Chapter 15
Lukas
Boot camp was followed by two months of SOI, where I learned to shoot to kill. I was in Marine Combat Training where I was trained to fight and to ambush. They worked us to the bone, practicing nonstop so that each movement becomes muscle memory.
When it counts, when someone's life is on the line, you don’t want to hesitate, they’d say.
My life growing up on a farm in the country has done me well. Even with my shoulder going stiff at times, I’m agile and I don’t mind getting dirty. I’ve been in the pen with enough wild bulls that I don’t scare easily—the perfect recipe for a combat Marine.
I can strip my service rifle for cleaning in twenty seconds.
Each second my heart beats furiously against my chest as my brain begs my fingers not to fumble.
You might be in the field with an enemy ready to fire at you, they remind me.
Each step we take is to prepare us so that we’re never sitting ducks.
Always prepared, practically looking for our next fight.
I get the meaning behind it. I don’t want to be under attack, bullets firing every which way and have my body freeze up on me. Even if my mind isn’t right, my body needs to remember what to do.
I’ll soon head out on my first field operation in Twentynine Palms. We’ll be out there for a month or so to hone our training.
Most of our food will come from MREs, or something that’s bone dry and dehydrated to begin with.
We’ll get a taste of what the real thing might be like, and all the while, I’ll be silently hoping I'll never have to experience it.
Collins is psyched. He and the other guys love it here. They hoot and cheer at the thought of finding the enemy, of fighting and sacrificing for their country. They jokingly ask when we’re going to hear about deployment.
But those guys aren’t me.
I know it’ll be a long four fucking years if my head isn’t on straight, and some days it feels like every single day is a cold Monday morning. But I have Mags to pull me through.
We expected this to be difficult, with my nights being her mornings, but I hadn’t thought it would be this hard.
I fall asleep from exhaustion before she’s even done with her performance for the night. I wake up in the morning with a voicemail from her and try to call her before work, only to get a recording. She’s up and gone for the day by the time I get out of work.
The time between each call stretches more and more.
The conversations often run tense. She’s having the time of her life in France.
Even though I’ve heard her talk about dance since we were little kids, most of the technical words run in one ear and out the other.
All I know is that she’s busier than ever, spending additional time in rehearsals and tutoring sessions, trying to prove that she deserves a coveted permanent spot in their company.
When we do get a quick minute to talk, we reminisce of my visit to France, of being able to switch out my combat boots for cowboy boots and pretend like we were back at home.
We spent as much time as we could together. I met her new roommates and got to sit in the audience to watch her dance on stage for the first time in a long time.
She was breathtaking, as usual, making something so physically demanding and painful look lightweight. Easy.
We spent time with one of her roommates, Raymond, and his partner, Ronaldo. They’re both from the U.S. as well but have lived in France for a few years. Raymond started in the same junior ballet Mags is in now, and I’m so happy she met someone who is willing to help her, to watch over her.
They forced me to try all the local cuisine.
I had imagined French people mostly ate bread and snails or something, but I loved everything I ate.
Coq au vin, steak frites, ratatouille, and as much chocolate mousse as we could find.
I told Mags that when I’m done with the Marines, I’m not going back to Copper Ridge.
I’m going to move to Paris with her and spend the majority of my days eating.
We visited the beach, and I lay in the sand, lazily napping as she read a book.
We’d eat together, shower together, and she’d fall asleep while I rubbed her feet at the end of every day.
Raymond and Ronaldo asked us the same question people back home used to always ask—don’t you get sick of each other?
My answer is always no. I’ve never needed a break from Mags. She’s always been my best friend, the person I want to laugh with, the person I want to tease, the person I want to sit in comfortable silence with. There isn’t a soul out there I could possibly love more than her.
I was able to clear my mind when I was with her. To live in the moment and not think about what might have been looming ahead of me. It wasn’t until the night before my flight back to the States when Magnolia noticed the change in my mood.
She pulled me into bed, we stripped off our clothes, and she draped the blanket over us to shield us from the outside world.
She curled herself against my side, laid her cheek along my bicep, and there, under the darkness of her duvet, with no one around to hear us, I told her my fears, my worries.
About the Marine Corps and future deployments.
I told her with my words, with every kiss, that I’m sorry for the distance, for the bickering, for the strain it’s put on our relationship.
I told her all the thoughts that keep me up at night when I’m away …
all the thoughts I’ve never been able to tell anyone but her.
The summer months came, and during her off-season, we met up in Copper Ridge.
My time was more limited there, only getting a few days while she was able to stay for several weeks.
It was almost like nothing had changed, like we were still kids, sneaking around the farm for privacy even though we’re plenty old enough now.
We’d saddle up the horses and ride them out into the far pastures, lying on a blanket in the tall grass, staring up at the puffy white clouds.
I made love to her out there, knowing that we were so secluded, so far away from the outside world, it was like we were in our own private bubble. I convinced her to skinny dip in the cold creek, and her shrieks carried in the wind, only to be heard by the cattle that watched us curiously.
I tried to soak in those moments, knowing that I’d need them to carry me through the next few years, knowing that a deployment was likely on the horizon.
Her schedule is only going to get more intense the more she grows in her career.
The months we spent not talking while I was in boot camp might become our norm, and that’s the part that scares me the most.