What If

“Okay, well that was the first thing…” I pried, willing her to say anything.

“What’s the next thing?” Her words were clipped.

“I’m joining the Marines,” I added. This time her eyes became glassy. I was ready to comfort her, to tell her I love her and that I wanted us to be together when I got back from boot camp, but she never gave me the chance.

Briar stood up from the couch and paced for a total of two minutes and twenty three seconds. I counted. Then she twirled around, her features becoming riddled with rage.

“You’re breaking up with Darcy and joining the military?” she questioned in a loud voice.

“Uh,” I began to answer her.

“I’m not actually asking you, Arrow! I heard you the first time. I can’t believe you’re doing this to Darcy!” Tears were falling from her eyes, dancing down her cheeks and soaking into her shirt. She wiped furiously at them.

My response was always automatic when she took that tone with me. Immediately, I yelled back.

“I don’t love her, Briar! We fight all the time! Not to mention, she’s been cheating on me with Ron. I’m not blind. Want to tell me why my best friend didn’t tell me that my girlfriend was cheating on me?” I spewed, making “best friend” sound like a lie and “girlfriend” sound like a joke.

Stunned, Briar blinked a few time before answering me. “I didn’t know, Arrow. God, I didn’t know!” Her legs turned to jelly and she sat, hard, onto the ground. “I would’ve told you if I knew that. I swear. You have to know that.” She wiped her cheeks. “Are you sure?”

“I don’t have any solid proof, but I did read some interesting texts in her phone.” I walked over to where she sat and plopped down next to her. “Want to know how I knew it was over?” Briar nodded. “Because when I read those text messages, I didn’t care. I wasn’t hurt. Yeah, I was little pissed because I felt like I got played. But my heart’s not broken. In fact, as messed up as it sounds, I was kind of relieved to have a reason to break up with her,” I admitted.

“I can’t believe this. You two have been together since our freshmen year. I thought you two were going to last…” The fact that Briar sounded put out by the fact that I was breaking up with Darcy was all the answer I needed. She clearly didn’t love me like I loved her. I was no longer giving her my third confession.



Finally, I understood why I’d been short-tempered and overall more emotional with Arrow. Things had been going awry between he and Darcy for at least a year now. I hated the idea that they weren’t going to last because it meant all that time I’d been pushing away what I felt was for two people that weren’t going to make it anyway.

It was irrational, unreasonable, and foolish of me to act out the way I did, but I couldn’t stop myself. What was the point in all the constant pain of wanting more and not letting myself have it?

I was livid over the fact that if Arrow cared for me in the same way I did for him, he would’ve been with me from that first day we’d spent together. I made up excuses constantly for why we weren’t together. We were meant to be friends. He was meant to be with Darcy. Darcy would hate me if she knew. Darcy made him happy. He made Darcy happy.

None of that was the correct reason, the real reason. He just didn’t want me.



“When are you leaving for boot camp? Briar asked, sniffling into her arm.

There are multiple ways someone can break you. If you felt affection or love for that particular person, there were even more ways for them to have that control. You were inadvertently giving that someone the knife and widening your arms, gesturing to your heart, and saying, “It’s yours. Do with it what you want: break it, shatter it, hold it, caress it, handle it with tenderness, but please, please love it.” The way Briar reacted to the news of me breaking up with Darcy put a crack down the left side of my chest. She kicked me right in the gut and didn’t even realize she did. The way the words “boot camp” left her mouth turned the crack into a gaping wide crater. Concerned with my own desire, I thought I wanted her to be saddened about me leaving. I thought it would give me the sensation that she cared for me half as much as I cared for her.

That’s not what it did, though. Seeing her wrecked over me leaving didn’t make me feel good or missed; it made me want to go back in time and not sign my name on that piece of paper. It made me want to stay with her forever if it meant she’d never sound so shattered.

However, without the military, I didn’t have a future. I didn’t make the best grades. In fact, my grades sucked. I was going to graduate high school, but barely. This was my one and only opportunity to do something worthwhile with my life, and I had to take that chance and just hope to God that Briar would support me and be there when I came back.

The idea that I was already everything I was ever going to be frightened me. I was stuck in that state of knowing I wasn’t book smart enough for college, knowing I’d be stuck working some shit-paying job in this small town and watching Briar become everything I knew she would become. I wouldn’t allow that to happen. While Briar was out making the most of that beautiful mind of hers and getting a higher education, I’d be out protecting our country, keeping that freedom that allowed her to have everything she could ever want out of life.

“I leave a couple weeks after graduation,” I said with a softer tone. She was biting down painfully hard on her bottom lip, making it difficult for me to sit still. All I could think about was moving and stopping her from bruising herself and wiping those salt water tracks off of her cheekbones.

“You never even told me you wanted to go into the military. You never even brought that up.” She was getting hysterical; her speech sped up, her arms began flailing around her.

“Hey, hey, hey…” I stood from where I’d sat in the middle of the floor. I walked the few feet over to Briar, put my hands underneath her armpits and lifted her up off the ground. Her legs held her up, but she swayed into my chest.

“What else am I supposed to do here, Briar? If I stayed here, what would I do? I didn’t get into any college. The only place that’ll hire me is the mechanic shop down the street, and even then the starting pay is minimum wage.” Her head was lying against my chest, moving up and down with each one of my breaths. I ran my hand through her hair, tucking it behind her ear as I went. “I don’t want to live that life. You can understand that, right? I want more than that.”

The jerky nod against my sternum was stiff because she didn’t want to admit that every word I said made sense. I knew it did. I put more thought into this decision than anything else in my life. I wasn’t one of those men who grew up knowing I wanted to be in the service. I wasn’t following in anyone’s footsteps. My father wasn’t in the military. My grandfather only was because he was drafted, but I couldn’t say the military didn’t feel like a good fit. When I went and spoke to a recruiter, it was nearly immediate that I knew what I was supposed to do.

I didn’t sign up that day. I went home and thought about every possible option and every possible path that I could take. Joining the Marines was the only one that felt more like an opportunity instead of a life sentence.