Magnolia #2
His head falls back in the seat, and I watch him swallow thickly, his Adam’s apple slowly working up and down.
“I know what day you’re talking about now,” he says, then he’s quiet for the longest time.
I want to interject, to tell him it’s okay, and that we can breeze past it if it’s too hard.
I’m so used to having to pull everything out of him, but as the words start to form, I force myself to stay quiet.
It’ll be up to him if he wants to tell me, and if he wants to change in the way he’s been promising me he would.
I’ve let myself imagine him experiencing every terrible scenario.
Every military scene from a movie that we had ever watched.
Everything I’ve read in history books in high school, anything I could recall from the vague conversations I’ve heard elsewhere.
I tried to imagine what it would take to have the sweet, small-town boy I knew hardened into someone I didn’t recognize. Someone I couldn’t relate to.
Someone I didn’t like very much.
“Do you remember me telling you about a guy named Collins? Chris Collins?” he finally says, and it takes me a second to pull that name from memory.
“Was he the guy you met early on, the one that’s also from the Midwest?
He nods. “The one that was a few years younger than us, closer to Harper’s age. Turned twenty-one during our first deployment.”
He was the one we talked about during a late-night call.
The one who was worried about his wife cheating on him.
The memory of that call comes back to me, and my stomach drops, remembering how tired Lukas sounded, how broken down.
He was worried for his friend, looking to me for reassurance that it would never be us.
“Are he and his wife still together?” I blurt out, and Lukas’s bottom lip starts to quiver. It looks like he tries to force a smile, but he purses them together again, shaking his head once.
“No. About a month or so before I called you that day … the day that you said I had changed. Our convoy was driving through the desert, going from one small town to the next, trying to get ahead of our target.” He pauses again, and he pulls his hand from mine, gripping the steering wheel with both hands, knuckles blanching with the act.
“We were driving through the desert,” he starts again. “I was third in line. Collins was in the Humvee ahead of mine along with a couple of other guys I was close to. Davis, if you remember me talking about him.”
I nod once, nostrils flaring. Something about this story already has my heart plummeting deep into my stomach.
“I was exhausted that day. I thought maybe I was getting sick and run down, which I probably was. When we were all getting into the Humvees, Collins and I both went to move for the second one because the back seat would have been empty, and we could have laid down, maybe get a few minutes of sleep.” He rests one of his arms along the driver’s side door, fingertips toying with the buttons that raise or lower the windows but not pressing them.
“I suggested a game of rock, paper, scissors, best two out of three. Winner gets the spacious back seat, and loser had to ride with Brutus, Staff Sergeant Winters, and some gear.”
He’s quiet for a while, and I’m already filling in the gaps in his story. A gunfight. Ambush. An unexpected breakdown with nowhere to hide. Unlimited danger when you’re in enemy territory.
“He was just a kid,” Lukas croaks, and his eyes well with tears. He clears his throat roughly and takes a few shallow breaths as if he’s trying to right himself. “He was just a kid, Mags. Hadn’t even had his first legal drink yet, and he died.”
“Lukas.” I adjust my position to face him, to reach for him, but the arm closest to me is limp.
“It happened so fast, Mags. One minute, we’re driving through the desert, five Humvees deep.
Next, the first vehicle hit an IED, exploded into a million pieces before my eyes.
It was so loud. It was so hot. It happened so fast, yet slow at the same time.
I saw what happened, but my brain was still processing it, still digesting what I had seen, and I only had a split second before I realized the guys in the second vehicle were next. "
“Oh my god, Lukas.” I reach for his hand and force his arm over, firmly holding it in my two sweaty palms, but it doesn’t feel like enough.
I bring it up, curling my arms around it and holding it to my chest. I never know what to say in a situation like this.
How to tell someone who’s experienced things I can’t even fathom that I’m here for them, that I’m sorry for what they’ve been through, even though sorry seems like such an arbitrary answer.
“I spent a lot of time, years, even, letting myself believe that he was slowly burning to death in that vehicle while I was stuck on the side of the road in a firefight. It took a lot of therapy to understand, to even let myself believe that he probably died on impact.”
