Chapter Sixteen
Karina
“What if they keep him there?” Elodie asked, her hands clasped on her lap, knuckles white.
Her skin was a gray color, under her eyes blue and hollow. It wasn’t the time to remind her that stress wasn’t good for her baby, but it was so hard not to.
“They won’t. Kael will figure it out. He always does.”
“This is all my fault. God, how do things keep getting worse, Karina?”
I scooted closer to her and wrapped my arms around her shoulders. Her skin was icy to the touch, increasing my anxiety. There wasn’t a single thing I could do or say to make sense of any of this, and she was right—everything kept getting freaking worse. Nearly daily at this point.
“Things always get worse before they get better, Elodie. We will figure it all out, Kael will handle it, and my brother will be fine, and worst-case, you can take my brother and run away to France.” I smiled, actually wishing that was in the realm of reality. I would miss them like crazy, but each day felt like another bomb would go off.
She almost smiled. A second later, my front door opened and Kael, followed by Austin, walked through. Relief washed over me. Elodie jumped up, wrapping her arms around my brother’s neck, and finally stopped crying.
“Are you okay?” she asked, placing her palms on either side of his cheeks and moving his head around slowly.
He laughed, as only he would, given the circumstances. “I’m fine. I’m fine.”
Kael took his shoes off and hesitated by the door for a moment. He didn’t make eye contact with me instantly, which he usually did. He had to be exhausted from being dragged into my brother’s shit again, but something felt off. I knew him well enough to know he wouldn’t exactly be vocal about anything that was wrong. It wasn’t the time to ask him, especially not in front of an audience, so I hugged him instead. He bent his knees a little to meet me at my height and pressed his forehead against mine. I nearly melted at the intimacy of it. Until Kael, I’d never realized how starved for physical touch I was. My mother had been affectionate until she wasn’t, and my father . . . I couldn’t remember the last time he’d hugged me or so much as touched my arm or brushed my hair away when it covered my eyes.
“What now?” I asked. I didn’t breathe as I fired off the questions that had been playing in my head for the last few hours. “Are you in trouble? Did you pass or fail the drug test? Can you still be a soldier? Why did they arrest you in the first place? Where is Phillips? Did Dad—”
“Kare, oh my god.” Austin rolled his eyes, drooping his shoulders like he was fifteen and had gotten caught shoplifting, again.
“Don’t ‘Kare’ me, Austin. We have been worried to death and you’re acting like nothing happened. We need answers.” I looked at Elodie for backup, but with one glance I could tell her alliance was with my brother.
“Let me at least take a shower and eat before you interrogate me,” my brother teased. “But seriously, everything is okay. It was a mix-up and I’m not in any trouble,” he explained.
I swear the house could be on fire and my brother would sit on the couch and play freaking Xbox. Nothing ever seemed to bother him, and aside from Phillips’s behavior toward Elodie last night, Austin floated through life without a care in the world. Must be fucking nice. I stared a hole into his back, cussing him out mentally as he walked down the hallway and went into the bathroom. The sound of rushing water filled the room, and Elodie turned to Kael.
“Is he really okay?” she asked, her brows scrunched together as she leaned toward him as if she was examining him. “Tu vas bien?”
“He’s all right,” Kael said. “Did anyone show up here?” He glanced around the room, doing his usual survey of the place, probably noting that we’d moved the pillows on the couch to the floor and Elodie had brought a glass of water to the coffee table. He noticed everything.
“ Non . My husband hasn’t, and he didn’t call,” Elodie told him.
Last night felt like a different lifetime, like it hadn’t actually happened to me, to us. It was strange and fascinating, the way my brain was processing the anxiety and intrusive thoughts as they came in. Today, even with the chaos of my brother getting arrested and released, it felt like I was split into two versions of myself. One of them was hiding in a corner with a spinning mind and shaking hands, full-on fight-or-flight mode, and the other was standing in my living room, half smiling, thinking about how Kael’s eyes looked like honey under my lights. I kept waiting for a massive, soul-splitting breakdown, but even when I thought about the way the string lights in Mendoza’s backyard had reflected off the metal gun in Phillips’s hand, the memory was both fuzzy and clear, like a film I had seen but didn’t remember clearly.
“Karina?” Kael’s voice sounded like it was underwater as I blinked my eyes to focus.
“Huh?”
“Did you hear me?” he asked.
No, I did not . “Um, no. Sorry. What was it?”
“I said I’m going to go to Mendoza’s. Do you wanna come with me or stay with Elodie and your brother?”
“I want to go with you.” I didn’t want to be away from him, not even for a second.
We waited for my brother to come out of the bathroom before we left. Kael gave the two of them a brief lecture on not opening my door and calling him immediately if Phillips showed up. My brother agreed calmly, but I could practically read his mind, and I knew that if Elodie’s husband arrived unexpectedly at my house, all rational thought would fly out the window and one of them wouldn’t survive. The casual bleakness of my thought surprised me. No, it wasn’t the thought exactly. It was that it was true. This was what I had always feared when it came to being too embedded in military life and culture: life and death becoming passive thoughts, a part of the way things were. Would I reach a point where I wouldn’t even cry at a funeral, like my father?
