11. Ryan
Ryan
I think I’m losing my mind. There is a package on my bunk with a letter this time!
I’ve never been sent anything like this before—certainly not something packed with this much deliberate intent.
The cardboard box feels impossibly heavy in my hands, a scary, overwhelming weight that represents a type of care I haven’t known in a decade.
Before I can even sit down on my bunk, Brody lunges forward, grabs the package, and starts violently shaking it, his eyes alight with the chaos he thrives on.
“Give me that, dickhead!” I shout, lunging to tear it away from him. My heart is racing, a protective instinct flaring up. This isn’t just a box; it’s a fragile connection to a world that doesn’t smell like gun oil and exhaust.
“Come on! What’s in it?” he demands, laughing as he keeps shaking it, the items inside thudding with a promising sound.
I finally grab it from his grip and sit on my bunk.
In my periphery, I see Brody sit on his own bunk directly across from me, watching intently.
I carefully unwrap the cardboard, peeling the tape back with a surgical precision that feels silly even to me.
Yeah, I’m being careful, deal with it. My parents didn’t even send a postcard when I deployed; they completely disowned me the moment I chose this uniform over their narrow expectations of a son.
To them, I was a disappointment to be discarded.
But here, a total stranger has sent a piece of home.
I pull out three identical packs of cookies. Brody’s eyes widened instantly. “Come on, man! I shared mine, now you have to share with me!”
“Oh, is that the rule now?” I scoff, though the tightness in my chest is starting to ease.
“Last week you got a box, and did you share a single cookie with the rest of the unit?” His face completely drops, that genuine puppy dog sadness that makes him the heart of the squad.
God, I hate seeing him look genuinely sad, so I launch one of the cookie packets directly at his chest. “One packet. That’s all you’re getting. The rest are mine!”
His grin is instantaneous. “Fucker.”
I lay back on my bed with my cookies, but as I reach back into the box, my fingers brush against something soft.
I pull out a thick, high-quality pair of Tidal Teals hockey socks.
They are vibrant, teal and white, feeling plush and alien against the rough canvas of my bunk.
A note is pinned to them in Jackson’s familiar, looped handwriting:
“For the days when it feels like you’re playing shorthanded. You’ve got a whole home crowd cheering you on over here.”
I stare at the words until they blur. Jackson isn’t just sending supplies, he’s sending a team.
He’s telling me that in a world where my own blood turned their backs, there is a man in Seattle who sees the soldier, sees the boy who draws ducks, and wants him to be warm.
It’s a sudden, staggering wave of warmth that hits a place I thought had permanently died when I walked out of my parents’ house for the last time.
For the first time in years, I feel seen, not as a rank or a serial number, but as a person worthy of a home crowd.
Fuck, this man is getting under my skin…
scratch that, he’s already there, anchoring himself in the marrow of my bones.
I keep smiling, the socks clutched against my chest, until I finally close my eyes to sleep. Tidal Teals, I wonder why that team?