His eyes shot open in the dark. The girl in the letters was Fern Taylor. Did he really want Fern Taylor? He laughed a little. Fern was a little bitty thing. They would look ridiculous together. And she wasn't hot. Although she had looked pretty good at the prom. Seeing her there in her gold dress, dancing with his stupid friends, had surprised him and ticked him off. Guess he hadn't forgiven her completely for the stunt she and Rita pulled.
He had tried not to think about Fern, about that night at the lake, and he'd all but convinced himself it was just temporary insanity, a last desperate act before leaving home. And she hadn't written like she’d said she would. He couldn't blame her after everything that had happened. But he would have liked to get a letter. She wrote good letters.
Homesickness shot through him. They definitely weren't in Kansas anymore. He wondered what he'd gotten himself into. What he'd gotten them all into. And if he was being honest with himself, he wasn't Hercules and he wasn't The Tin Man. He was The Cowardly Lion. He'd run away from home and brought his friends with him, his security blanket, his very own cheering section. He wondered what the hell he was doing in Oz.
Iraq
“Marley said Rita's getting married,” Jesse reported, his eyes on Ambrose. “Your ex is getting hitched, Brosey. How does it feel?”
“She's a fool.”
“Whoa!” Jesse cried, surprised by the vehemence from his friend. He thought Ambrose was over Rita. Guess he was wrong.
“You don't still like her, do you, Brose?” Grant asked in surprise.
“No. I don't. But she's a fool to marry Becker Garth.”
Beans shrugged. “I've never had a problem with Garth.”
“You remember when I got suspended in ninth grade?”
Beans shook his head that he didn't, but Paulie lit up with the memory.
“You smashed Becker's pretty face in! I remember. But you never told us why.”
Ambrose adjusted his sunglasses and shifted his weight. They, and about one hundred other soldiers and marines, were on guard duty outside a high-security meeting of the Provisional Iraqi Government. It was cool to think maybe different factions could come together to form some governing body, that they were making progress, though some days Ambrose wondered. It wasn't the first time he'd played bodyguard, though in Bailey Sheen's case it had come after the fact.
“I forgot about that!” Grant crowed. “You didn't get to wrestle Loch Haven. Coach was pissed.”
“He wouldn't have been quite as mad if he knew why I felt the need to pound Becker,” Ambrose said wryly. He supposed enough time and distance had passed for him to share the story without violating confidences.
January, 1999
Ambrose knew Becker Garth. Becker was a senior and the girls all seemed to like him and think he was hot. That always made other guys sit up and take notice. Ambrose had noticed him because Becker had started wearing his hair like Ambrose, which Ambrose didn't like. Becker was dark haired too, and when he tossed his chin-length hair back from his brown eyes, he looked too much like Ambrose for comfort.
But that was where the similarities in their appearances ended. Becker was wiry and on the small side, his muscles defined and lean, like a jockey or a runner. He was about 5”8 and big enough that the girls still flocked around him, but Ambrose was much taller, even as a freshman.
Maybe because Becker was smaller than the freshman, or maybe because he was jealous, he liked to poke at Ambrose. Just jabs, innuendos, side comments that made his group of friends snicker and look away. Ambrose ignored it for the most part. He had very little to prove and wasn't bothered too much. His size and strength made him less intimidated and less vulnerable to bullying than the other boys his age. And he comforted himself by imagining Becker in the wrestling room trying to hang with him or any of his friends. But Ambrose wasn't the only one Becker liked to torment.
It was fourth period, right before lunch, and Ambrose asked to be excused from English on the pretext of needing to use the bathroom. Really, he needed to check his weight. He had weigh-ins at 3:00 for the duel against Loch Haven. He was wrestling 160 but that morning he'd been at 162. He could sweat two pounds off, but just getting to 162 had been work. He had started the season at 172, and there wasn't much wiggle room or fat on his big frame to allow for weight loss. And he was still growing. He had a month until district championships and two weeks after that, state. The next six weeks would be brutal, and he would be hungry most of the time. Hungry equated to ornery, and Ambrose was very ornery. When he walked into the locker room and was greeted by darkness, he swore, hoping something wasn't wrong. He needed to see the scale. He felt along the wall, trying to find the switches. A voice rang out in the dark, making him jump.
“Becker?” the voice said nervously.
He found the lights and flipped them, flooding the lockers and benches with light. What he saw made him curse again. In the middle of the tile floor, Bailey Sheen's wheel chair had been tipped over onto its back, and Bailey was hanging helplessly with his thin legs in the air, unable to right himself or do anything but beg for help in the darkness.
“What the hell?” Ambrose said. “Sheen, are you okay?”
Ambrose ran to Bailey, eased the chair back onto its wheels, and sat Bailey up straight in his seat. Bailey's face was flushed and his shoulders shook, and Ambrose wanted to hurt someone. Badly.
“What happened, Sheen?”
“Don't tell anyone, okay, Ambrose?” Bailey begged.
“Why?!” Ambrose was so angry he could feel his pulse pounding behind his eyes.
“Just . . . just don't tell, okay? It's freakin' embarrassing.” Bailey gulped and Ambrose could tell he was mortified.
“Who did this?” Ambrose demanded.
Bailey shook his head and wouldn't say. Then Ambrose remembered how Bailey had startled him by calling out a name while Ambrose had been searching for the light.