6. Monica
Chapter Six
Monica
The first few weeks are always the easiest.
Is not that I miss him less, but the hope is still fresh.
The countdown still feels manageable. Seven months sounds survivable when you're only three weeks in.
It's later that it starts to break you. When the novelty wears off.
When everyone stops asking how you're doing.
When the days stop moving and start repeating.
You wake up, go to work, come home, sleep, and repeat.
The waiting is the part nobody talks about.
From: George
Subject: Day 18
Morning, beautiful.
It's 0300 here, and I can't sleep. Figured I'd write before heading out.
The coffee still tastes like garbage, and my bunk still squeaks every time I move. And somehow Jackson still snores loud enough to shake the entire building.
Some things never change, I guess.
How are you? How's work?
I miss you.
Love you,
George
I smile while reading it.
For a second, it feels normal. It feels like he's just away on a business trip. Like he'll walk through the door tonight with that crooked grin and his duffel bag slung over one shoulder, complaining about airport security and asking what's for dinner.
I type back immediately, my fingers flying across the keyboard.
From: Monica
To: George
Re: Day 18
I’m good, and work is busy as always. Everything here is fine.
I miss you too.
Love you.
Monica
The first month passes like that.
Emails every day. Photos. Him in front of some nondescript building, squinting into the sun. Me on the couch. Updates. Tiny pieces of normal life sent across oceans and time zones and whatever classified location he's not allowed to say.
I live for the notification sound.
That little chime on my phone becomes my favorite thing in the world. It is stupid, I know. But hearing from George means he's alive. Every email is proof of that. Every message means another day survived. Another day closer to the finish line.
At least that's what I keep telling myself.
I screenshot his emails sometimes. Save them in a folder on my phone labeled G. Read them when I can't sleep, which is most nights now. The bed feels too big, and the apartment too quiet.
Week five is when the exhaustion begins settling into my bones. Not the collapse-on-the-floor kind. The quieter and constant kind. I stop cooking and start ordering takeout. Thai on Monday. Pizza on Wednesday. Chinese on Friday.
The containers pile up on the counter because I can't be bothered to take out the trash. Laundry sits in the basket for days, clean clothes mixed with dirty ones because I've lost track of which is which.
Nobody notices, because there's nobody here to notice.
The toilet starts running constantly. I watch a YouTube video, buy the parts, and fix it myself at nine o’clock on a Tuesday night.
When it finally stops, I sit on the bathroom floor and cry.
Not because of the toilet, but because there is no one to call from the other room and say, Hey, can you come look at this? Because every small problem now belongs to me.
Work becomes a blur. I show up. I smile. I answer emails, attend meetings, and pretend I'm fine. My coworker Sarah asks how I'm doing exactly once that week. I say, “Good!” with too much enthusiasm.
She never asks again, and that’s okay.
People stop asking after a while. The deployment stops being news. Life moves on for everyone else. Just not for me.
From: George
Subject: Miss You
Tell me something good.
Anything.
I need a reminder that the world still exists outside of this place.
Tell me what you're reading, or something you watched. Tell me what you had for dinner. Tell me something boring, please.
I miss boring.
Love you,
George
I stare at the email for ten minutes. For one ugly second, it irritates me.
Tell me something good.
Like I’m supposed to package my life into something light enough for him to carry.
The thought makes me hate myself immediately.
Because he isn’t asking for much. He’s asking for dinner.
A book. A show. Something normal. But normal feels impossible right now.
I try to think of something good. Anything.
Nothing comes to mind.
My life isn’t terrible, but it’s empty. I feel like I'm living in a waiting room. Waiting for my real life to start again. Waiting for him.
Eventually, I reply.
From: Monica
To: George
Re: Miss You
Not much is happening here.
Just work, sleep, and repeat.
I finished that book you bought me. It was okay.
Dinner was Chinese takeout.
Love you,
Monica
I read the email after sending it.
It's awful. It’s flat, cold...
But I don't know how to explain what's happening. How every day feels heavier than the one before. How I wake up already tired. How exhausting it is to be strong all the time. So I don't explain it.
I just survive.
By week seven, George notices.
From: George
Subject: You
Are you okay?
And don't give me the “I'm fine” answer.
The real answer.
You seem different lately.
Love you,
George
I read it three times, then close my laptop. I don't know how to answer. The truth sounds awful, selfish. It sounds like betrayal. The truth is, I'm tired of this life, but I tell myself I'm not tired of George.
Most days, I believe it.
I'm tired of the deployments. The goodbyes.
The loneliness. The constant uncertainty.
The endless cycle. I knew what I was signing up for.
That's what military partners are supposed to say, right?
I knew. I chose this. I said yes when he proposed, knowing exactly what his career meant.
Knowing the uniform came with a price tag.
But nobody tells you that knowing doesn't make it easier.
My phone chimes while I'm brushing my teeth that night. I know it's him before I look. For the first time since he left, I don't reach for it immediately.
I finish brushing, rinse my mouth, wipe the counter, then I pick up the phone. The email is still there, waiting. So is the guilt.
I reply two days later.
From: Monica
To: George
Re: You
Just tired.
Work has been a lot.
Nothing to worry about.
Love you,
Monica
It's a lie, and he knows it. I know he knows it. But neither of us pushes. Because we're both afraid of what happens if we do.
