They’d spent several hours working on the copter. Upon seeing it, Astrid had exclaimed with excitement, “You told the truth. They’re supposed to just be conceptual, and the weight!” The woman ran her hands over the shell, ohhing and ahhing with excitement.
David had answered her questions, and Erin watched on, having retrieved the bedding sacks and emergency supplies from the tiny space behind their seats.
Now the couple had left, promising to return in the morning to help fix the last issues. “You can’t tell anyone we’re here or what you’ve seen,” David pressed.
“Asswad,” muttered Astrid while Jude muttered, “I know the drill. Need to know and all that.”
Even so, Erin stashed her tiny laser pistol into the back of her ballistic pants, just in case someone unfriendly found them.
“Help me with the bed,” she grunted, having laid the emergency sacks out, and he knelt on the ground.
“They just a self-inflater?”
“Yeah, just pull the end and turn it clockwise. That autoprimes the pump,” she answered.
The night air crept in, and even with the barn doors closed, jackets donned, and snuggled down in the beds it was cool. The MRE’s—Meals Ready to Eat—were as flavorless as she remembered, but they filled the gnawing pit in her belly.
Earlier Cam had showed them the location of the long-drop toilet, for which Erin was grateful. While it wasn’t exactly high on her list of things to experience, at least it had three walls a roof and door. An improvement on the great outdoors.
Erin lay back, checking out the view above, wondering how long it would take to doze off.
“Tell me about yourself, Erin.” David’s query surprised her.
His words had her thinking back over her life, and her eyes stung with unshed tears. She blinked furiously, banishing them. “There isn’t much to tell. I was abandoned at the hospital where I was born. My mother was likely fifteen according to the official reports, when I popped out. One thing I know categorically is she never gave her real name. I was popped out then off she went. I have no idea who my father is. Don’t really care. I was in foster care after a couple of attempts at adoption and placement. Tried a couple of foster families, but we didn’t take to each other, so I went back to the home. I graduated and moved on. Tried to join the military, and here I am.” It was barebones and very few knew the intricacies of what came before. The hurt and abandonment. The layers of protection she’d built around herself.
“Wasn’t much of a childhood.” He touched a hand to her shoulder for an instant. The action unbalancing her with the support he clearly offered.
“It was okay. I mean, sure, I don’t have a flesh and blood family, but I also don’t have that miserable family politics a lot of others have either. I choose who I want to know, where I go. My days are my own.”
“But what about birthdays and holidays?”
“Aren’t they kind of over-rated? People go out, spend all that money, get drunk, and have to see Great-Aunt Gertie who hates you anyway.”
David laughed, clearly at a loss to understand her reasoning from the sound of it. “Sometimes, but it’s better to be festive with the people you love around you. To be part of something bigger than yourself.”
“Maybe, but I’ve been doing this long enough to know I don’t have to have it to feel fulfilled, you know? I spend Ramustas at home usually, watching vids or painting. I like the solitude, and usually the apartments around are empty so I can turn it up loud, throw popped corn at the screen, and stuff like that.”
“It’s almost Ramustas now. What will you do?”
She sighed, knowing this year there’d be no way to ignore it. “I usually ask for duty so someone with a family can spend it with them. It’s about kids and families. I guess there’ll be a meal in the mess. That’ll be nice. The rest of the day, I’ll probably sack out. Read a book. Keep busy.”
“Spend it with us. Daniella, Jonah, Clarissa, Michael, and the baby.”
He must have almost surprised himself with that question, but she smiled, appreciating the care and thought in his invitation. “Maybe not. Not that I don’t like your family. They’re great, but... I’d just feel like you’re being kind...” She floundered for the right words so he wouldn’t have to get angry that she thought he was pitying her. Which, no doubt he is.
“No, really, Erin. I’d love for you to join us.”
She winced, and her mind tried to compute the best way to decline. “How about we just wait and see? Life depends on so many things right now.”
Erin rolled to her side, hoping he’d take the hint, but the rasp of bedding on the ground, followed by the touch of his hand again, snaking around her shoulders, pulling her in to his embrace. “I mean it.”
Warmth filled her, insidiously drugging her and grinding on her mind. He might mean it, but she wasn’t sure she could handle it. Erin lay still, waited for the emotion to pass, and drifted off to sleep.
David waited for the slow, rhythmic breathing that told him Erin had finally given in and slumbered. “Why? Why do you pull away? What is it that makes you feel that you need to keep a wall between us?”
She’d had a rough start, true, but it didn’t explain the way she stayed apart from others. The genuine sense of disconnection from life and others.
Getting to the bottom on that might give him a foothold in her heart, though not nearly enough; it might be a starting point.
The incident where she’d been injured guarding Daniella had come far too close to wiping her from life, and that he couldn’t tolerate. He’d realized then that he’d been squandering his chances, and that knowledge gnawed at him for the last several weeks.
Today, when he’d talked with Cam, Astrid, and Jude he’d watched her. She’d been friendly and yet that air of ‘don’t touch me’ had remained intact and he’d wanted to crash through it.
Too much too soon, he reminded himself, though he kept his arm around her. It took a long time before he too slept.