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Survivor’s Remorse
BEN
He could not have made a bigger cluster fuck with Kate if he’d tried. God, why did he even try talking? He didn’t mean to imply she looked old. But her hands had been all over his back. Between that and the pain, he hadn’t been thinking straight.
He stretches out on the floor of the office, using an apron and a few dishtowels for pillows. His back hurts like a motherfucker. Especially since he’s lying on the hard wooden floor.
He should be sleeping. God knows he’ll need his strength to get back to Creekside tomorrow.
He hardly sleeps when he has a bed and pillow. Attempting to fall asleep on the wood floor feels like an exercise in futility, but he tries anyway. If only to escape the disaster reel with Kate playing in his head on repeat.
He closes his eyes and huffs out a long breath, willing himself to sleep. When he does finally doze off, the nightmare starts.
This time, it’s a mash-up of the College Creek massacre and Desert Storm. Ben finds himself in the desert under a black, smoky sky, shooting at Iraqi soldiers while yelling at college kids to take cover.
He wakes with a shout. Cold sweat bathes his skin. He gets to his feet and paces back and forth in the small room, trying to shake off the nightmare. It’s an invisible presence sitting beside him in the dark.
His pacing takes him down the hallway to Kate’s room. He can’t stand things being off between them. He wants to make it right again.
Except it’s the middle of the night. He has no business waking her up. Even if it is to apologize. Somehow he doubts a two a.m. apology will go over well.
As he turns away, he hears a sound through the closed door. It’s a soft sound, ragged at the edges.
She’s crying.
Before he realizes what he’s doing, he’s standing in the open doorway. Kate lies on a wad of towels and chef coats, curled tightly on her side. A faint shaft of moonlight illuminates a shiny track of tears across her cheek.
“Frederico, no,” she murmurs. One leg thrashes.
The muscles across his back and shoulders go rigid. He knows what it’s like to be caught in a bad dream. More precisely, he knows what it’s like to be caught in a fucked-up memory masquerading as a dream.
“Frederico.” The name comes out like a crippled cat.
He can’t take it.
Ben crouches on the floor beside her and gives her arm a squeeze.
Kate flies into an upright position, the top of her head connecting with his chin. The soft crack of bone-on-bone reverberates in the tight confines of the room.
“Ben?” She blinks at him in confusion, the sleep haze leaving her eyes. “Has something happened?” The tendons in her neck stiffen.
He eases back from her, rubbing at his chin. “Sorry. You were having a bad dream.”
“You woke me up because I was having a bad dream?”
He nods. As she stares at him, he feels like he needs a better explanation.
“I still have bad dreams. They’re like, I don’t know, movie reels you can’t get out of. Hamster wheels where the bad stuff just keeps rolling out in front of you.”
She continues to stare at him. He resists the urge to slink away in embarrassment.
If reincarnation is a real thing, he wants to come back as one of those fancy guys in suits who does public speaking for a living. Then, just maybe, he could talk to a woman. Maybe.
“You were calling for Frederico.” It’s his final attempt to get her to respond to him. He really will slink away if she just keeps staring at him.
Kate slumps, rubbing at her wet cheeks. “I miss him.” Her words are soft and sad.
She’s always so strong. It’s one of the many things he admires about her. Seeing her hunched over and grieving makes something inside him crumple.
“You’re right about the hamster wheel.” Kate draws her knees up to her chest. “I just keep seeing that night when Frederico ran from me. He yelled and drew the zombies after him so I could get away.” A fresh gush of tears rolls out of her eyes. She looks away from him. “He sacrificed everything so I could find Carter. If I can’t keep him alive—if I can’t protect him—” Her voice breaks off.
“You’ll feel like Frederico’s sacrifice will be for nothing.”
She nods, resting her chin on her knees. “Yeah.”
He thinks back to the brothers he lost over the years, both in the Sandbox and Somalia. So many. He can still list out names and ranks in his head.
“I still try to find reasons for the deaths of my brothers in the service.” He lets out a long sigh. “I don’t think you ever stop looking, Kate.”
More fresh tears roll down her cheeks. “I just want to know that Carter and the others made it back to Creekside. Whatever else happens, I just want to know they’re safe.”
He has an urge to take her in his arms. Except he’s not sure how that would go over. He’s not exactly the strong cuddly type. Strong, sometimes. But not cuddly. A cactus has him beat on the cuddly scale.
He settles for sitting cross-legged in the moonlight next to her in what he hopes is easy companionship. At least she doesn’t radiate anger anymore. That’s an improvement. Now if only he can keep his mouth from saying something stupid.