Weeks pass, and the countdown shrinks.
Five months left.
Then four.
Then three.
And finally, for the first time in months, it feels real. Three months. I can survive this. Three months means planning. Three months means homecoming videos on YouTube that make me cry. Three months means us.
The hope returns.
For the first time in weeks, I feel lighter. I clean the apartment. Do all the laundry. Meal prep for the week. Buy new sheets for the bed. Start a countdown calendar on the fridge with little hearts marking each day.
Then his email arrives.
From: George
Subject: Need to talk
Can I call tonight?
Love you,
George
My stomach drops immediately.
We develop instincts. You learn to recognize danger in ordinary things. A delayed call, or an unusual email. A strange tone. And, of course, those three words.
Need to talk.
I spend the entire day sick with anxiety. I can't eat lunch. Can't focus on meetings. My hands shake every time I check my phone. By the time evening comes and my phone finally rings, I'm already crying.
I answer immediately.
“George?” Silence. Well, not complete silence. I could hear him breathing. Heavy breathing. The kind that tells me everything before he says a word. My heart sinks. “No, what now?”
The words leave before he speaks. Before he explains. Before I know. Because somehow, I already do.
“Monica...” His voice cracks on my name.
“Ugh, no.”
His sigh breaks through the connection, and that's enough. Tears burn my eyes. “Mon— we got extended.”
The room disappears. The calendar on the wall with its stupid little hearts is laughing at me right now. The countdown I'd been protecting for months. Gone.
“How long?”
My voice doesn't sound like mine. It sounds like someone else. Someone hollow.
“Six months.”
Six months?
Six more months?
Six months on top of the seven?
That’s thirteen fucking months. That’s more than a year.
I close my eyes. Trying to breathe, not to scream.
Trying not to cry harder. Trying not to become the person I've spent months trying not to be.
The angry military wife-to-be. The bitter one.
The exhausted one who resents the uniform, and the flag, and every goddamn thank-you-for-your-service from strangers who have no idea what it costs. But maybe I already am.
“Monica?” His voice is small. Broken.
I don't answer. Because if I do, I'll say something cruel. Something unfair. Something I'll regret.
“I'm sorry.”
That breaks me. Not the extension, not the deployment.
The apology. Because it reminds me this isn't his fault.
And that makes it worse. There's no one to be angry at.
No one clear, anyway. The military, the mission, the government, the endless, faceless thing that keeps taking him.
And, in the ugliest part of me, him. For still being willing to go.
For loving something that keeps destroying us.
“I was almost home,” he says.
His voice cracks completely now.
“I know.”
And suddenly he's crying too. I've seen George cry twice in all the years I've known him. Tonight makes three. The sound of it destroys me because now I'm not just carrying my grief. I'm carrying his too. “I wanted to come home.”
I press my hand over my mouth, trying to hold myself together. Trying and failing. “I know.”
The next email arrives three days later.
I've barely slept. Barely eaten. Barely functioned. I called in sick to work and spent 72 hours on the couch, staring at the ceiling, crying until there was nothing left.
From: George
Subject: Letters
Monica,
Things changed again. We're moving locations, and communication will be limited.
I don't know how often I'll have internet. Maybe not at all.
I don't want you to panic if you don't hear from me. I'm okay. I will be okay. I promise.
I talked to one of the guys in logistics. He said sending mail is still possible. Not often and not fast. But possible. So I'm going to write real letters like an old man.
I know you're tired. I know this has been hard. Harder than I probably understand.
But please, keep writing to me. Even if I can't answer right away. Tell me everything. The boring stuff. The hard stuff. The things you're afraid to say. I'll read every word.
I love you,
-George
I stare at the screen, reading the email again and again. Until the words blur, my eyes burn, and I can't see anymore.
God, I'm tired.
Tired of missing him. Of waiting. Of being brave. Tired of pretending military life is romantic. Tired of acting like love is enough to make this easy. It isn't.
“I don't know how much longer I can do this.”
The words hang in the room; they are terrifying, but honest. It’s not because I don't love George. Because I do. But love and exhaustion can exist together. Love and resentment. Love and loneliness. Love and grief.
Nobody tells you that.
My phone chimes again, a promotional email this time. For half a second, my heart jumps anyway. Then I turn it face down.
I open my laptop and start a new email. Even though I don't know when he'll read it. Even though I don't know when he'll answer. Even though part of me doesn't want to answer at all.
I type anyway.
To: George
Subject: Re: Letters
I'm angry.
Not only at the extension. At all of it.
I'm tired of waiting. I'm tired of being scared. I'm tired of everyone telling me how strong I am when I don't want to be strong anymore.
And I need to tell you something I hate admitting.
Sometimes I'm angry at you too.
I know that isn't fair.
I know you didn't choose the extension.
But you're there, and I'm here, and some days I don't know where else to put it.
I love you.
I'm still here.
Today, I'm still choosing this.
I don't know what tomorrow looks like.
I need you to understand that.
Monica
I hit send before I can second-guess it. Before I can soften it. Before I can pretend I'm fine. The message disappears from the screen. For a long time, I sit there waiting for relief. It doesn't come.
My phone is still facedown beside me.
I don't pick it up for the rest of the night.