Chapter 1
CHAPTER ONE
I blew out a long sigh as I looked around my base-issued housing. Boxes were stacked in almost every corner of the living room and bedroom, only leaving out essentials so there would be no problems for today and tomorrow.
Tomorrow.
The concept of tomorrow was hard to think about when there was a time I didn’t know if I would make it.
I plopped down on the bed and fell onto my back.
I gazed at the ceiling. After only twelve years of service, I was going back to civilization.
My retirement ceremony was tomorrow. I thought I would be a life-longer, but here I was, about to step back into civilian life for the first time since I was eighteen because of circumstances beyond my control.
It was either retire or end up in a mental institution, so I chose my mental health.
Being within an inch of my life broke me, especially when it was at the expense of someone I thought I knew. I wasn’t expected to be the same.
I’d gone to therapy after everything, but talking to a stranger didn’t do anything for me.
I wanted to scream, yell, and break things and break bones.
I didn’t want to fucking talk about it. With no rest, nightmares, and being on edge to the point I felt my mind breaking, it drove me to the decision to leave the Navy. I didn’t have a choice.
Even as a teen, I had a short fuse. I gave my parents hell, but they stayed on me to do better.
I rebelled, of course. It was a part of who I was, but it didn’t go over in the Navy.
I prided myself on being strong and independent.
Before the Navy, no one could tell me shit.
I didn’t grow up in the streets or the hood, but in an affluent neighborhood.
I never wanted for anything, which was my undoing.
Suspension led to expulsion from school my senior year.
If not for credit recovery and Petty Officer Raymond, a recruiter I met at a career day at school, keeping in constant contact with me once a month, I would have been lost. She even talked with my mom about the Navy and how she thought it was what I needed.
Then one day Petty Officer Raymond called and spoke to me about focusing all the rage and anger I denied having into something constructive.
I walked straight in the door and waited for her to ask me to take a seat. Petty Officer Raymond smirked at me. “Nice to finally meet you, Tisha McLean.” She sat behind one of the three desks at the recruiting center. “So, what brings you in today?”
I didn’t know then, but she’d already pegged me as a naval security officer. I chuckled at the memory because she knew good and damn well what I was doing there. Hell, she harassed my parents and me for the better part of a month, convincing us the Navy could redirect my anger.
“You tell me.”
The petty officer sat back and smiled. The contract I needed to sign to start my military career sat right there in front of the both of us, but she hadn’t offered it to me yet. “Good, you’ll need to keep all that fire for your training.”
I opened my mouth to say something smart, but her demeanor changed.
Her smile fell, and the laugh lines at the corners of her mouth all but disappeared.
And her smirk turned into a condescending grin.
But her squinted eyes, with fire in them put fear in me.
She leaned forward in her seat, putting her elbows on top of the desk.
“If you think this is a game, then you’re wrong.” She abruptly leaned back in her chair, and the smile was back. Then she scooped up the contract as if she were going to rip it in two. “I was wrong about you. You’re not Navy material.”
I just sat there, with my mouth hanging open, fuming and scared as well, because she might’ve been right. But I was determined to prove her wrong. She couldn’t tell me what I couldn’t do.
“Give me the damn papers,” I pushed out between clenched teeth.
Petty Officer Raymond threw her head back and laughed, which pissed me off even more. “I’m sorry,” she said through a chuckle. “Did you not hear what I just said? I was wrong, and you don’t fit.”
I jumped from my seat; the chair slammed to the floor. I placed my hands on top of the desk. “I. Said. Give. Me. The. Papers.”
Petty Officer Raymond was going to speak at my retirement ceremony along with two of my fellow officers.
My parents were going to be there, but I was grateful they didn’t ask to speak.
There was no telling what would come out.
Being in the Navy taught a hard-nosed, poor attitude, barely made-it-out-of-high-school little girl discipline and respect for authority.
It taught me to grow up and be the woman I was meant to be.
“Damn, I might need to write that down for my speech. I was a badass child,” I muttered, eyes still fixed to the ceiling. “But not right now.”
The movers would be by early in the morning to load my things, and then, after the ceremony, it would be goodbye military housing and hello to my snazzy apartment awaiting me near the Magnificent Mile in Chicago.
I just hope I can still afford it in a few months.
There was too much on my mind and too much left to do.
I needed to find a job because my savings would be depleted within six months.
My pension would help, but living paycheck to paycheck was not something I enjoyed.
