Captured(69)

She clings to me in her sleep. It took some getting used to, as I’ve never shared a bed before, but it was something I absolutely cherished getting used to. I would wake up in the middle of the night, drowsy and bleary and confused, and Reagan would be curled up on the other side of the bed, at the very edge. And just as I was about to reach for her, she would murmur and mumble, roll toward me, grab my thigh and pull me closer, tucking her head against my chest, and nuzzle against me. She’d fling her arm across my waist, run her hands sleepily over my hip and stomach again and again until she was satisfied I was there. I’m guessing that was it—confirming that I’m real, and there with her. I know that feeling. It’s how I wake up every morning.

Is she real? Am I here, in her bed? In…our…bed? I get to touch her? Hold her, kiss her? Yes, I do. Thanks to god or whatever powers may or may not exist. Whatever concatenation of events led me to this place, this time, wherein I get to bask in the bliss of waking up next to Reagan every morning….

Thank you.

Because it’s the best my life has ever been.

And it’s all because of what happened to Tom.

I’m not sure I can be thankful for that. I can’t go there, mentally. I can only be thankful for now.

Usually I’m the first to wake up. This morning I’ve been awake for a few minutes, watching her sleep, memorizing her features. Inscribing in my heart and mind the feel of her in my arms. And then she’ll make this little noise in the back of her throat, a stretching kind of moan—mmmmmmmmm—and her lovely pale blue eyes will be slits through her eyelids, and she’ll arch her back, sheet falling away to bare her lush, round tits. She’ll stretch her arms over her head, fists clenched and shaking as she tenses every muscle. I’m powerless to do anything but watch, and drink in her endless beauty. When the stretch ends, she somehow winds up molded to me, hair tousled and tickling my skin, her lips grazing my chest.

Of course, by then my hands are exploring her, and her lips find mine, and our bodies meet and merge. I slide into her, and she moans. Then she’ll straddle me, but she doesn’t sit up, doesn’t ride me. This, in the mornings, is about closeness. She presses every last millimeter of her body against mine, lips to lips, until we can’t keep the kiss going and she has to seek purchase on my body, toes scrabbling against my calves, mouth on my collarbone to muffle her moans, hands in my hair and fisting in the pillow.

It’s not until we’ve found mutual release in each other—always protected—that we exchange “good morning” and “I love you,” and get up for coffee and breakfast and the day’s work.

Fifteen days.

On the sixteenth day, nearing three months from the day I walked out of the hospital in San Antonio, things change. I walk into the farmhouse, sweaty from building a deck on the back of the house. It’s late afternoon. I hear a phone ring, once, twice, three times.

I hear Reagan’s voice: “Hello?” I hear the shift in her tone as she responds to whatever was said on the other end of the line. “I—Yes. Yes, he is. Okay. Okay, thanks. ’Bye.”

I lean against the kitchen counter, watching Tommy stacking Duplos as high as he can, then knocking over the tower. I feel heaviness in my chest. That wasn’t a good phone call.

She comes into the kitchen, and she’s pale. Her hands are clasped in front of her stomach. Her eyes on mine are fearful, worried. “That was an officer from Camp Lejeune.”

“Shit.”

“They’re looking for you. They asked if you—if you were here. I told them you were. I’m sorry, I just I couldn’t—”

I cross the space between us in two strides, grab her, and pull her against me. “Of course you couldn’t lie. I wouldn’t expect anything less from you, Reagan.”

“They’re coming here. What do they want, Derek?”

“Me. Guess they want me back.” I try to sound casual.

“Will they—” She stifles a sob. “Will they send you…back?”

I can only shake my head and shrug. “I don’t know. I’ll do my damnedest to get out of it, but…if they say ‘go,’ there ain’t much I can do except go.”

“You can’t. You can’t.” Her fingers claw into my back. “I can’t—I can’t send you off, too. Not you. Not again. I did it for eight years with Tom. And I lost him. I can’t lose you, too. I just got you, Derek. You can’t go.”

I have no words of comfort. “I don’t want to go.”

“How can they make you? After what you went through, how can they make you?”

“I’m a United States Marine. They own me.” Truth is a bitter f*cking pill sometimes.

Heaven is a delicate, fragile thing. A brittle cocoon spun of ghost-thin dreams and ethereally faint hope.

So easily shattered.





*





They didn’t waste any time. They arrive the next morning at nine, in a Humvee. I see the dust of their arrival and wait for them on the front porch. I’m wearing a pair of jeans and nothing else, no shirt, barefoot. Drinking a beer. Stubborn.

I’m not a Marine anymore is the message.

Reagan is inside, sitting on the couch. Curled up, a yellow legal pad on her thighs, a black ballpoint pen scribbling frantically. She won’t look at me. Tommy is watching Jake and the Neverland Pirates. I know the names of his favorite shows now.