Rough Around the Edges (28 page)

Then a sound jerked him out of his stupor, soft and breathy.

He turned his head to the right automatically, knowing what he would see.

His memory hadn’t failed him. Gibson sat still and bloody, eyes open and blank. Had he made the sound? The twisted piece of metal that had struck his throat was lodged in motionless flesh – there was no sign of pulse or breath beneath the slick coating of blood, no sign of lingering life at all.

The sound came again, a rush of breath with a hint of a wordless exclamation. The bones in Ryan’s neck popped as he whipped his head to the left, where the noise had come from.

Shock rippled through him like wind over water, paralyzing him as he stared at the impossible. To his left, where no one should’ve been, was Ally. She sat slumped against the side of the Humvee, eyes open and staring into his as she breathed, lips cracked and chest heaving. Dressed in a t-shirt and shorts like she might’ve worn to the gym, she should’ve looked out of place, but the dirt on her face and blood splattered across all of her ensured that she blended in.

His stomach lurched, his body rejecting the notion as his mind recognized it. “No!” He found his voice and began choking on dust and blood and reached for her, fingers extended.

She just stared, eyes wide but distinctly alive, a warmer shade of brown than the desert dirt the explosion had thrown over her face. Her lips moved silently – was she trying to say something to him?
Was
she saying something to him? It dawned on him that he couldn’t hear anything anymore. His ears rang, useless. Fear was clear in her eyes and the way her lips moved made it look like she was saying his name.

His fingertips brushed her cheek and she shrank away from him, pressing her back hard against the door, her hair hanging where glass had once been. The window had been obliterated by the blast; pieces of it were everywhere inside the Humvee. They crunched beneath his body as he reached for her, physically extending himself while he tried not to cringe at the sight of her obvious terror.

It came from behind him, or at least it seemed that way – another explosion. Blinded by the light and still deaf, he couldn’t see or hear her, but when he finally managed to make physical contact, there was no mistaking the wetness that dampened his fingertips…

He broke the surface of the dream with a jerk, limbs and thoughts whirling. He’d barely realized what he’d just witnessed wasn’t real when he hit the floor, losing his breath as everything beneath the carpet shook with a muffled
wham
!

It wasn’t as bad as falling off the ladder had been, but it shocked him in a similar way. Gasping for breath, he looked around the room. His eyes had adjusted enough to the darkness to allow him to make out the shape of his dresser by the faint streetlight radiating through the closed window blinds. There was nothing and no one else in the room – no sign of Ally, though his fingertips were still aching with the urge to touch her.

Unable to stifle the drive entirely, he reached out, fingers extended in empty air. In a way, it was almost a relief that she wasn’t there – the memory of blood dripping from his fingertips was still fresh.

He let his hand drop and breathed a ragged sigh, rolling over. At least he hadn’t landed on his wrist again. His right arm had been tangled in a sheet when he’d woken up. It ached from being jerked during his fall, but not too badly. Extricating it from the sweat-dampened linens, he let a string of curses fly, fading into the dark and quiet.

He might as well have been the only person in the world. None of his neighbors even bothered to bang on the wall or floor, signaling for him to shut up. So he swore some more, letting his cast and the enclosed limb rest in his lap.

The dream had been just that – a dream. But just like in the dream, Ally was gone. A dead and heavy feeling settled in his gut as he forced himself to face the fact, refusing to let his gaze wander to where his phone rested on top of his dresser. He wouldn’t call and ask her if she was okay. He knew better, and he was stronger than that. Barely.

* * * * *

The phone’s ringing jerked him out of a dream, one where he lost Ally to an explosion of light and sound again. He woke up dazed by the dreamed-of blast, fingertips aching beneath a coating of blood and dirt that he could still feel, though his hands were clean when he looked down.

He rose, took a halting step toward his dresser as his thigh twinged in protest, and reached for his phone.

It slipped between his fingers, hit the cheap beige carpet and bounced. After a couple seconds of heavy swearing, he had it again. Eyes blurry with interrupted sleep, he swiped a finger across the screen, his heart in his throat.

Maybe it was stupid – wrong, even – that the thought of talking to Ally had him choking on his own heart. He needed to stay away from her, to resist the urge to force his presence on her, but he was powerless to resist the call. And it had to be her, didn’t it?

Unless it was Feltz, or maybe Lowell – both part of a small handful of people who had his number. He had to clear his throat in order to speak. “Hello?” His voice came out hoarse, as if he really had just inhaled a cloud of desert dust.

“Ryan.” The voice was familiar and female.

It sent a bolt of cold disbelief down his spine. “Who is this?”

He knew. He knew who he was speaking to, but at the same time, his mind balked at the notion.

“It’s your mother.” The faintest note of offense was audible beneath the flat, measured tones she spoke in.

He breathed, in and out, strangely aware of the process. “What…” He fumbled for words, but his thoughts were still half inside his dream and half inside his memory. All he could think about was Ally, Afghanistan and Ally again. There just wasn’t any room in his head for the bizarre event that was his mother’s phone call.

“I said it’s your mother,” she repeated, apparently under the impression that he hadn’t heard her the first time.

“I heard you. It’s just … early, isn’t it?”

“It’s one o’clock in the afternoon.”

He glanced at the alarm clock on top of his dresser.

It was one o’clock.

“Were you asleep?”

