Before I had even set a foot down on the door mat, the door was pulled open and Cody was stood there looking over me, making sure I was okay. Relieved that I was here.
He stepped out to touch me but paused and gave me a sheepish smile "Hey."
"Hi." I mumbled slipping past him and into my home. Hearing the door shut, I looked back to find him wiping his palms down his jeans.
He was nervous, but it was the nervous tick and hand wiping that made me frown.
"What's wrong with you?" I asked instantly.
"Me? Nothing. I'm okay. Yeah. I'm good. Heh.." He answered before frowning to himself and hurrying to the chair across the other side of the room.
I watched as he pulled the table back in front of him and gently looked at the photos in front of him. All laid out, all frames and albums removed, just the developed pictures against the glass coffee table.
"You're missing one." He states making me look up to his face.
"What?"
"A photo." He responds casually "You're missing a photo."
What's he on about?
I moved around the couch and settled into the couch opposite him. "We need to talk..."
He nodded. "Definitely a picture missing."
Cody then grabbed the albums on the floor and began going through them erratically, his face getting more and more stressed by the second. His hands were almost frantic, until I pulled off the back case onto my phone and carefully removed the photo.
Swallowing back the emotions that welled up in my throat, I unfolded it gently and led it out on top of the coloured paper.
His hands stopped and eyes snapped to the picture. He looked at it for a few more seconds before pushing the albums onto the floor and picking up the photo.
"You found it." He smiled happily before sitting back, holding it against him.
It was of us, at the beach, we were sat with our backs to the Polaroid camera, whilst a stranger kindly took out photo as we watched the sunset. I didn't think it would work. I was wrong. The photo was beautiful, breathtakingly beautiful as when it went off, Cody was kissing my forehead and my hand was rubbing his back.
The day I got the knock at the door, the day my life as I knew it had ended. I cried until my soul hurt, I sobbed until I couldn't catch my breath and sometimes I passed out because of it.
They said they couldn't give details, just that he was killed in combat, but the information was slowly leaked out and I found that he had been burned alive. My poor baby would never come home, intact with a smile on his face. Instead I had this photo...
I clung to it, more than the rest as it was one of our last ones together. My mind concocted the perfect lie..
"I told myself that you were out at sea, not in the ground. That you were now roaming the waves, like some God, waiting for me to join you. Not cold in the ground."
"You almost sound disappointed that I'm alive." He responded.
I wanted to feel hurt, but I didn't, instead I rose to it. "It makes all this a little bearable. To know I was the one you came back for. The one that your heart still loved."
His eyes look to me in hurt.
"Because the day you left you made me a promise and you never broke those promises. You said—"
"I know what I said." He interrupted, he shifted back and pulled out his worn leather wallet, before carefully removing a photo that had been folded and unfolded so many times that it threatened to crumble.
It was that photo..
•••••••••
"Please don't cry. I'll be home before you know it." He whispers wiping my tears.
"I know, I'm just being silly. I'm going to miss you. That's all."
"I know sweetheart."
The car outside beeped making my heart leap. "I want to come with you." I begged.
"No. It will kill me to leave you on that tarmac as I go. Or even outside the base. I love you so much Leah."
"Please... Please just tell them you're sick or something. I'll tell them?"
"I'm making this country better, for us, for our children and our children's children. "
"Let someone else do it. Please Cody."
"One action from me could stop a war, I need to be apart of that." He insisted as I broke down and cried into his neck.
The car beeped outside again and I wanted to go out there and scream at it to bugger off.
Cody began to withdraw, making my fists clench his clothes tighter. "No. No please I-"
"Let me go baby. Let me go."
"But I'm scared!" I cried.
This is by far the worst I've ever been and maybe it was because I had hopes and dreams? Maybe it was because we had led in bed and talked about our forever, together?
"I'm sorry." He whispered kissing my forehead before removing my hands. "Please stop crying. Be brave for me. Please..."