With that daunting task ahead of me, I reluctantly sat up, and my hand went to my chest. After all this time, the scars hadn’t healed.
Not the physical or mental ones. I took a minute so the pain would subside, then pushed myself off the bed, heading to the laptop I left on the island.
What would an ex-Naval Security officer do?
There was no way I’d go into law enforcement.
I didn’t want to be a police officer—too many restrictions, and the way the social climate was these days, it would be too much.
But I wanted to utilize the training I had received.
“Private investigator, maybe,” I thought aloud as I typed in the search engine. I quickly ruled it out because it required some schooling. I wasn’t the school type; never had been.
Frustrated, I slammed the lid down.
“Fuck! I hope I didn’t just crack my damn screen,” I huffed, folding my arms on top of the island, then resting my head on top.
I took a deep breath and exhaled. I refused to let this stress me out and ruin my retirement day.
The ringing of my phone startled me. I jumped up and swiped it from the entertainment center.
I already knew who it was. My mother never missed a day calling me at six in the evening.
She’d been doing it for years, even when I couldn’t get any of her calls because of my location.
“Hi, Mom,” I deadpanned. My funky mood wasn’t her fault, but I couldn’t hold my frustration back.
“Hi, what’s wrong?” she barreled on. She would barely let me get a word in edge-wise. “Something happen with the ceremony?”
“Ma! No, Ma.”
“Well, what is it then?”
I slumped down onto the couch, grabbing one of the red decorative pillows from the corner, hugging it to my chest. I was exasperated at the idea of starting a whole new life.
The rain outside wasn’t making things any better, but I hoped it wouldn’t be raining tomorrow for my big day. I didn’t need the weather and my mood matching one another.
“I’m just freaking out about finding work once I get to Chicago.”
“Well, you know you can always come back here if you need to.” I heard the choke in her voice.
I knew my parents were worried about me since the incident.
They offered at least twice a week for me to come back home when I told them I was retiring.
But I haven’t lived in North Carolina since I was eighteen—going back to visit, of course, but not to live.
“Yes, I know, Mom. I appreciate the offer, but I have a place waiting for me in Chicago,” I explained again. This was a recurring conversation, too.
“But why Chicago?”
“Why not?” My answer every time she asked that same question.
My mother’s exhalation of defeat sounded over the line. At times, she could be so dramatic. “Well, we will see you at the ceremony, darling. Our flight is boarding at four in the morning. Your father and I have to drive to Charlotte.”
“Okay, well, you guys be careful, and I’ll see you when you get here.”
I ended the call and glanced at the clock on the wall behind me. It was still early, and I was antsy. Despite my mind being exhausted, I couldn’t settle for the evening.
“Maybe a walk on the beach would help. A trip to La Jolla would probably do me wonders.”
I filled my small backpack with two bottles of water and an orange from the basket on the counter. I didn’t know how long it had been sitting there.
“Note to self. Make sure to throw out everything in the fridge and the fruit basket,” I mumbled, scooping my keys up and dropping them in the bag too.
Front door locked, I headed down my driveway to my Soul.
Throwing my bag in the passenger seat, I slumped into the driver’s seat, excited to clear my head.
It was exhausting just thinking about sleeping tonight with everything happening tomorrow and the prospect of knowing without fail I was going to be awakened at two in the morning by a nightmare.
The forty-minute drive from my home passed easily in the Sunday evening traffic. I parked as close to the beach as I could without getting a ticket, grabbed my bag, and started my leisurely walk down the beach.
La Jolla was always crowded. I skirted past young folks playing football, finally finding an open spot on one of the rock formations leading out into the water.
I sat down and inhaled. The sea breeze opened my senses and helped clear my head of the fog that’d been there for so long.
The water was refreshing, spraying on my face as the waves rolled and crashed onto the rocks just below me. I finally could breathe.
At least for a little while.
I wasn’t sure how much time passed, but my cheeks were numb from the spray and breeze.
I lingered for a moment as I stood on the rock outcrop, watching the sun fade into the horizon, leaving a streak of blazing orange behind.
The sunsets and sunny days on the beach would be missed, but I knew to get better, I needed to remove myself from the place that harbored too many memories. Memories I wanted to leave behind.
When I got home, I took a shower and ate the rest of the salad I had for lunch.
I was grateful the trip to the beach slowed my mind some.
I could barely keep my eyes open by the time I crawled into my bed.
I hoped this would be the night I’d get to sleep through for the first time in almost six months without the nightmares.