His mother’s question hung in the air, accusatory – or at least, that was how it sounded.

“Never mind. I lost track of time.”

A thousand endless seconds seemed to tick by as he sat on the edge of his bed, saying nothing as his thigh muscles sent waves of agony through his leg. He couldn’t massage them – he held his phone in his good hand, his other resting uselessly on the mattress. Clenching his teeth, he stood. If he couldn’t rub the stiffness away, he’d just have to walk it off.

He emerged into the living area, still clutching the phone, saying nothing as his body begrudged him every step.

“Did you get the delivery?”

“What?”

“The delivery. It was supposed to arrive today by noon. I thought you’d be home since it’s Saturday, and I’d hoped you’d call.”

The door drew his gaze as a suspicious sort of bewilderment rose up inside him. “I didn’t get it.” As he spoke, he crossed the room and opened the front door.

A bouquet sat just beyond the threshold, a burst of colorful petals that looked bizarrely out of place. “Flowers?” Damn it, his voice still wasn’t right.

“Yes. You did get them?”

Like an idiot, he bent down and picked them up, resisting the urge to swear as the motion increased the ache in his thigh. Apparently the flowers had been sitting outside for at least an hour – it was kind of surprising that they were still there, really. “They’re here.”

There was a card on a little plastic prong. A phone number had been written on it, along with ‘Happy Birthday’ in cursive script.

Thanks
. The word echoed inside his skull, but his tongue defied him when he tried to say it. He couldn’t – there was just no fucking way. “They, uh, look expensive.”

As soon as the words were out of his mouth, he bit his tongue. What the hell was wrong with him? Bringing up money to either one of his parents … anything would’ve been a better subject.

“Don’t be silly. They’re just flowers. Your father and I wanted to let you know that we’re thinking of you. I know your birthday is tomorrow, but I couldn’t resist sending them early, now that I know where to send them.”

“You got my address from one of the guys from my old unit.” It was a statement, not a question – one he couldn’t have held back if he’d wanted to.

“Yes. One of your friends let us know that you’re not in the military anymore, and gave us your new address and phone number.”

He bit down a little harder on his tongue. None of the things he thought of saying were right. Was there even a right thing to say at all? As silence stretched, his mind drifted back to his dream. He’d been awake for a good ten minutes, but it was still vivid, searingly real inside his head. The sound of Ally’s pained breaths made every bit of him hurt – not just his fucked-up leg.

“That’s part of the reason why I called. Now that you’re out, your father and I would like to have you back home.”

Now that you’re out
. The words bounced around inside his skull, drowning out everything except the sound of Ally’s breathing – he could still hear that in the back of his head, no matter how hard he tried not to. “Now that I’m out.”

“Yes. You’re welcome here, you know.”

“I don’t live in New York anymore.” The obvious truth was a painfully inadequate expression of the anger that had pounced upon him, red-hot and brooding.

“But you could move back. We can set you up with a job, a place to live – a
nice
place. You know that, of course. You can come back as soon as you’d like and we’ll get it all worked out for you.”

“No. No, I’m not interested.”

“Ryan, please don’t feel like you have to let your pride stand in the way. We’re not worried about that. We just want to have you back here.”

Something inside him snapped, releasing a flood of venom he could feel working its way through his veins, invading him mind and body. “I said no.”

“But—” She paused mid-sentence, a rarity for her. “Ryan…” When she spoke again, she sounded genuinely bewildered. “What are you even
doing
in Baltimore? What is there for you there?”

He flung his phone with deliberate force, sending it flying across the apartment. It hit a cabinet and bounced off the stove before skittering across the kitchen floor in several pieces.

In three painful steps, he crossed the space between himself and the trashcan and threw the bouquet into it, experiencing the barest hint of satisfaction when the smell of decaying produce and coffee grounds rose up from its depths.

It didn’t last long. Empty-handed, he was still livid. The anger inside him was a living thing, pulsing and hungry for something to tear apart. Even if that something was his own sanity. So, with his body aching from sheer indignation, he simply stood, his fury eating away at him as he relived the conversation.

Now that you’re out.
Those were the words that had pierced a gaping hole in what self-restraint he possessed. Just ‘now that you’re out’ – no questions about why he was out early or what had happened. Only efforts to steamroll ahead with plans for what he should do now, like he was a fucking toddler instead of a man they hadn’t seen or even spoken to in years.

It was all about them – what they wanted, how he could make them happy.

They knew he hadn’t finished the four year period of service he’d enlisted for. They’d been there on the day he’d graduated from basic training. He could still remember facing them for the first time since leaving for boot camp, finally a marine after thirteen weeks of hell. The memory was burnt into his mind and served as a reminder of everything that was wrong with his family.

Throughout his thirteen weeks of training, he’d told himself not to expect them to show up at his graduation. They’d been so dead-set against him going, so angry that he’d enlisted. He’d tried his best to resign himself to the fact that no one would come to watch him in the ceremony. Still, deep-down, he’d thought – or at least hoped – that they’d attend.

A week before the ceremony they’d written to tell him that they’d bought tickets, that they’d be there. He’d saved the letter and had re-read it often, scanning the promises his parents had put in writing. A dozen weeks on Parris Island had made him crazy enough to actually miss his family, and the few letters he’d received had been like manna from heaven, even if they hadn’t said much.