Chapter 4
Marco
A nother day, another patrol. It’s so hot here, made worse by our protective gear, by the medical supplies I carry.
The heat always hits me, and grows worse as the morning turns to afternoon.
It’s not the kind of heat that settles gradually into the air but something immediate and suffocating, pressing in from every direction until it feels like there isn’t enough space left to breathe.
I register it before I register anything else, before I take in the sound or the movement or the way the ground beneath me doesn’t feel stable in the way it should. I am immediately sweating.
We are always cautious, always careful. Everyone of us scans the horizon, scans the people around us.
We are looking for threats, expecting danger.
We scan the ground for mines, look at a parked bicycle for a potential improvised explosive device.
We know that we are in a strange land, and that we are strangers here, and that leads to vulnerability none of us wants to accept, but that none of us can deny.
There are moments, brief but distinct, where everything exists in suspension, where the world hasn’t fully caught up to what’s about to happen, and I’m aware of it in a way that feels almost detached, like I’m standing just outside of the moment instead of inside it, like there’s still time to avoid something, to redirect what’s coming before it settles into something real. But there isn’t any time.
We can’t see everything. A bomb explodes, dust blows up everywhere, and we never saw it coming.
Then the sound follows, not a single sharp crack but something deeper, heavier, a force that moves through the air and into my body at the same time, disorienting enough that I don’t immediately understand where it’s coming from, only that it’s wrong, that it doesn’t belong to anything controlled or expected.
The ground shakes under me, more dust rising in a thick wave that blocks out everything beyond a few feet, and the stillness disappears completely, replaced by motion that doesn’t organize itself into anything clear right away, just fragments of movement and noise that my mind struggles to assemble into something coherent.
Training takes over before thought can catch up, not because I feel ready but because there isn’t space for hesitation, because every second that passes without action means something I won’t be able to recover later.
I move toward the sound without fully seeing where I’m going, my body responding to patterns I’ve repeated enough times that they exist independently of intention, and I start calling out names as I go, my voice cutting through the noise in a way that feels both too loud and not loud enough at the same time.
I can hear myself, but can anyone else hear me?
“Davis,” I shout, though I don’t know if he can hear me, though I don’t know where he is in relation to me now, and I push forward anyway, stepping through debris that wasn’t there a second ago, my focus narrowing in a way that blocks out everything that doesn’t directly matter in the immediate moment.
I find him faster than I expect. He’s on his back, partially covered in dust and fragments that I brush away without thinking, my hands moving automatically as I assess what I can fix and what I can, what still falls within the space of something I can control.
“Stay with me,” I tell him, even though the words feel insufficient, and I don’t know if they’re for him or for me.
I press my hand against the most dangerous wound, applying pressure to try to stop the bleeding, in the way I’ve been trained, the way I’ve done before in situations that didn’t feel this immediate, but never this close to slipping beyond anything I can manage.
His eyes find mine for a second, unfocused but aware enough to register something, and I hold onto that, onto the fact that he’s still here in this moment, still reachable in a way that gives me something to work with.
“You’re good,” I say, because that’s what you say, because it’s part of the process, part of keeping them anchored long enough for something else to take over, for help to arrive, for time to stretch just enough that it works in our favor instead of against it.
The noise around us sharpens, voices cutting through the air in fragments that don’t fully connect, orders being shouted, names being called, and I try to track it all at once, try to maintain a sense of the larger picture while focusing on what’s directly in front of me, because losing that balance means missing something important, something that could change the outcome if I catch it in time.
“Marco,” someone calls out, and I turn slightly, just enough to register the direction without breaking contact with what I’m doing, and I see movement to my left, another figure down, another situation that requires attention I don’t have the capacity to give at the same time.
“I’m here,” I call back, though the words feel inadequate, stretched thin between too many points at once, and I push harder against the wound beneath my hand, adjusting pressure, adjusting angle, doing everything I know how to do to keep things from slipping further than they already have.
There’s a moment, brief but unmistakable, where I feel the shift, where I understand that what I’m doing isn’t enough, that despite everything I’ve been trained for, everything I’ve practiced, this isn’t going to resolve the way it should, and I reject it immediately, push it aside in favor of action, because accepting it would mean stopping, and stopping isn’t something I can allow.
“Stay with me,” I repeat, my voice lower now, more controlled, like I can impose stability through tone alone, like I can anchor him in place long enough for something to change, for something to tip back in our favor.
But it doesn’t.
The moment stretches just long enough for me to recognize it before it passes, just long enough for me to feel it settle into something final, something that doesn’t shift no matter how much I adjust, no matter how much I push against it, and I stay there anyway, my hands still in place, my focus still locked on what I’m doing, because pulling away would mean acknowledging it fully, and I’m not ready to do that yet.
