I’m such a fucking coward.
I told myself I was protecting her, but the truth is uglier — I was protecting myself. Because loving someone like her means having something else to lose, and I’ve already lost enough.
The worst part?
I knew what I was doing.
I knew the second she laughed at something stupid, when she bit her lip like it held every secret she’d never dared to say aloud, when she kissed the mirror like she was leaving proof that she existed — I knew.
I was going to ruin her.
I should’ve left her alone. Should’ve walked away after that first taste.
But I didn’t.
I pressed her into that mirror like I could trap the moment in glass.
I kissed her like it was the last breath I’d ever take.
And then I fucking left.
Because that’s what I do.
That’s what war taught me.
Survival is not a love story — it’s a body count.
And if I stay… she’ll be next.
I drag a hand through my hair and pace the edge of the hotel balcony like gravity is the only thing keeping me from jumping out of my own goddamn skin. The city roars below — sirens, engines, laughter, arguments, life happening without hesitation.
Up here, it’s quiet.
But not in my head.
In my head, it’s still Fallujah. Still the red zone. Still blood on my boots and brothers zipped into bags. Still screaming in a language I never understood except for the sound of grief.
Yesterday, a phone call snapped me back into all of it.
Thirty days.
Thirty days and they want me back.
One more op.
One more lie.
One more shot at pretending this isn’t killing me.
They said I’m the only one who can do it.
But I don’t know if I have anything left to give — not to them, not to anyone, especially not her.
And still… still, I fucking ache for her.
Not just in my cock. Not just in that twisted part of me that wants to take her against a wall until the world stops spinning and every nightmare drowns beneath the sound of her moaning my name.
I ache for her in the way a soul aches when it realises home isn’t a place — it’s a person.
