24. Ryan
Ryan
I stared down at the tray in front of me, poking at a heap of grey, unidentifiable protein that was supposedly chicken.
The food here is a special kind of terrible—completely dry, devoid of any salt, and tasting mostly of the plastic tray it’s served on.
It’s the kind of tasteless fuel you just force down because your body needs the calories to keep moving, not because you actually want to eat it.
My gaze drifted to a bowl sitting at the end of the serving counter.
It was filled with what I think were meant to be mandarins, but they looked more like shriveled, orange stress balls.
They were tiny, bruised, and looked like they’d been sitting there since the base was commissioned.
I watched a fly consider landing on one before seemingly changing its mind and moving on to something more appetizing, like a puddle of industrial cleaner.
I was staring aimlessly at the bruised mandarin bowl when Brody’s massive frame slid onto the bench across from me, a tray full of the exact same grey protein he was about to pretend was edible.
“Hey, Ry. You gonna eat those?” Brody asked, pointing to the mandarins. “They look like they’ve been in a fight.”
“You’re welcome to them,” I muttered, pushing my tray away. “Thinking about writing to the Cookie Monster about this audacity. He’d probably send me a triple chocolate cookie just for surviving the mess hall.”
Brody chuckled, a low rumble. “Anna sent me a picture of Cory this morning. Kid’s got his first two missing teeth.
You should see the gap, Ry. Looks like he’s trying to whistle at everything.
” He paused, his eyes softening as he looked out the window, clearly seeing something far beyond the sandbags.
“Anna says he wants me to teach him how to skate when I get home. Got him this tiny Tidal Teals jersey. She’s already counting down the days until I’m back in Tidehaven. ”
I nodded, feeling a familiar pang of longing for that civilian world, a world Brody had waiting for him and one I was slowly realizing I wanted, too.
The contrast between his life and mine was stark, but hearing him talk about Anna and Cory—about a real home—made the desert feel a little less absolute.
I couldn’t help but let out a small, huffed breath of a laugh.
I knew exactly what I was going to write in my next letter to Jackson.
Describing these sad, pathetic ‘mandarin things’ and the general culinary disaster of the mess hall would be the perfect way to lighten the mood.
Jackson, with his fancy bakery cookies and burnt bacon stories, would probably have a field day with this.
It was a stupid, small detail, but imagining his reaction was the only thing making this meal remotely bearable.