’re ready and I want to ask her, something new seems to come up that pisses her off and I second guess myself. Yesterday, for example, she said she hates the way I chew my food.”
I look at him and question if all the somethings that pop up are small like this. When he shrugs his shoulders, I just shake my head at him and tell him to marry the girl already. He pulls out a ring box and shows me a diamond ring; he’s been carrying it around for months. I kick him out of my apartment and tell him not to come back next week if he hasn’t put that ring on her finger. He laughs, “See you next week, buddy.”
Only next Wednesday, Dane comes to my door to find a note taped to it with his name, telling him that I’ve been sent out to Afghanistan and would be gone for a year. I ask him to keep checking in on the apartment for me and hope he’ll have married Liz by the time I get home.
* * *
When I’m out in the field, we’re tasked with flying over hostile grounds, in search of refugees trying to escape. I maneuver my aircraft, keeping my eye on a woman holding a baby; I can see that she’s about half a mile away from walking into a swarm of soldiers and I radio it in, calling for a rescue. I found out when I got back to camp that we didn’t make it there in time; she was captured and murdered, and I couldn’t sleep that night. So, I returned to my old habit and opened my journal to write about Ellie.
She’s like a whisper in the wind,
A ghost that won’t release its hold.
I’ve tried to break free, tried to pretend,
But her shadow lingers, strong and cold.
She’s like a faded out memory,
Still haunting every part of me.
I can’t break free, can’t let her go.
Oh no, I can’t let her go.
I thought I could move on, thought I could be strong,
But she’s a chain I can’t undo.
Her presence lingers in my soul,
Dragging me back to what I once knew.
She’s like a faded out memory,
Still haunting every part of me.
I can’t break free, can’t let her go.
Oh no, I can’t let her go.
Every step I take,
Leads me back to her embrace.
I try to fight, I try to resist,
But she’s a fire I can’t extinguish.
She’s like a faded out memory,
Still haunting every part of me.
I can’t break free, can’t let her go.
Oh no, I can’t let her go.
I woke up in the middle of the night, sweating and breathless, with my journal on my chest. I re-read the words I wrote, and it made me smile; I thought it could be a great song. I tried to fall back asleep, thinking of a melody that would bring my words to life and I drifted off.
The sounds of explosions woke me the next morning and I shot out of my bunk, looking around the room. Everyone was running around, looking for their gear and I did the same, reporting to the Lieutenant for our orders.
We were off to deliver relief packages to our troops in the danger zone that couldn’t get out just yet. This was where I shined; flying cleared my mind and brought a calm to my emotions that were otherwise a jigsaw puzzle of a mess. Even through a heart pounding mission, I could fly the jet in and out of hot fire with ease. I think I found my calling. As soon as we returned, I pulled out my journal again to write to Ellie. I wanted to tell her things that I wish I could tell her like before with a simple phone call:
Dear Ellie Belly,
Flying makes me feel free even though every thought of you pulls me in and grounds me.
Pulls me back in, like a tide to shore,
Lost in this cycle, craving something more.
Oh that’s good. Ellie, I write these lyrics for you all the time. I don’t know if I’ll ever do anything with them but it helps, I think, when I can’t stop thinking about you.
Love Always,
Lee
On the next page, the rest of lyrics just poured out of me, the pen moving rapidly across the paper:
She’s a whisper in the wind,
A ghost from way back when,
Her memory won’t fade, it’s true,
Still here, haunting, through and through.
I tried to break free and let her go,
But something holds me tight, won’t let me go.
Back to her arms, back to her embrace,
Caught in this endless, motionless chase.
So I go on and on and on,
Lost in the echoes of a love that’s gone,
and I go on and on and on,
In the shadows of the love we’ve drawn
She’s the ache in every sigh,
The tear that falls from my eye.
Can’t quite shake her from my soul,
Her memory’s a never-ending toll.
I thought I moved on, thought I found my peace,
But her ghostly presence, it just won’t cease.
Pulls me back in, like a tide to shore,
Lost in this cycle, craving something more.
I closed the book and put it back in my pillowcase. I had to get some sleep if was going to be worth anything during tomorrow’s runs.
* * *
The weeks turned into months and losing refugees took its toll on me, mentally and physically. I was drained and really looking forward to getting back home and spending a day on the beach, doing absolutely nothing. We’re heading back to the states in two days, but before I can make it there, I have one big mission left: fly through a narrow ridgeline where an active threat has been identified and neutralize it without being detected. I have a window of one minute, forty-five seconds; it’s tight, but I’ve done it in simulation at least thirty times and I think I’ve got it.
My heart was racing the entire time, adrenaline on fire, sweat dripping into my eyes, but I made it through with three seconds to spare and flew back to camp undetected. We all celebrated the W with cold beer and loud music. I slipped out of the party and collapsed onto my bunk. The only thing I wanted to celebrate now was my return home.