“Do you cry at funerals?” I asked Kael as soon as he closed the driver’s-side door of his truck.
“No,” he said, checking the rearview mirror before pulling out of my driveway.
“Hmph. Did you used to?” I wondered.
He shook his head. “Not since I was a kid and my mom’s brother died.”
He had mentioned his uncle a few times, in the quiet of the night as I poked and prodded for every detail about his life before I knew him. He had died when Kael was a child, and was the only sibling his mother had.
“Do you cry over other things? Just not death?” I asked.
He glanced over at me before he responded, probably wondering where the hell I was going with this.
His voice was low as he told me, “I cried the first time I killed someone.”
My breath caught in my throat at his raw response.
“Oh.” I kept my eyes on him. The idea that he might think I couldn’t look at him because of what he’d said made me sick. His eyes met mine as he slowed to a stop at the end of my street. In them I saw regret, pain, a man who had lived a hundred lives before his twenty-first birthday.
“And the second, and the third.” A lifelong sadness filled his words.
“Did it get easier?”
He shook his head. “I was told that it would, that the first time was the worst. But even though I only eliminated people who were actively trying to kill me or my platoon, it only got harder. Watching my boys—Phillips for one—becoming too comfortable taking lives was something I wasn’t trained for. I was trained to survive, to only kill if I absolutely had to, but I had, and still have, a constant fear of slipping, of not valuing human life. It’s a thin line when you’re told that you’re doing the right thing, that you’re a hero fighting for the safety of your country. The more I questioned, the more I lost my sanity.”
“People who are insane don’t think they’re insane.” I had no clue how to comfort him and knew deep down that I couldn’t, but I needed him to know that he wasn’t bad, that he was the most thoughtful, the most levelheaded person I had ever known. He wasn’t like Phillips, or my father.
“Right.” He smiled a little, raising his brow. “Any other questions about my emotional capabilities, or can I get on the highway?”
I laughed, knowing sarcasm and self-deprecation were how we both handled heavy emotions. Sometimes there was no morally perfect way to navigate things as big and traumatic as war and death and invading countries and taking lives.
“Highway, but I do have more questions.” I reached for his hand. It was so warm in mine, and the ointment slathered over his busted knuckles was still wet and shining under the fall sun. “Who was the worst teacher you’ve ever had?” I asked him as he sped up. The engine roared, and he began to tell me about the awful math teacher he had in the tenth grade.
Gloria greeted us as we pulled up to the house. She was barefoot and wearing a T-shirt that went to her knees. Her hair was down, more wavy than usual, half of it in a bun on top of her head. She looked like an LA girl leaving one of those overpriced organic grocery stores, so effortlessly cool. I realized that Kael never told me why we were going to the Mendozas’ house or if it was to hang out with them, but I hoped it was just because. It felt surprisingly nice to have a friend’s house to go to.
“Hey, babe.” Gloria hugged me with both arms, a real hug. A hug that felt like friendship and trust and comfort. I didn’t think I would ever get used to that feeling. “How are you?” She gently pushed my shoulders to have direct eye contact with me. “You look like hell.” She frowned, brushing my hair away from my face. “Beautiful hell, but hell nonetheless.”
“I don’t know . . . how I am, I mean.” I decided to not edit my response. I almost said, I’m totally fine! You? but Gloria had such a comforting vibe that I didn’t feel the need to pretend around her, which was also a strange feeling. One I wished I would be used to by now, but which was slightly uncomfortable still.
“Understandable. Last night was fucking wild. I can’t believe Phillips had the nerve to pull out a fucking gun.”
“Gloria.” Kael’s voice came out as a warning.
She rolled her eyes at him, clearly not fazed. “What? That’s what happened and she was literally there. Stop babying her.” She wrapped her arm around my shoulder and led me to the door.
As we were about to step inside she turned around to Kael behind us. “By the way, Manny is on his second bottle and the kids are at the neighbor’s house playing, so now that you’re here, you can take over babysitting my husband.”
Kael groaned but didn’t disagree.
Mendoza was sitting on the couch when we walked in. Like Gloria had warned, he had a half-empty bottle of what looked like his usual tequila in his hand.
“Happy fucking Tuesday!” he shouted as we entered the room. “Or is it Wednesday? Anyway, glad to see we’re all alive today. Have a seat!” He was cheerful, obviously drunk as hell, but in a funny mood.
A tiny voice in my head reminded me that it shouldn’t be funny, but that didn’t change the fact that it was.
“Glad to see you’re damaging your liver at one in the afternoon,” Kael said as he sat down next to him on the couch. I followed Gloria’s lead and plopped down on the love seat. She moved closer to me and crossed her legs under her body. The television was on, a football game playing in the background with barely any sound. Kids’ toys were scattered randomly around the room, and their house felt like a home full of life. Cup rings stained the wooden part of the coffee table, children’s fingerprints dotted the glass center.
