August
Iraq
She didn’t even say goodbye. The last thing I need to be thinking about in a war zone is Katya Khavalov. Maybe it’s the abrupt manner of her ditching camp or the fact she didn’t come down to see us that Saturday, but I can’t get her out of my mind.
Thinking about her stirs my blood like a triple espresso, even when I’ve spent the past forty-eight hours awake on mission. I don’t know if it’s desire or anger. She has that affect on me and leaves me wired when I need sleep. A month after camp ended, and every conversation we ever had continues to haunt me.
Sweating and tired, I’m the last of the team to enter the isolated, abandoned house we’ve been using as a base of operations in the Iraqi desert for the past two weeks. No one was hurt and we found our target. It was a successful day.
Lowering my ruck to the ground, I glance over at the skinny Ranger who’s in charge of our communications.
“We up?” I ask.
“For an hour.”
“I gotta get my report in.” I crouch at the station where the single laptop connected to the outside world that we always take on a mission is hooked up. Internet is hit or miss. We rely on satellite connections rather than ground lines, and most days, they’re shoddy at best.
Duty always comes first when the mission is over. Reporting to my commander, taking accountability of the team’s health and mental awareness, assessing the condition of our equipment, setting up the duty roster for the night, cleaning my own gear, food and then, if there’s time, sleep. Thank god I type fast, or I’d never have time to sleep.
Hunkering over the laptop, I have the report done and out before the connection goes down. I check on the guys and equipment then take care of my gear. The two-room house has an antiquated bathroom and a main room that serves as our living and sleeping quarters. The guys are cleaning their weapons by lantern light, and I join them, claiming my spot between Riley and Carson.
Taking apart my weapon is second nature. I go through the motions without registering them. The token Air Force spec-ops guy, Ian, is racked out already while the others are either eating MREs or cleaning weapons and gear.
“You’ve been quiet,” Riley says, glancing at me.
“Not him. Everyone,” Carson replies. “The Khavs always had the stories.”
“Yeah, they did.”
It’s odd that five months later, we still can’t go a day without mentioning Mikael.
“You hear from Petr, sir?” Carson asks me.
“Not since we’ve been out here,” I reply.
“Katya?” Riley questions with a small smile.
“No,” I respond emphatically. “Pretty sure I won’t.”
“I kinda liked her,” Carson says. “She made life … interesting.”
I smile, and Riley laughs. He’s too polite to say what Riley or I might: that she was the frustrating combination of an ambush and a puppy rolled into one.
“Will be good to be back tomorrow for a few days,” Riley says. “I need some real fucking food.”
I agree silently. I finish up, eat what I’m willing to, and lie down to stare at the ceiling. There’s a good chance I won’t sleep more than an hour, and if I do, I’ll dream about the night I woke up with night terrors and Katya was there.
It’s been three weeks, and I can’t stop thinking about her. I’d like to say my thoughts are positive, but a lot of them really aren’t. I swing between thinking she really was a superficial bitch and knowing that I had just begun to scratch the surface of something incredible.
Not that it matters. With Petr out of the picture, the chances of us meeting up again are completely gone. I don’t even have her email address and am pretty sure she’d delete anything I sent her, even if I did.
Why the hell does that make me want to email her even more?
“Sir, you going to Petr’s Christmas party?” Carson asks me.
Then there’s that. The holidays are four months away. Petr already invited us back to Massachusetts. I guess his family gives some sort of insane party over the holidays. Riley even found it on gossip websites as being an exclusive event apparently everyone in New England tries to get an invite to. Celebrities, supermodels, socialites and other people of that caliber attend the three-day event.
I can’t understand that kind of wealth, and I’m not at all impressed by people who are famous for being rich or on TV. It’s one more reason to keep my distance from Katya, a reminder we’re nothing alike. I grew up on the streets of Chicago before joining the Corps. I’m good with my money, more so because I don’t spend shit when I’m deployed. I paid for what little I own, mainly my truck, in cash.
