Beyond the Point(27)
“Sorry,” Hannah said, though she wasn’t sure why she was apologizing—he was the one standing in her way.
“No problem,” he said with confidence. “I was just checking on your TP supply. Someone said you guys were running low.”
Something about his story didn’t exactly add up. Hannah had never heard of a cadet working at the Holleder Center—and didn’t they have janitors to resupply toilet paper? Perhaps he’d been in trouble with his company or sports team. Could he be cleaning as punishment? If she’d had more time, she would have asked him. But she was already late.
“Oh, okay. Thanks,” she said, stepping around him to push through the locker room door. “See ya.”
“Yep,” he said. “See ya.”
In the empty locker room, Hannah dropped her bag, changed clothes, and quickly forgot about Collins. It didn’t matter why he was snooping around the Holleder Center. She needed to get out onto the court, and fast, before Coach J had her running suicides until she puked. Again. On a normal day, being this late would have put her in a panic. But Hannah couldn’t help but smile, thinking about Colonel Bennett’s last words before she’d left his classroom.
“Someone’s got to keep that Nesmith on his toes.”
He was right. And something inside Hannah’s heart told her she just might be the perfect girl for the job.
7
Summer 2001 // West Point, New York
Here’s your bay number, Cadet McNalley. Grab your rucksack from the truck. Cross over the gravel road. Bay number eight is a half mile up the hill to the left. Next.”
Camp Buckner, part of West Point’s military training ground, was located five miles from campus in the middle of the woods. It looked like the set of Dirty Dancing, only Patrick Swayze had been replaced by countless other shirtless boys, pretending to be on a mission. A group of guys commanded the volleyball court, already midgame. Another group carried kayaks out onto the lake. Cicadas, mosquitoes, and gnats buzzed around her, adding to the hum of the afternoon. Now, this is college, Dani thought to herself as she received her packet of information from the cadet behind the table and then moved back outside into the mid-July heat. A closed-lipped smile spread across her face.
Of course, all the fun happening today would end abruptly tomorrow when training began.
IN ONE YEAR at West Point, Dani had already learned that friendships born in comfortable circumstances rarely last when times get tough. Her friends from high school just didn’t understand. There was something about being dirty, wet, and exhausted that forced two people to look one another in the eye and burst out laughing. When you get to the end of your rope, and the person next to you is at the end of theirs, it’s possible to find a secret joy that you’re simply surviving together. It was how she and Tim had become such great friends last summer, and how the entire varsity basketball team had bonded, over their shared hatred of Coach Jankovich.
People assumed they would have better friends if they hosted better parties. But the opposite was true. Shared suffering led to unshakeable connections. Pain wanted you to stop. Give up. Quit. But the truth was, you could go so much further than your body said you could, because when the body quit, the heart took over, and the heart was far more powerful than any muscle in the body. It had led women to lift cars off children. It had led men to sacrifice their own lives for their friends—even some for their enemies.
You couldn’t teach that kind of strength. You had to live it. You had to believe what others who had been to that dark place told you. In whispers. In silence. “Trust me. There’s joy down there.”
You could believe them, but you still had to live it.
For the next eight weeks, the entire class of 2004 would live it. Together, they would learn to fire cannons, care for the wounded, shoot live rounds, complete urban missions, overcome a water obstacle course, and navigate through the woods with nothing but a gun, a compass, and a map. The entire place was like a little boy’s dream camp, filled with real tanks, helicopters, and even a handful of enemy combatants—enlisted soldiers from nearby Fort Drum who would dress up like rebel fighters. Buckner would be far better than last year’s Basic Training because she could talk, and because she no longer walked around with eyes permanently bulging. All of the upperclassmen had promised this would be the best summer of her life. And even though their words were drenched with sarcasm, Dani knew they were right.
A year ago, her idea of a dream camp had included a basketball, a hoop, and maybe a few good-looking coaches thrown in. But the Army? Field training? When did I become so gung-ho? Dani wondered. But she didn’t have enough time to consider what a difference a year makes, because at that moment, an Army Humvee arrived, stuffed to the brim with rucksacks—one of which was hers. She needed to find it and go claim a bunk bed before the only one left was above a girl who snored.
AS SHE APPROACHED the truck, three boys opened the hatch and climbed up to start unloading. The tallest of the group was an African-American kid Dani hadn’t seen before. He wore his camouflage pants high on his waist, with a belt cinched tight around his hips. There was something otherworldly about him; his dark hair had been shaved close to his head, and he maneuvered the heavy luggage with ease. The more he worked, the silkier his dark brown skin looked in the sun, and Dani felt suddenly embarrassed. She wasn’t normally one to gawk—but, Lord, she thought, he is not normal.