“I’m nothing but consistent.” Mendoza leaned up to put his elbows on his knees. He was wearing his ACUs.
“Why aren’t you at the company?” Kael asked. For a bunch of soldiers, sometimes I wondered when they worked.
“I got the day off. Thanks to your old man.” He pointed the bottle at me.
“What?” I couldn’t hide my surprise and discomfort at the mention of my father. I wondered how Mendoza could even stand to be around me given how he felt about my dad. I was grateful that Kael had spared me most of the details of what exactly my dad had done; otherwise, my guilt would keep me from being able to have a friendship with Gloria.
“Your old man came and got me off work. Said I can take a mental health day or some shit. I was shocked too. A mental health day?” He laughed, taking a swig of the bottle.
Kael’s entire mood changed in a couple of breaths. I watched him try to keep his face still, but I could see the shift in his eyes, his jaw, his hands on his lap, as my father was mentioned. I knew we were seconds away from Kael telling Mendoza to stop talking.
On cue, he did just that.
“You can talk about my dad. It doesn’t bother me,” I told Mendoza, and looked at both him and Kael. “I hate him, too, so it’s fine.” I tried to smile, lighten the mood a little, but it came out awkwardly. I really needed to work on my social skills.
Gloria laughed, telling Kael to chill the fuck out, but he didn’t. He was only more tense as Mendoza offered me a drink.
“Absolutely not.” Kael pushed the bottle away from me before I could decide for myself. I didn’t even want to drink, but Kael deciding for me pissed me off, so I stood up and grabbed the bottle with both hands. Drinking in the middle of the day with so much shit going on was a horrible idea and I knew that, but that didn’t stop me.
Mendoza was amused; Kael was not. He glared at me and I glared right back, taking a swig of the warm liquor. I tried not to spit it back out as it burned down my chest and settled in the pit of my stomach. I quickly handed the bottle back to Mendoza. Gloria passed me a bottle of blue Gatorade and told me to wash it down.
“Thanks.”
The Gatorade definitely helped cool down the fire from the tequila. When I looked at Kael, I could tell he was not impressed with my little tantrum, but now that the liquor had moved to my head, I wanted more. I guessed this was how people became addicted to alcohol. With only one drink everything felt less serious—Kael’s annoyance was kind of funny, Mendoza’s mood made more sense to me, and Gloria’s patience with her husband was even more impressive.
“How’s Fischer?” Mendoza asked us. “I tried to call him after his dad said he was a free man, but he didn’t pick up.”
Mendoza quietly noticed me eyeing the bottle of tequila. He looked at Kael, then back at me, tipping it toward me. He underestimated Kael’s awareness of literally everything and I decided to ignore his judgment as I went ahead with another drink straight from the bottle.
“He’s fine. At Karina’s place with Elodie. Have you heard from Phillips?” Kael kept his composure, seemingly choosing not to try to stop me from drinking with Mendoza.
“Nope. And he’s a lucky motherfucker that I haven’t. My kids were in the house, and he brought a gun here. I better not see him again.”
“Okay.” Gloria sounded exasperated as she told me to come to the kitchen with her. “We’ll take this,” she said, grabbing the tequila and taking it with us.
I didn’t look back at Kael as I followed Gloria into the kitchen. We sat down at their dining table, Gloria on one side and me on the other. Their table was only big enough for four chairs but had five to fit their family.
“Sorry, but I couldn’t listen to them talking about Phillips anymore. That’s all Manny has been talking about since he woke up.” Gloria rubbed her fingers in a circular motion over her temples. “Here.” She slid the tequila she’d hijacked from her husband across the table to me. “Don’t get too used to that.” Her eyes fell on the bottle as I took a drink. “And for god’s sake, at least put it on some ice.”
She stood up and went to a cabinet. The cups were all mismatched and it reminded me of the way my mom always collected random plastic cups from fast-food chains and kept them. She always said that people who have matching cups and plates lived in a museum, not a home, and sitting in Gloria’s kitchen, I agreed with her. I wasn’t sure if it was the tequila or the nostalgic feeling of the house, but Gloria sort of reminded me of my mother. A more stable version of her, who would never abandon her children.
“What?” Gloria looked down at me as she poured a hefty amount of liquor into a cup with ice and what I assumed was Gatorade. “Why are you smiling at me like that?” She petted my head, and my smile grew.
“I really like being around you,” I admitted. A bubble of panic rose through my buzzed brain as I realized how weird that probably sounded. I tried to cover it up with more words, hoping she wouldn’t regret befriending me. “Sorry—that was so weird. I meant like. I—” Gloria’s hand gently covered my mouth, ending my fumbling words.
“I really like being around you, too, Karina,” she said, a warm, genuine smile spreading across her beautiful face.