She doesn’t pull away, keeping her chin propped on her knees. He likes looking at her. Her profile is lean and strong. Her eyes focus on the small window in the room. A curtain of stars fills the rectangle of glass.
“I didn’t realize you had so many tattoos.” Kate is looking at his bare arms.
Part of the reason he keeps himself religiously encased in his fatigues are the tattoos. He has sleeves on both arms. He doesn’t want to answer questions about the thirty years of art that cover him from wrist to shoulder.
Tonight, he’s been stripped to the waist since Kate sewed up his back. He doesn’t mind her seeing the tattoos. Maybe it’s the darkness. It feels less exposed, less awkward.
“I enlisted when I was eighteen,” he tells her. “I get a tattoo every year on the anniversary of my enlistment.”
“That’s neat.” She squints, studying his arms. “What’s that?” She points to Ben’s right bicep.
Of course she would notice that one. It wouldn’t be so bad if the fucking thing didn’t have purple wings.
There was also the matter of the pink dress.
There’s nothing to do but own it. “It’s a fairy.”
“Like, a tooth fairy? A small person with wings?”
“Yes.”
Kate giggles. It’s a nice sound. “What’s the story behind the fairy?”
He starts talking, encouraged by her expression. “I got roaring drunk the night we graduated from boot camp. One of the guys was an amateur tattoo artist. Four of us got matching fairy tattoos that night in a public bathroom at a club.” He chuckles at the memory. “The other guys all got cover-up art eventually.”
“But not you?”
“Nah. I figure it’s good to remember those times when you’re a complete dumb shit. It helps you remember not to be a dumb shit again. Sometimes.” He meets her eyes, willing for her to see how sorry he is for his earlier blunder. “Anyway, after that it became a tradition.”
Her hand comes up, tracing the flames along his upper deltoid. He sits still, afraid the slightest movement will dislodge her.
“Flames of the oil fields of Iraq,” he says. “From Operation Desert Storm. One flame for each of the friends I lost in battle.”
“Nine,” she says, counting them with her fingertips.
“Nine,” he agrees. Encouraged by the feel of her fingers against his skin, he keeps talking.
He tells her the story of the art on his arms. The words Got Him on his left forearm represent the death of Osama bin Laden. The drone on his right wrist represents his tour in the War on Terror in Pakistan. The sunrise on his inner forearm is the sky the morning after he lost four men in Somalia during the Ethiopian invasion.
As he winds down, once again out of words, Kate lowers her hand and smiles at him. “That’s beautiful, Ben.”
Someday, if he ever finds a tattoo artist, he has another design in mind, this one for his left shoulder. The number sixteen in a puddle of blood. For the College Creek kids. They deserve to be remembered, even if only by him.
He doesn’t say any of this to Kate. The shame is too heavy.
“Your skin is cold.” Kate rises, crossing to the shelf of linens. She unfolds a starched chef’s coat and shakes it out. “Here. You should wear something.”
He takes the blazing white stiff shirt, unable to look away from her. He’s pretty sure he’s never seen a woman look so damn good.
“I meant it as a compliment,” he blurts out. “What I said about G.I. Jane, I mean. I know it didn’t come out like that.”
She raises one eyebrow at him, not bothering to pretend. That’s another thing he admires about her. She’s real.
“And I didn’t mean to say you looked old. Tonight, I mean. I just meant you look like a woman.”
“Ben, do you even know what a compliment is?”
It’s a fair question.
“In theory, yes. I’m just not very good in practice.” He heaves an exasperated sigh. “G.I. Jane was played by Demi Moore, Kate. She’s as hot as they come. How could that not be a compliment?”
Alarm bells go off in his head as the mood in the room shifts. Kate stiffens beside him, turning wide eyes at him. She doesn’t look offended, thank God, but she does look off-balance.
Did he just call her hot? Yes, he did. Like a stupid teenager.
He doesn’t know how to tell her she’s so much more than that. She’s smart. Strong. Decisive. Determined. Caring. Patient. So much more than a stupid actress in a movie he wishes he’d never mentioned.
Mouth dry, he refuses to make eye contact. He busies himself buttoning on the chef’s coat, resolving not to speak until she does. It’s safer that way.
“Thank you for the compliment,” she says at last, a strange hitch in her voice.
Some of the tension leaks out of him.
They sit side by side on the floor, watching the sun come up in easy silence. It’s the best night he’s had in as long as he can remember.