Deserved

2.

I thought of myself as a rock in the ocean.

The kind that juts out of the surf, waves passing over it every day. Sometimes rocky, sometimes calm, but always there. Uninhabitable land. Stark and alone. Standing here on the pebbled beach I laced my hands behind my head and admired the rising sun. Another night of evasive sleep, a mind that had no off switch and the desire to be outside and let nature soothe me the way it always had. Out in Iraq, I loved to watch dawn fill the sky with pink streaked light, sitting on the edge of the mountain, palms skimming through dust as the world slowly came to life. I heard the tumbling of stones behind me, and turned my head to see Hunter approaching, beer in hand.

The breakfast of champions.

'Dude you need sleeping pills or something, you must be fucking exhausted.'

Hunter stood beside me, watching me chug down a dose of fine, light ale. It washed away the stale taste of sleep, or rather lack of it, and quelled my parched throat.

Pills did fuck all.

'Whats your excuse? It's not midday.' I teased him. Hunter only emerged from his cave once the day was half over. We never talked about it, but I wondered whether he sought solitude in sleep. When I closed my eyes, I saw every detail of the lowest moments of my life, in high definition detail, colours heightened, pain raw and unrelenting. Sometimes they all balled together like some dizzying, psychotic rollercoaster ride and left me unable to sleep for weeks. Nowadays I maintained a light slumber, never capable of any more than four hours. When I woke, I'd always be sheathed in sweat, body shaking, and with the bed covers strewn all over the floor. Once I even smashed a hole in the wall beyond the headrest, leaving the bed linen streaked with blood.

The one night I'd slept with a woman in the past five years had ended badly. I'd been plagued by nightmares and she'd been terrified, as I flailed and thrashed. I'd never seen her again, and that was no surprise to me. At six foot two it wasn't the height aspect that had the right kind of women running for the hills. Nor was it the extensive ink that draped my torso, or the bulk of muscle that I'd diligently built up over time. It was the emotional incapability. I came across as cold and detached, maybe even aggressive. And I knew I could be fearsome at times. Once, in a fit of rage following a bar fight with an unruly customer, I'd charged through to my living quarters, lungs seething with fiery anger, and caught sight of myself in the chipped mirror above the sink.

I scared myself, and shit that look some doing.

'Dom?' Hunter punched me on the arm. 'You're a shitty listener, I ever tell you that?'

'What?' I shook off my daze, and he gestured back towards the house, where a dark haired woman covered in a patchwork quilt rocked back and forth on the porch swing.

'I was just saying, Amber stayed over last night.'

'Amber...' I looked back towards the house again, and the girl waved, and it hit me. She was one of the groupies. Not the one I'd been hassled by of late, but a girl I'd met dozens of times before. She was a cute brunette, tall, willowy and with a wild, curly mane.

'Yeah....she stayed over. We talked. It was nice.'

'Talked?'

He kicked the stones, acting like some bashful kid. I'd never seen him like this before. He had his own issues with commitment, he'd been fucked around by a girl he loved I knew that much. This was pretty huge for him.

'Well, ya know, we did some other stuff too.' He clinked his bottle with mine. 'I'm taking her out tonight, you think you can run the bar on your own chief?'

I rolled my eyes and shook my head. 'Come on man, you know last night was the last night of the season. From hereon out its gonna be you, me, Larry and those old biker guys. Go have some fun.'

'Yes sir.' Hunter saluted, and it took me back. Back to a moment I didn't want to remember. A time when the sky looked just as it did now, and instead of standing against the tide, a lake kissed my toes, and the mountains loomed behind me like a bad omen.

'Makes you think of her, huh.'

I swallowed, knowing that in this instance, Hunter knew exactly how I felt. There was this quiet brotherhood between us. Something stronger and more binding than blood. Sometimes in life, an event can glue two people together with links that nothing can sever. He and I would always have a kinship that no third party would ever understand. They couldn't.

'Yeah.' That was all I could say, as anguish welled inside me like a vicious tide, pooling in my throat and making my fists clench so tightly that the bottle slipped from my hand. The glass chinked against the stones, and Hunter and I stood side by side, listening to the sound of the ocean. The cooing of birds overhead, the distant squeak of the swing, rolling back and forth, and the indescribable bubbling sound of the water before us. I retrieved my beer and saw her face, clear as day. As if she was standing right in front of me, her glossy black hair dancing around her tiny heart shaped face.

'Dommy play!' She urged me, her voice resounding in my ears. I saw her huge dark, almost black eyes, and the little brown bear I'd gifted to her for her fifth birthday. Even then, we knew she had little time left, we knew the effects of chemical warfare had shortened her life, and we knew the man responsible had been hung. But it didn't change anything. Not for Bahra. Not for her family. Her parents had been unable to conceive another child. She was their sunshine, the light in their eyes.

And for a long time, she was the light in mine.

I told myself over and over not to get attached to anyone. To anything. To anywhere. But it was impossible. Hunter felt it too. Looking back, maybe she was already an angel, maybe someone up there knew we needed something. Even after everything she'd been through, her endless medical problems that required money her family didn't have, for treatment that could not be administered unless she left the country and travelled to Syria. A UN doctor had told them, when she was just three, that she would likely survive just one more year if that. She was a miracle. A beacon of irrepressible light. And we loved teaching her English, seeing the joy in her face as we played football with the other kids in the village and raised her above our heads when she scored a goal.

The truth was, we let her win every time, just to see her smile.

My breath caught in my throat, and I looked over at Hunter, for the first time since the day she passed. I remember seeing this newly laid back, level headed man, crumble as her mother held her tiny body. He chugged on his beer some more, jaw twitching. I know if we'd made eye contact his eyes would be wet with unshed tears. Just like mine. But I also knew that we were soldiers. Sworn in to protect the country we loved. And in the end, we swore to protect a country we'd come to love. A country that was once our enemy, led by a ruthless, savage, murderous individual.

'You know we couldn't have done anything, don't you.'

I raised my head, but not to acknowledge his words. I found myself watching a bird swoop down and attempt to catch some breakfast.

'You know I don't talk bullshit, Dom, and you know that emotional mumbo jumbo ain't my bag.' He cleared his throat. 'But she was like this ball of sunshine. We both felt it. We were two broken assholes, lost in our own minds, a million miles from home but we stayed there for her. For all those people that we helped.'

'But we couldn't help her.' I responded, so abruptly that I caught him off guard.

He held up his hands, as if in defence.

'She's gone, and we're still here. Doesn't that make you want to live. For her?'