Chapter 31
Lukas
My feet drag across the concrete, steps a drunken zigzag pattern as I try to walk the white line.
I inhale a heavy drag from my cigarette and tilt my head up, blowing the gray smoke out into the starry night sky.
It’s crystal clear tonight, so clear I can see every star, and even though I’m piss drunk, I can still find a few of the constellations they taught us in elementary school.
A car passes me along the highway, horn beeping, and I stumble closer to the ditch.
“Don’t get run over by a reindeer,” I slur to myself.
I toss my cigarette into the gravel, stepping on it once before continuing on my way.
Reaching for my phone, I squint at the time.
The booze poisoning my blood right now won’t let my brain do the math to figure out what time it is for Magnolia, but I shrug, swiping for her name and calling anyway.
I bring the phone to my ear, the ringing going on and on, and just when I’m deciding whether to hang up or leave a voicemail, she answers.
“Lukas?” Her voice is rushed, worried, and even though I don’t feel much these days, hearing her voice still has me a little choked up.
“Lukas?” she calls out. “Are you there? Is everything okay?”
“Yeah, I’m here.” I cringe at the sound of my own voice; the words slurred as my tongue tangles over itself. “What’s up?”
She doesn’t answer right away, and I know she’s already mad at me.
This has been our routine since I came back to the States.
There have been a lot of missed calls. Tense text messages. I call her when I’m walking home from the bar in the evening. We argue, I think. But most mornings when I wake up after the fact, I can’t remember what we even talked about.
“Mags?”
“I’m here,” she says. “Where are you right now?”
Pulling my gaze from my feet, I look up and realize I’m nearly to base. “Just about to check into base.”
“You’re not driving, right?”
“Never.” For one, drinking and getting behind the wheel of a vehicle is stupid enough. For two, getting drunk and trying to drive your car back to base is basically asking for it. The guards at the entrance aren’t idiots, they’d sniff us out a mile away. “Just needed a little walk.”
That part isn’t a lie. I left my buddies back at the bar in town.
What started as a night to unwind and try to relax, turned into them looking for a woman to occupy their time.
As soon as a group surrounded our table, and a blonde looked at me like she wanted to eat me, I knew it was time to call it a night.
The walk back to base is usually the better part of the night. It sobers me up enough that I only feel half terrible when I wake in the morning.
“I’m almost home,” I tell her. Home. When did the base become home? “What are you doing?”
“I’m standing in the hall.”
“You at rehearsal?”
“Company class. Just about to walk in.”
I walk the next minute or so in silence, and when I nod to the guards at the gate, I take a step to the side. “I’ll let you go then.”
“Why did you call?” she bites out. “And how come you only call me when you’re like this? Do you realize that, Lukas, that you don’t call me when you’re sober?”
I roll my eyes, and the guards at the gate catch it, chuckling amongst themselves. “That’s not true.” Or maybe it is. Hell, I can’t remember much right now.
“Sure seems like it,” she says softly. “This is our new normal. You call when you’ve been drinking, and I ask that you call me the next day. But do you? No, you find a reason not to. Then you text, apologizing for everything, and I accept. Then we move on and pretend that nothing ever happened.”
Sounds like a plan to me.
“Can I come see you, Lukas?”
“It’s January, this is your busiest season.”
“It’s all a busy season, but I need to see you. We need to see each other. I’ll find a way. Or … could you come here? Do you get any time off?”
“No, sorry, babe. I can’t get more than a few days at a time.
” Lies. It’s all lies. It’s the same thing I told my family when I said I couldn’t come home for a visit.
The truth is, when I got back to the States, I had weeks where I could have gone to see them or Mags.
Hell, I had enough time to see them both. But I lied.
I spent two weeks by myself. Rented a shitty hotel room by the beach. Drank most days. Thought about everything and nothing at the same time.
For the majority of the last two years, I dreamed of the day when I returned home. When I could put the military behind me and go back to the way things were. It wasn’t until my foot stepped off the plane on American soil that I realized I don’t know how to be a regular person anymore.
I’m home. I could hop on a plane and go see my family, my parents. I could fly overseas and be at Mags’s doorstep before she goes to bed tonight. Yet, I can’t get myself to do any of it.
They want to see me, sure. But they want to see the old Lukas, the one they knew before I left.
The version I am now doesn’t have much to offer them.
Anyone, really. Most days, I don’t have much to say.
Even going out with the guys tonight, I mostly sat in silence, sipping my drink like it was my lifeline.
She says she wants to talk to me, that she wants me to tell her what I’ve been through.
But she has no idea what a request like that means.
She’d break if she knew the thoughts that keep me awake, the images that flash through my mind like a masochistic highlight reel from the last two years.
If she only knew that me not talking is what’s best for us. For everyone.
“I need to get to class,” she finally says.
“Alright…” I pause, catching myself saying that I’ll call her tomorrow, which we both know won’t happen.
“You’re back on base, safe?”
“Yup.”
“Alright. Goodnight, Lukas.”
“Night.”
The background noise dies out, and I know she hung up on me.
At some point since I arrived back, we stopped ending every call with our routine, “Love you, miss you.” I still love her, still miss her. And I hope some part of her feels the same. But she’s irritated. Angry. Likely disgusted with the man I’ve become. And honestly, I don’t blame her.