Something Like Normal(40)

“Why did you sleep with my girlfriend?”

“You get everything, Travis,” he says.

“What exactly do I have that you haven’t taken, Ryan?” I ask. “You hang out with my friends, drive my car, and steal my girlfriend while I’m in Afghanistan. What more do you want from me? I have nightmares that keep me up at night. You’re fucking welcome to those.”

Ryan doesn’t say anything for a moment. He just looks at the floor. But when he looks up at me, his face is still hard. “I can take one more thing,” he says. “You tell Harper or I will.”

Shit.

When he’s gone and I’m alone, I return to my laptop and the words are still there waiting. Cursor blinking.

Charlie Sweeney was

There’s no way I’m going to think of anything tonight. Not with Ryan’s threat hanging over me. I close the laptop and get into bed.

I’m walking down a road in Marjah as the muezzin sings the haunting call, summoning the faithful to prayer. A mud-colored dog lifts its head to watch as our patrol passes by. First me, then Charlie and Moss. Peralta is behind them. The hair on the back of my neck sets me on alert. Something isn’t right. But when I try to call out to my friends, my voice won’t come. My hands won’t lift to flag them down. My feet feel as if they are rooted to the ground. Charlie takes a step forward, his foot landing on the pressure plate of a bomb, and the explosion rattles my teeth, my bones. A cloud of dust envelops him. Shrapnel from the bomb, hidden in the base of a tree, riddles his body and he falls. Movement comes rushing back to my limbs, but when I reach him the world tilts. I’m the one on the ground, not Charlie. I’m the one sprayed with shrapnel that sends searing pain through me. Above me is an Afghan boy. One I’ve seen before in the streets, begging for whatever we have to offer. He smiles at me as I die.

My blood is rushing in my ears as I lie in the dark with only a dream, only a dream, only a dream repeating in my mind like a mantra. The words don’t help. They can’t blot out the nightmare. I reach for the bottle of pills on the nightstand and after I take two, I call Harper.

“Travis?” Her voice is gravelly with sleep.

“I forgot it’s the middle of the night.”

“Shouldn’t you be sleeping?”

“I had a nightmare, so I’m awake,” I say. “I just took my prescription.”

“Do you want me to stay on the phone until you get sleepy?”

“Do you mind?”

She’s quiet for a beat and I wonder if she’s mentally calculating the hours between now and the time she has to get up for work. I almost hang up so she can go back to sleep, but then she says, her voice soft and low, “I don’t mind.”

Harper talks for a while. About the sea turtles. About how she’s ready to go to college, but that she’ll miss her dad when she’s gone. About the crab trap they keep in the canal behind their house.

“Depending on the season, we’ll get blues or stone crabs,” she says. “Usually we’ll boil them and freeze the meat until we have enough for crab cakes. Or sometimes we’ll make crab dip or alfredo pasta.”

“I like crab.” I’m starting to get tired and it’s making me talk like a three-year-old.

“Me, too,” she says. “It’s my favorite. Maybe, um—maybe I’ll make you crab cakes sometime.”

“Okay.” A yawn overtakes me.

“Travis?” she says.

“What?”

“Sweet dreams.”

“I hope so,” I say. “I’m really tired of the bad ones.”

“Talk to you tomorrow?”

“Okay.” I feel the sleep wave approaching. The one where your words will wash away if you don’t say them. “I’m really sorry.”

She probably thinks I’m apologizing for waking her up, but before I can tell her that it’s for what happened with Paige, she whispers good night and hangs up. At least I think she does. I’m not sure because I’m asleep.





Chapter 12

The sun has barely broken the horizon a few days later, when I pull the Jeep into the driveway at Harper’s house. She’s waiting on the front porch swing with a yellow duffel bag beside her.

“Hey, you,” she calls over the rumble of the engine as she throws the duffel in the back and swings up into the passenger’s seat. I catch a whiff of sunscreen as she leans over to drop a kiss on my cheek.

“Hey back,” I say. “Thanks for coming with me.”

“Sure.”

“I can’t promise it’s going to be a good time.”

“That’s okay.” I can’t see her eyes behind her sunglasses, but she’s smiling as she twists her hair up into a knot. She makes messy look so damn good. “I’ve never been to St. Augustine. Have you?”

“Nope.”

She’s happy and I don’t want to spoil it by telling her about Paige. She’s going to be pissed. Now would be the perfect time, so she still has a chance to get out of the Jeep and leave me. But I don’t want that to happen, so I throw it in reverse, spitting gravel as I back out into the street.

“I brought music.” Harper reaches back to her duffel and pulls out her iPod. “What do you want to hear?”