My mind got angry and I pulled myself up straight and suppressed anymore sobs that threatened to come. "Fine. Go. That precious fucking job is more important than me! Clearly!"
His shoulders dropped. "Lamb..."
"Go!" I ordered turning away from him as I held my heart, worried it was going to fall out my chest the second I removed my hand.
I didn't move until I heard the door close. I didn't breathe until that final click signalled that I was alone.
Then fear filled my body. Fear took me over at the idea of him being distracted whilst away. That something would happen and my last words would be those...
My eyes tore to the table and I grabbed a photo before running out the door. I looked outside frantically to see him walking towards the car that was picking him up.
"CODY!" I screamed as I ran to him. My fingers clutching the photo as if it's all I had.
When he turned, I almost balled us both onto the ground as I flung myself into his arms. "I'm sorry! I'm sorry! I didn't mean it! I love you! I love you so much!"
His arms tightened around my body. "I know Lamb."
"I know you have to go but I need you to come back to me. Promise me."
He nodded and pulled back to hold my face "I promise you. I'll come back to you."
There was conviction in his eyes as well as promise and he had yet to break a promise to me.
"T-take this." I struggled pushing the Polaroid into his hand.
He glanced down at it before smiling and accepting it. "But you need this for...."
"What I need is you. I will always need you. Your promise is enough. We can create new photos but I can't create a new you. So please don't do anything stupid. Please."
He nodded and tucked it into his pocket. "I'm quitting as soon as I'm on my way home. I'll take a job on the trash lorry. So long as I'm home with you. So long as we have each other and some beautiful babies."
I smiled kissing him again. "I'll always want you. Now stand sharp Corporal Cody Lawson."
He straightened instantly.
My eyes watered instantly "You do your job, you be brave and you come back to me. Do you hear me?"
"Yes ma'am."
"And when you come home, you're giving me a baby and started a new life as a husband and a father. Are we clear?"
"Yes ma'am."
"I can't hear you!"
"Yes ma'am!"
"For those at the back that can't hear and now think you're a weak ass bitch. Are we clear?!"
"YES MA'AM!" He yelled making me smile.
I gave him one final kiss before pushing my forehead against his. "Now keep your eyes closed, turn and fall out. You don't look back. Do you hear me?"
"Y-yes m-ma'am." He stuttered.
"Now get the fuck out of here and come home in one piece, ready to make babies." I stepped back and watched as he followed my command. Holding a hand over my mouth to stop any sounds, I watched him leave.
He didn't turn, he didn't look back but one of his men got out the car and slapped him on the back before giving me a nod. I returned it, almost a silent agreement to keep him safe.
And then they were gone.
I was numb when I walked back. My legs took me to the bedroom as I pulled off my shirt, picked up the one he had left on the bed for me and pulled it on.
Then I fell into the mattress, hugging his pillow and letting the pain take over. Because that's what was going to get me by for the next few months. Pain.
•••••••
"You never did come back to me.." I whispered wiping the tears off my face.
"Life had changed. War had changed me. What I saw and experienced. That changed me. I came back and was told you had someone else, you didn't wait for me. So I tried to patch myself up and move on.."
"With Trey's girlfriend."
He lowered his head "You don't know how responsible I feel for his death. I told him to run, I tried to do the right thing."
"Sometimes the right thing, can be the wrong thing."
He nodded "I know. They said it happened, mistakes. But it's a pretty fucking big one to make. When they told Cassie... And TJ, he slowly came out his bedroom, expecting his father, to find me. The fuck up who made the mistake, the one who screwed any chance of his daddy coming home."
"And you ended up with her."
"The road wasn't as smooth as that. We were both grieving, her for Trey, me for you." He shook his head. "It happened, the moment I realised what I had done. Sleeping with her, I knew then I could never go back. I could never come back to you. Even if you didn't want me."
"So why now?"
"I had to see your face. To put an end to this.. This pain every time I open my damn wallet."