I nod along, but he likely can’t tell; the movement is so miniscule. My body is tight, frozen, my loose sweater suddenly too warm, yet I’m unable to stop the trembling that moves through my body.
“Which, if that’s how you’re going to go, that’s how I would have wanted it.
Fast. Painless. He probably had the same split second I had when he saw what happened to the first vehicle.
And some nights, when I couldn’t sleep, I would lie awake and think about what he went through or what his final thoughts were. ”
Lukas’s voice becomes wobbly, his eyes welling with tears, and then his head droops, massive shoulders curling in on himself as he breaks down.
The strongest man I’ve ever known, the one that never wants to show emotion, is sobbing, and I can’t take it anymore.
I drop his hand and crawl over to him, swinging one leg over so I’m straddling his lap.
I wrap my arms around his neck and pull him to me, and as soon as his arms encircle my waist, he releases a choked breath.
His forehead rests against my shoulder, and hot wet tears drip down my neck, tickling my chest as they fall.
“He was just a kid,” he says again, mumbling the words against my skin before he repeats it once more. “He didn’t deserve to have it end like that.”
“I know,” I say, squeezing him tighter and rocking us side to side. “I know he was, Lukas, but so were you,” I remind him. I pull back, trying to face him, but his head is hanging down between us. I reach for him, using both hands to cup his chin, and I force him to look at me.
I’m crying so hard I can’t see clearly, and once Lukas notices, his hands come to my face, both of us fighting to swipe away the others’ tears. But they’re falling too fast to make a difference. “You were just a kid, too.”
That’s when I sit back, trying to wipe my own face with the sleeves of my sweater.
“War is an evil, vile thing, Lukas. There aren’t winners and losers.
Everyone loses. Even when it's all said and done and one side pops a bottle of champagne thinking that it was a success. They’ll say they won, but at what cost?
Any life lost is not a win.” Lukas nods, and he reaches a hand up to smooth my tear-soaked hair away from my cheeks and my forehead.
“I’ve spent a lot of time in therapy to be able to let some of the guilt go.
I know he chose to join, just like I did.
And some part of us knew that we would see some shit.
But seeing it right in front of you is so different, Mags.
And yeah, it changed something in me. I felt like my brain, the very core of my being was broken.
But God, I never wanted you to feel like I didn’t believe in you.
I love what you do, and you’re fucking fantastic at it, and I swear it, even though that’s what I said, even though I was an asshole, I didn’t believe the words I said. I didn’t mean them.”
I lean forward, turning my head to rest my cheek against his shoulder, forehead pressed to the side of his neck as I melt into him, letting out a shuddering breath. How different would things have been if all those years ago he had told me what happened? Would it have changed our outcome?
I would have been just as devastated, likely. Knowing that my favorite person in the world had experienced something so unthinkable. I probably wouldn’t have been able to go on stage.
I wonder if I would have quit or taken a leave of absence of some kind. Insisted that he and I see each other, even though I know in reality we wouldn’t have been able to.
Clarity hits me, so fast and sudden that my head nearly spins.
I’m shamefully thankful he didn’t tell me then.
If he had, I might have given up everything. I might have had to quit or take a leave of absence to pause, because I don’t know if I could have kept going, knowing what he went through.
But it kills me that I gave up on him. That I started to hate who he was that day when he was already hating himself so much.
I sit up again, a little abruptly, and Lukas’s brows tug together when he sees the look on my face.
“I’m going to ask you something, and I sure as hell hope that your therapist, or your friends, family, someone has said it to you at some point.
” My hands slide up his chest and over his round shoulders until I cradle his jaw in my palms. I tilt his face up to mine, forcing our gaze together.
“You know…” I start, knowing already that this next part is going to be hard to say.
I dig deep, finding the courage within me, hoping I can get the words out without breaking.
“You know that you didn’t kill him, right? ”
Lukas’s eyes immediately well with fresh tears. His nostrils flare, and he tries to look away from me.
“You know it’s not your fault, what happened, right?”