But I’ll never be anything close to what the Khavalov’s are in terms of money, and it’s not like I have family Stateside I visit on leave. Going all the way home for a party seems stupid.
Unless I’d see Katya.
All the more reason to avoid it.
“Probably not,” I reply. “I usually stay behind so you guys can take a break.”
“You going, Riley?” Carson asks.
“Fuck yeah. Supermodels? Petr promised to hook me up with anyone I want.”
“I want to go, too,” Carson says. “Mainly so I can send pics of me with celebrities home to my mom.”
“How’s she doing?” I ask. Carson’s mom has been in the hospital for a year with stage four cancer.
“Still won’t die,” he jokes. He smiles, affection crossing his face. “Too stubborn.”
I return my gaze to the ceiling. The guys are quiet for a few minutes before Riley speaks again.
“I found something the other day when we went back to the village where the Khavs got hurt. Some shitbag in the bazaar was trying to sell it.”
My good humor flees. For all of two seconds, I was able to think of something other than that night. I hear him dig around his ruck.
Sitting up, I wait to see what it is.
He tugs free a set of dog tags, each of which has black rubber around its edges to keep them from jingling.
“Mikael’s,” he supplies and hands them over.
Surprised, I take them. “How the fuck did these make it?” I read the name to confirm. They’re dirty, and the rust color indicates dried blood is what clogs a few imprinted letters.
“I thought you might want them.”
“We should send them to Petr,” I reply, studying the tags.
“Or take them back at Christmas,” Carson adds. “Might be a nice gesture.”
How would Katya react to having them back? I’m not sure at all. Would it infuriate her or would she appreciate it?
I read Mikael’s name over and over on the tags, touched more deeply than I should be by holding them. That something so small can mean so much …
“Great work, Riley,” I say.
He nods, smiling. “Mikael’s still with us.”
“Hey, sir,” the Ranger calls from his corner, where he’s messing with the comms equipment. “Captain Jacobson says we need to move. Someone picked up on our position. She’s saying to head back along our planned route, and she’ll send someone to pick us up.”
“Roger.” I rise instantly. The guys don’t need to be told it’s time to move – quickly. I pull on Mikael’s dog tags and tuck them with mine beneath my shirt.
We pack up and are leaving the covert base within ten minutes, headed stealthily along the route of egress we planned. Alert and wary, we walk the five clicks towards the rendezvous point, where the security detachment she sent is waiting as promised.
An hour later, we’re back at the FOB. It’s a small compound in the middle of nowhere, heavily fortified, but it’s got real beds and decent food.
I’m not surprised to see Harper in the command center when I arrive. I nod as I walk by then go to the barracks area my team usually occupies when we’re in from a mission. After depositing my gear, I return to the center to check in and let my commander know we’re back.
“Good mission?” Harper asks from her spot in front of a computer.
“Always.”
“Your guys all right?”
“Yep.”
I slide into the seat beside her, ignoring the looks of the night shift in the center. I look and smell like I’ve been in the field for two weeks. Harper is used to dealing with us, even if the others manning the intelligence and operations forward operating base tend to regard the secretive spec-ops guys like mythical animals.
“How long you in for this time?” she asks.
“Four days.”
“Any plans while you’re here?”
“None.”
“Your team need anything?”
“Nope.”
“Riley’s right. You’re different, Sawyer. Are you okay?”
I pause, realizing I’ve been responding on autopilot. I get in mission mode sometimes, too focused to pay attention to much else around me. Lately, I’ve felt stuck there, and Petr’s words about me distancing myself too much from others returns to me. If Riley noticed and said something to Harper, it’s got to be obvious to everyone.
Sitting back in the chair, I meet her brown gaze. Captain Jacobson is a gorgeous woman, strong, disciplined and smart.
“Been a long few months,” I reply and draw a deep breath. “Thanks for the tip. I appreciate you watching our backs.”
“It’s my job,” she says with a smile. “You’re welcome.”
