John #2
Across the aisle from us, Muncie is wearing headphones and has his eyes closed, but I keep my voice down anyway. “Tell me the truth.”
He’s quiet for a long time, but I never look away. “What do you want me to say? That I’m freaking out over the thought of you taking one look at him and forgetting about me? Because I’d never add to your burden by admitting something like that.”
I blink back more goddamned tears. “That’s not going to happen.”
“How do you know?”
“Because that’s not what I want.” I squeeze his hand. “I have what I want right here.”
“I hope you still feel that way after you see him.”
“I will, Eric.” After hearing his concerns, I want to tell the pilot to turn the plane around and take us home.
John
She’s coming.
Muncie woke me before dawn with the news that he is bringing her to me today. I don’t know what changed between yesterday and today, but I don’t care about anything other than seeing Ava.
I’ve already showered and shaved, and I’m waiting for one of the nurses to come help me with my uniform.
I can do most of it myself, but I need help with the prosthetic and my pants, which makes me crazy.
I never pictured a scenario in which I’d need someone’s help to get my pants on, but that’s my reality. For now, anyway.
The act of bathing leaves me exhausted. With hours to wait until someone from my unit will come drive me to the hotel where I’ll meet Ava, I move to the recliner chair and try to relax so my muscles will stop trembling so violently.
I don’t want her to see me as sick or feeble.
I want her to see the strong, steady warrior who helped capture the world’s most wanted man.
I’m so excited that I don’t expect to sleep, but I doze off anyway and awake when the nurse I asked to help me comes into the room.
“Heard you’re getting out of here for a while today,” she says.
Her name is Hailey, and she’s my favorite among the nurses because she never treats me like I’m less than I used to be.
Her matter-of-fact approach to my situation is a welcome relief from the others, who act like I’m something special when I know I’m not.
I was just a guy doing his job. I didn’t ask for notoriety or fame or any of the attention I’m getting since the video was released by Al Khad’s scumbag disciples.
I don’t want any of it. I only want Ava. I want to return to the life I had before the hell of the last six years. I want a time machine.
“Yeah,” I reply to Hailey. “Going to see my love, Ava, for the first time in six years.”
“Oh my goodness! I didn’t know you had someone special. Where’s she been while you were in here?”
“I waited to contact her until I was stronger.”
“You must be so excited to see her.”
“I am.” I don’t tell her that my Ava has a fiancé. He doesn’t exist to me. My focus is on her and only her.
“Well, let’s get you tricked out, then.” She gets the uniform that my unit sent over out of the closet and helps me into it.
For the first time, I see the fourth stripe on my sleeve and know a moment of pure pride at having achieved the rank of captain. I gaze with pleasure at the trident that identifies me as a SEAL as well as the ribbons that tell the story of decorated service.
“I want my leg,” I tell her, my face heating with embarrassment.
“Of course you do.”
It takes about fifteen minutes that leave me further depleted, but being back in uniform does great things for my morale. This uniform saved my life in more ways than one, and I will never look at it with anything other than pride, despite how my career is ending.
I look up at her. “Could I ask you something and will you be honest?”
“Of course.”
“Do I look like hell? It’s okay. You can tell me.”
“Not at all. You look very handsome.”
“I don’t look sick or weak or…”
“None of those things. I don’t think you have any idea how invested in you we’ve all become. Not just here but the whole country is talking about you and what you did.”
“I hate that.” I shake my head. “I was just doing my job. I never signed on to be anything more.”
“You’re a national hero, Captain West. You may be a reluctant hero, but you’re a hero nonetheless.
” She pauses, seeming to try to get her emotions in check.
“When I think back to that day… when the ship was bombed and the sheer horror of it, I remember the poor families who lost loved ones and their terrible grief. My heart broke for them. What you and your comrades did… You got justice for them, for the people who died. We owe you a debt of gratitude that can never be repaid.”
“Thank you,” I say, moved by her words and the passion behind them.
“Everyone in the country feels the same way I do.”
“I don’t know how to deal with that.”
“You’re going to figure it out one step at a time. The first step is seeing your Ava.” She brushes lint off my uniform jacket and takes an assessing look at me. “I think you’re ready.”
I have butterflies the size of seagulls in my stomach as she helps me into my wheelchair. “I need my crutches, too. I want her to see me standing, not sitting in this chair.”
Hailey gets the crutches and hands them to me to hold. “I’m going to check to make sure your ride is here, and then I’ll be back to get you.”
“He’d better be here,” I say of the ensign Muncie assigned to transport me. “He’s supposed to be waiting for me downstairs.”
“I’ll confirm that and be right back.”
She leaves me alone with my thoughts for a few more minutes.
I close my eyes and think of Ava, going back to that first encounter outside the bathrooms in that awful bar Sanchez picked to celebrate his advancement, to the last time I saw her the day of the attack and everything in between.
I recall so precisely the first time I saw her precious face.
It’s a moment I’ve relived every day since I saw her last.
The two years I spent with her were the best of my life, but I have regrets, too. So many regrets, and I’ll share them with her today. She has a right to know the truth, even if it’ll kill me to say words that will break her heart—and mine.
I never should’ve gotten involved with her.
I told her things about me that weren’t true and withheld other things she had a right to know.
I loved her so much that it made me selfish.
I’m still selfish where she’s concerned.
I don’t give a flying fuck that she has a fiancé or a new life that doesn’t include me.
I want her back, and I’m prepared to fight for her as hard as I fought to find Al Khad.
This fight, the fight for the love of my life, is the most important fight of all.