23. George
Chapter Twenty-Three
George
a few weeks later
I know there’s no mail today, but I check anyway.
The crate sits near the side of the container, half in shadow, exactly where it was yesterday when I checked and found nothing. There are three envelopes inside, none with my name on them, and a package wrapped in enough tape to survive the end of the world.
“Hale.” I roll my eyes. Mack is leaning against the side of the container with a cup of coffee in one hand. Or something pretending to be coffee. Hard to tell around here.
“What?”
“You know, staring at it won’t make mail appear.”
“I wasn’t staring.”
He takes a slow drink. “Right.” I shut the lid harder than necessary and walk past him. He falls into step beside me. “You’ve got it bad.”
“Shut up.”
I know which days mail usually comes. Or used to come, before we moved again. I know how long Mia’s last three letters took to reach me. I know the route changed when we relocated. I know everything is slower now. Supplies. Packages. Information. Mail.
Especially mail.
I know delays happen. I know things get held somewhere for days because somebody has more important things to move than a stack of envelopes.
I know letters get redirected, forgotten, loaded onto the wrong transport, then sent back in the opposite direction.
I know all of that, but I still check. Every goddamn time.
It’s been seventeen days since her last letter.
Her last one is folded inside my notebook.
I’ve read it enough times that I don’t need to take it out anymore.
I know the words. I know where her handwriting tilts because she was probably writing too fast. I know the line that made me laugh and the one that kept me awake. Sometimes I think I miss you.
That one.
I’ve been carrying it around for seventeen days.
Yesterday’s mission was supposed to be straightforward.
That phrase should probably be banned. Straightforward never means straightforward.
It means someone has looked at a map and decided the variables are acceptable.
The route was new enough that nobody relaxed into it.
The vehicle ahead of us slowed twice for reasons that turned out to be nothing.
A radio call came through half-finished, leaving everyone waiting for clarification longer than I liked.
We rerouted once, stopped once, moved again.
Nothing happened.
That’s the official version.
Nothing happened. Nobody was hurt. Nobody fired at us. We returned with the same number of people we left with. Still, I haven’t been able to get my shoulders to fully relax since.
There was a moment out there when everything went quiet.
Not actually quiet. Engines were running.
Equipment shifting. Someone breathing too close to the comms. But inside me.
Quiet. That kind of quiet where your body knows something might happen before your mind has decided what. I hate that feeling.
I know it too well.
The waiting is always worse than people think. Action gives you something to do. Training takes over. Your body moves. Your brain narrows the world down to whatever is directly in front of you. Waiting gives you time to imagine. Then the call came through, and we moved. That was it.
By the time we got back, Martinez was already making jokes. Someone complained about chow. Mack told a story I’d heard at least six times and somehow managed to make it longer. Everybody was working very hard at normal. I did the same.
Then I lay awake until almost three in the morning thinking about a woman five thousand miles away.
That’s becoming a problem.
Mack sits across from me, eating something I don’t look at closely enough to identify. The room is louder than usual. Or maybe I’m less tolerant of noise today.
“You good?” he asks.
“Yeah.” The answer comes automatically, but I know what’s wrong with me. I miss her. There. That’s what’s wrong with me today. And probably what has been wrong with me since I stopped receiving her mail. I can admit it to myself.
I miss Mia.
Not only the pictures, and not only the way my body reacts when I think about her in that black robe.
I miss her words. I miss unfolding a page and finding out what happened in her day.
I miss the stupid details she thinks aren’t important.
I miss her making fun of me. I miss the way she writes something honest and then immediately follows it with a joke like she’s afraid she’s given away too much.
I miss knowing that for however long it took her to fill those pages, she was thinking about me. That part gets under my skin. Out here, everything is temporary. You learn not to attach too much meaning to anything because tomorrow someone can tell you to pack your gear and move.
Again.
I take out my notebook and start drafting a letter, even though I’m still waiting for one of hers…I have things I want to say…
After that, I just close my eyes and try to get some sleep.