He talked about how early on, his heart had hammered every time they’d had to leave base, but over time that too became routine.
“I think I knew,” he says then. “I think I somehow knew when I woke up that day that it was going to be different. My guys and I…we had this pact. No matter how bored we got, or how shitty the weather, or how much we missed life back home, or Oreos, or our girlfriend…we didn’t talk about the bad stuff. You know? It was like this unspoken power of positive thinking, or bullshit like that. If we didn’t talk about how much it sucked, then we didn’t think about it.”
I nod in understanding, even though I know nothing in my own life experience compares.
“But that day, Williams let it get to him. We were out on routine patrol, and he said something about it being hot. A harmless statement, really. But over there, nothing felt harmless, and like superstitious morons, we all jumped down his throat for jinxing us. We were still giving him shit about it when we stopped. There were…there were bodies on the side of the road. Two women and a child—”
He breaks off, and I swallow in dread.
“One of the women was dead. At least I think she was. We never had a chance to find out for sure. But the kid…it was this little boy, maybe six years old, and he was crying, pointing to the bodies of the women. One of the women lifted her head, barely, but enough for us to see that she was all bloody, and her hand was motioning feebly in the direction of the boy, as if she was begging us for help. Like, take him—help him. We were in the middle of goddamned nowhere, with nothing in every direction. The kid would have died…they all would have.”
He falls silent again, and I barely breathe, afraid that one wrong move will have him retreating inside himself again, where this story comes out only in the nightmares.
“It was a trap. I’d like to think they weren’t willing accomplices—the blood on that woman’s face was real, and the kid’s fear was plain in his eyes. He was scared. But the insurgents were on us before we could even get to him.”
I close my eyes.
“The thing that gets me the most is that I never knew what happened to them,” Paul says, almost absently. “From the military perspective, they were merely the catalyst for what happened next. But on a human level, they were, well, human.”
He gently sets my legs aside and goes to throw another log on the fire, even though it’s not needed. His hands find the mantel, his finger sliding along the wood, back and forth, back and forth, as though the gesture can help calm his mind.
“They came out of nowhere. I don’t know where they came from, because like I said…there was nothing around for miles that I could see. But they ambushed us. It happened so fucking fast, Olivia. One second we’re like, ‘Oh shit, this poor kid,’ and the next…Williams fell first. He was two steps in front of me and I think I saw him fall…saw his blood, before I even registered the sound of gunshots.”
I press my lips together, wanting to tell him he doesn’t have to do this, but knowing that on some level he needs to.
“There were six of us that day, and four of the guys died in under a minute. All that training, all those weapons, but when it’s you and bullets and bad guys, it takes a minute. I play it back…I play it back over and over, and I don’t know why they didn’t just kill all six of us then and there. I think they meant to, because Alex and I both took a shot. I got a stupid flesh wound to my leg, another on the shoulder. But him…they shot Alex in the stomach. It’s the worst. You hear it’s the worst, but it’s not until you see it that you realize. It’s not until you see the agony on their face that you understand it’s so much better to just take a bullet straight through the heart or between the eyes.”