He dropped the Polaroid of us together wrapped in post coital bliss. Where my cheeks were still a little flush but I held the camera up anyway, his face was in my hair and my terrible angle meant half of his head was cut off, but he had me, grinning like an idiot, with a sheet over me for modesty, although it did very little to hide me.
"I carried it on me all the time. I would look at it when things got too much. I'd hold it to my chest.. I'd sleep with it. With you, over my heart. Then one morning, you were gone and the a few of the men were jeering, looking at your photo. I flipped. I got reprimanded for fighting, but they had you. And you were mine."
"Then why didn't you come back and fight for me then?"
"I wanted you happy. I saw how upset you were when I left. How could I do it again?"
"You said—"
"That I'd quit. Yeah... And I have. Because now I'm damaged goods. PTSD. Doesn't help when you're in combat and you're in a corner, crying, in piss soaked pants because you're terrified."
My heart ached.
"The thunder last night?" He asked getting up and moving over to the under stair cupboard, he opened it up revealing a pillow and blanket.
"Oh Cody.."
"And that face is why I couldn't come back. Pity. Sympathy. I can't take it. I can't let you understand. I was a man, a fighter when I went. Now I'm... I'm useless!"
"No you're not." I argued.
"I am. I know I am..."
He sat back down and looked back at the photos. His mood flipped and he smiled "Remember this one at the fair?"
I looked at the photo in his hand and nodded. It came about very quickly, that when we first got together, we took a camera everywhere. I knew there were boxes of photos all around my home, filled with memories. But the recent ones were in albums, laid in front of Cody who had taken them from their preserving state, to look at them, unburdened from plastic. He wanted to touch the photos, trace my face like he was doing now as he looked at another.
"I've really messed this up, haven't I?"
I remained quiet, not wanting to deal him another blow, I didn't wish to cause him unnecessary pain, like he didn't to me either.
"Who said I moved on? That I didn't want to see you?" I asked curiously.
"My mom.."
I scoffed. "I never was good enough for you, was I? Not since Ellen Peters. Surprised you're not married to her."
Ellen Peters was the girl he was suppose to marry. To have a family with. Daughter of a some big honcho in the forces, I didn't care much for her or her family. But Cody's mom did, in fact, I am sure she would happily sell Cody as some man slave. So long as she got to keep her military advantages of private gym services, healthcare and social clubs.
"I can't believe she said..." he shook his head and straightened the pictures before wiping his hands on his pants again. He shook his hands before looking down at the photos again. "W-who is he? The man, you were with last night?"
I don't want to do this, talk about Zak to a man I once gave everything too. I can still remember the moment he glanced my way when we were out with mutual friends. How my heart did a funny beat, how I felt a little sick because of the flapping in my tummy....
How could I stop loving him?
Maybe I was wired up wrong? That the doctors slapped my mom instead of me for producing such a screw up.
I needed him to hate me. If he hated me, then maybe he would walk away. I would accept that there's nothing there, no chance, no hope, no future.
Do you really want that though?
So I went in with a hard, almost pre truth. The small difference between the truth and a lie.
"I've been sleeping with men for money."
His face shot to mine.
Yes, Cody.. I went from grieving ex fiancée, to a hooker. All in the name of love...
•••••••••••••••••
Second update because I can. Thinking about doing a few chapters of when they first met? Any thoughts on if that's a good idea?
I feel there's a story to tell of Cody and Leah. To understand her struggle & his attempts to hold on, even if he's married another woman.
Yay? Or nay? Lemme know your thoughts!
Ps. England won their match last night. BUZZING. - when people ask if I'm into football? I say no..
I was screaming the house down with excitement last night and almost gave myself an anxiety attack in the penalties. 💁🏻
I'm a mess, I know. 🙈 Also noticed some authors doing 'Ask the writer' where readers submit questions which are then placed in a book online and I answer. Another potential idea. But then you guys might not have questions..
#DecisionsOfTheWriter - Real Talk.