I study her. I’m beat and have no clue what else I should be saying to prevent people from assuming something’s wrong.
“If you ever need to talk, let me know.”
Talk? What the fuck … Do they think I’m that bad?
“Yeah, thanks,” I force myself to say.
“If you ever need anything else, let me know that, too. Sometimes it helps.” She smiles. “Not looking for a relationship, just … you know. Stress relief.”
I’m pretty sure she’s not joking. Sex is officially forbidden in the war zone, though it doesn’t stop a lot of people. I understand what she’s saying. I’ve had a few situational flings with women like me who needed the release or companionship after so long away from home.
“Thanks,” I reply. “You all must think I’m pretty bad off.”
“We notice. But it’s not just you. I lost one of the new kids yesterday. Nineteen, walked over an IED dropping off supplies. Spent the day picking up his pieces.” Her gaze grows haunted, and her smile fades. “Makes you realize how quickly everything can end or change or whatever.”
I feel her pain and know there’s nothing I can say to soothe the guilt and fear that comes with seeing someone die before your eyes. I squeeze her hand instead, understanding better where she’s coming from. Sex, or maybe intimacy, has a way of grounding me, reminding me that I’m human when the world feels like it’s about to end. It’s no surprise that it does the same with others.
There would be no complicated emotions with Harper like there would’ve been with Katya, had I slept with her. This would be physical, purely stress relief and companionship.
“Thanks. I’ll keep it in mind,” I respond and face the computer once more.
“Get some rest,” Harper says and stands.
I nod and check my email, ready to shoot off a note to my commander, who is stationed around Baghdad.
There’s an email from Katya in my inbox. I blink and hit refresh. I’ve been tired enough to hallucinate before.
It’s really there.
Leaning forward, my exhaustion slides away, replaced by intense curiosity about hearing from her when I never expected to again. I don’t know why I hesitate to open it, but I do.
Finally clicking, I see her note is short and there’s an attachment.
Hey-
Assignment I did in counseling. Probably not supposed to send it. Figured I had nothing to lose.
KK
I’m not getting a warm fuzzies about this. My gaze lingers on the first sentence. I’m guessing Petr and their father convinced her to go into counseling, and I’m impressed she did it.
My stomach churns when I open her attachment.
To the man who let my brother die.
I find myself pushing away physically from the computer, as if it will put distance between the issue and me. Realizing how ridiculous that is, I force myself to read.
The letter is pure Katya, filled with emotion, passion, honesty and directness. If I thought she was candid at camp, this letter takes it to a whole new level. Anguish, rage, sorrow … all are expressed clearly in such a raw manner that I struggle to close the door on my own reeling feelings. The sense of being stripped to the soul and twisted inside out, the same I experienced standing at Mikael’s funeral, return. It’s stronger this time, crippling, because the emotions aren’t mine alone. They’re hers, too. I don’t want to … I can’t see the depth of the pain I’ve inadvertently caused others. I can’t live with myself if I do, can’t function as a leader the way I need to. The hour or two to sleep I get a night will turn into minutes if I let myself dwell on how much I hurt for others.
I finish the first page before I close the document, blinded by both fury and pain. I’ve written letters like this in counseling, letters that are never meant to be sent but are used as an exercise to express the emotions of the person writing them.
Fuck you, Katya.
My body is so tense, it aches, and my emotions boil over for a moment, paralyzing my ability to think. I stare at the screen, wanting to delete her email and erase her words, her very existence, from my mind.
How the fuck can she affect me when I’m halfway around the world? I haven’t seen or spoken to her since she left midweek at camp. She has the power to reach out and obliterate the barrier I keep between my emotions and the rest of the world with a single email.
“Fuck!” My curse draws the eyes of half the center. I log out and rise, slamming my chair back under the desk before striding out.
It’s hard to hate you when I know you’re broken like Petr. The words have stayed with me. She may be right about me being broken, but she’s wrong about hating me.
It’s clear she does. Always has.
