Blind Love (Edited)

Chapter 13: "Double Date"

Bryan looked at his watch. The time on it was 8:30. He looked back up and as if on cue, Lance and Laura walked through the hallway and into the room.

"It smells delicious." Laura said looking at Landon and at Bryan.

"Amazing stuff, man." Lance said with his mouth still full of food.

Ugh, Laura thought, when will he be the good mannered young man I raised him to be?

Lance looked at his mother and noticed the weird look she was giving him. He swallowed the last bit of food that was left in his mouth and then asked, "What? What did I do?"

Laura gave up and she said nothing. Lance was great at everything else. He had learned from everything, but his eating habits were horrendous. She remembered that Liam had been very bad with his eating habits as well, but he at least kept it at bay whenever she was around. Thinking about the similarities between her husband and her son made her miss her husband more than anything. Even after all these years, Laura could still feel her husband's presence. Sometimes when she woke up in the mornings, Laura felt that Liam was sleeping right next to her. She felt his hand caress the side of her face. When she looked, there was nobody there, but the feeling of her husband's hand on her face, his scent and his outline were real. Maybe it was all in her head, but she never got rid of it. Every time she looked at Landon, she was reminded of Liam. They were so similar. Liam had the same face, the same tender look that Landon had before the accident and the one that sometimes appears in his eyes every once in a while. When Landon smiled, it was the splitting image of his father when he had been young. Laura would never forget Liam and as she thought this, she half finished her plate before leaving it on the counter and walking back to her room. Laura had to tidy up her bed, the bed that was too big for one person to sleep in alone, the bed that she had shared with her husband, the bed that still kept Liam's scent the same as if he was still there, the bed that her children had slept in when they had had nightmares and were too scared to go back to sleep. She fixed her bed and then, she began to cry.

~~~~~~~~~~

Landon was reflecting on the run he had just finished with his Uncle Bryan. At one point, Bryan stopped and he began to act weird. At first, Landon thought he was playing around but he soon realized that it was real. Bryan began shouting, "Be careful...it's wired. Don't wander off. Dominguez.....Dominguez come back...Domin-" Then Landon had hear how Bryan had just sighed and said nothing. Landon had asked him if he was okay and Bryan had answered with a simple yes and nothing more.

Landon knew that Bryan had entered the Army early on, right after he finished high school. Whenever Landon had asked him about the army, Bryan had always stayed quiet. He never talked about what happened while he was deployed. And when Landon had pushed to know what was going on, Bryan had lost it, yelling at him for the first time since ever. Landon had remembered feeling hurt and betrayed. Landon and Bryan were supposed to be the best of friends, they were supposed to be confidants. But later he learned that the Army was one of the things that was always off limits with Bryan, even if Landon had never really understood why.

Bryan came into his room and he sat next to Landon. When Landon was sure that Bryan wouldn't say anything, he asked him something he knew was off limits and had always been off-limits no matter how much he tried to get Bryan to tell him. "Hey, Uncle. May I ask you something that might upset you?"

"Sure," Bryan simply stated.

"This morning," Landon began," when we were out on the run, for a few seconds you kind of lost it. Then you screamed the name Dominguez."

At the mention of Dominguez, Bryan went pale and he just wondered how he was supposed to get out of this one. He understood that Landon was worried and he knew that the reason that Landon was being so cautious was that Bryan had yelled at him over all of this stuff. But now he couldn't hide it. Bryan had to tell someone what he'd seen, what he'd experienced. He had to because if he didn't he wouldn't be able to hold it in any longer. Landon was his favorite nephew, but he was more than that, he was an accomplice, a best friend. He had to tell him. Even if Landon's view of him dropped after telling the story that he dreaded to tell anyone, the one story that made him understand that war was not a joke. That war took innocent lives, it took the lives of those who were the most important to the others, the ones who had something to live for and kept the ones who didn't alive. He took a deep breath and then he looked at Landon. Then he began to tell his story, all of it. The Humvee, the explosion, the mine, Dominguez.