“Marco,” the voice comes again, closer this time, more urgent, and I feel a hand on my shoulder, pulling me back in a way that doesn’t match what I’m trying to hold onto, what I’m trying to maintain.
“I’ve got him,” I say automatically, even though I sense that isn’t true anymore, even though I know the situation has already moved beyond what I can control, and there’s a pause, a brief hesitation in the movement around me before the pressure shifts, before another Corpsman steps in to take over what I’ve been holding in place.
Davis is put on a stretcher and carried on to the medical evacuation helicopter, and taken off for more care, for another chance.
I don’t move right away.
I stay there a second longer, my hands still where they were, my focus still locked on a moment that has already passed, because stepping back means accepting it, means letting it settle into something I can’t undo.
When I finally stand, it’s not because I’m ready, but because the space demands it, because there are other things happening that require attention, other people who might still be within reach of something I can change, and I move toward them without thinking, without processing what just happened in a way that would slow me down.
The rest of it blurs together, a series of actions and responses that follow one after another without pause, each one requiring just enough focus to keep everything else at a distance, and I rely on that, on the structure of it, on muscle memory, on the way each step leads into the next without leaving room for anything else to surface.
It’s only later, when the immediate danger passes, when the noise settles into something quieter, that it starts to come back in pieces, not all at once but gradually, like something working its way through layers I’ve put in place to keep it out.
I sit on the ground, my hands still carrying the imprint of what I’ve done, the memory of pressure and movement and adjustment lingering in a way that doesn’t fade as quickly as it should, and I stare at my hands, still bloody, trying to reconcile what I know with what I feel, trying to find a place where it settles into something that makes sense. It doesn't. It won’t.
“You did what you could,” a caring Marine Sergeant says nearby, and I nod without looking up, because that’s the expected response, because acknowledging it out loud would require engaging with it in a way I’m not ready for.
But the words don’t land the way they’re supposed to.
They don’t settle into something reassuring, don’t provide the closure they’re meant to offer, because what I could do wasn’t enough, and that fact sits beneath everything else in a way I can’t change, no matter how many times I run through it, no matter how many ways I try to adjust what I did or didn’t do.
Later, when I have space to step away, when the immediate demands have been met and there’s nothing left to occupy my hands or my attention, I step outside the medical unit.
The evening air is cooler now, quieter, and I stand there staring out at a landscape that doesn’t hold the same meaning it did before. It feels more foreign than ever before.
I think about her without meaning to, but I let the memories flow, the way I do sometimes when things settle enough that my mind has room to move somewhere else.
The contrast hits harder than I expect, the memory of her kitchen, the smell of adobo, the warmth and the steadiness of it, the way she moves through that space like she belongs there in a way that feels certain and grounded.
I don’t belong in that kind of world.
The thought comes without resistance, without the need to examine it further, because it feels true in a way that doesn’t require proof.
I let it settle there, let it take hold in a way that simplifies everything else, that gives structure to something that would otherwise feel too scattered to manage.
Because if I don’t belong there, if I’m not someone who can exist in that kind of life without bringing something into it that doesn’t fit, then stepping away isn’t failure, it’s correction, it’s putting things back into a form that makes sense.
By the time I return to everything else, by the time I step back into the military routine that keeps things moving forward, something has already shifted in me in a way I don’t fully acknowledge, something that closes off space I hadn’t realized was still open, something that makes everything that came before feel distant in a way that doesn’t match how it felt when I was there.
I still think about her. That doesn’t change. But the way I think about her does, the way it fits into everything else, the way it settles into something I can place at a distance without letting it interfere with what I need to do here.
And the more time passes, the more that distance feels necessary, not because she did anything to create it, but because I understand something now in a way I didn’t before, something about what I am when I’m here, about what I carry back with me even when I leave.
I tell myself I’ll fix it when I get back, that I’ll find a way to step into that world again without bringing this part of me with me, that I’ll figure out how to separate the two in a way that doesn’t cause damage.
But even as I think it, I know it isn’t that simple. Because this doesn’t stay here. It doesn’t settle into the ground or disappear with time or fade into something manageable just because I want it to. It stays with me.
And no matter how far I go, no matter how much distance I try to create between this moment and everything else, I carry it with me in a way I don’t know how to change.
I carry the weight of what I couldn’t fix, what I couldn’t hold in place long enough to make a difference, and it settles into something permanent, something that reshapes the way I see everything that comes after.
Including her. Especially her.
Because the idea of stepping back into that kitchen, into that life she’s built, into something that requires a kind of stability I don’t know how to guarantee, feels less possible now than it did before, not because I don’t want it, but because I understand what it would mean to risk it, what it would mean to bring this part of me into something that doesn’t deserve it.
Eventually, I stop writing altogether. I feel absorbed into this war, like it is changing me in ways I can’t stop. Maya does not fit in my new world anymore. How do I tell her?