Why does that shred me as much as anything else I’ve been through?
“Hey, you okay?”
I don’t realize I’m standing in the hallway, leaning my forehead against the wall, until I hear Harper’s voice. Straightening, I gaze at her. She appears alarmed and concerned.
“You need to talk about something?”
There’s no way to explain what’s in my head, especially since I have no fucking clue how to sort out my thinking about Katya.
I just … Want. Her. Gone.
So I can think, function … fuck – so I can breathe right whenever her name comes up! My body and my mind react to her in a way I can’t control.
“I don’t want to talk,” I tell Harper, refocusing on my surroundings. “If your other offer is on the table …” Something has to fix this.
Harper nods, studying me.
“I’ll get cleaned up.” I stride away, towards the showers. I try to tell myself this has nothing to do with trying to forget Katya.
But it does. She’s physically out of my life. I need to get her out of my head.
After a quick shower, I sit down in the closet-sized tiny quarters that are mine. I don’t share with anyone, because of my rank. My head hurts, and my body is sore. I’m exhausted and wired, a sign I won’t be able to sleep, if I don’t take Harper up on her offer.
Assuming she’ll be by when her shift is over, I sit on my bed and lean against the wall, unable to purge my mind of the letter Katya sent. It was four pages. I barely made it through the first.
Do I owe her? Should I finish reading it before I delete?
I’m too tired and emotionally drained to know how to handle it. My gaze settles on the pad of paper and pen on the Pelican case I use as a suitcase in a corner. It acts as a table in the tiny room. I have a few student pen pals who sent letters over for class assignments that I keep in touch with every once in a while. It’s normally easier to handwrite responses, since my computer time is dedicated to work.
If I could say anything to Katya, without consequence, what would it be? She has no qualms about destroying me, no concerns about consequences. What if I took the same approach, just once in my life? What if I told her exactly what I feel and think?
We’ve never even had a friendship. The brittle relationship we do have isn’t going to survive her letter – that much I know. So does it really matter what I tell her?
I stretch and grab the pad and pen. I start writing and stop after her name. I’m drawing a blank, despite the amount of things going through my head. It’s probably my detail-oriented nature, but something tells me I need to read all four pages before I start. She has a way of surprising me, and part of me hopes there’s something less poisonous in the letter.
Someone knocks at my door.
“Come in,” I call.
Harper enters. “Good time?” she asks.
“Always.”
I set the paper aside, warmth stirring within me for a different reason than anger this time.
Fuck you, Katya. I can’t help thinking of her even now, when I’m about to spend the night with another woman.
I stand and strip off my shirt. Harper sits and unties her boots.
“Is Colonel Lawrence still here?” I ask casually.
“No. His replacement is here. A civilian named Petra.” She looks up at me. “You want to talk to her?”
I debate responding. On a base this size, everyone will soon know if I show up on the doorstep of the psychologist assigned to the FOB to help monitor the mental health of those assigned here. Anyone can talk to her, but a lot of people avoid the shrinks for fear of looking bad or weak in front of everyone else.
I need to get rid of this shit in my head. The guilt, self-doubt, fear.
Thinking of Katya reminds me of all of that, of the night when four men died under my command.
“Yeah,” I say with effort.
“I think that’s a good idea, Sawyer,” Harper says warmly.
Not really. It’s probably a bad career choice, because I’ll have to tell my commander, who can choose to take me off missions. It’s a fear I’ve had for a long time, about losing what matters most to me.
But I can’t function like this. The emotions aren’t going away. They’re getting worse. If I don’t get a handle on them now, what happens if I’m on a mission and lose my focus? What if I had read Katya’s note before going out on a mission?
I won’t let anyone else die because I can’t get one fucking woman out of my head.
It’s hard to hate you when I know you’re broken like Petr.
“Goddammit,” I mutter. I need her voice out of my thoughts. So she’s right. So I need to go back to the shrink.
If I can reconcile what happened that night and my destructive emotions, will it help me get her out of my head as well?