Prologue
They sayno amount of guilt can change the past.
As I stood in the deafening silence with the gathered crowd of family, friends, and fellow brothers and sisters in their military dress, all solemnly staring at the flag-draped casket, I wished that were a lie. Because if so, my guilt couldcertainlychange the outcome of that day.
I didn’t go straight home to Bayport Cove for my post-deployment leave, a deployment during which my unit was sent home early after a drone strike on our duty station. Instead, I headed to Charleston to show up for Noah’s wife and their one-year-old twins for his funeral.
Today, for the first time in two weeks, I could admit—silently to myself, at least—that I was not okay.
I’d been forcing myself not to grasp the reality of it all. Trying to make myself believe it was just some nightmare I was going to wake up from. Like I didn’t really watch the light fade from his eyes right in front of me. And at my own damn hands.But staring at that flag-draped casket—seeing his wife Melanie sitting between her parents, a baby on each lap, tears rolling down her cheeks—it made this shit as real as it gets.
He was gone. And I was not okay.
Noah Alden and I met four years ago in training after we enlisted in the Army at the start of our final years of residency at Duke University. We didn’t know each other prior, but we were the same age, from nearby towns, both going for emergency medicine, and had the same interests and hobbies.
We just…clicked.
He came from a less fortunate background than I did, but he worked his ass off to get where he was, and I respected the hell out of him for it. He was one of the most down-to-earth, kindest people I’d ever had the pleasure of knowing, and I was damn proud to call him my friend.
I only wished I could have shown up for him the way he would have done for me had our roles been reversed that fateful day. If I could trade places with him…I would in a heartbeat.
I failed Noah, and in turn, his wife and his children. And I would spend the rest of my life carrying the weight of that guilt on my shoulders.
It was the least I deserved.
I watched seven men step to the casket—three on each side and one at the end. As the ones on each side strategically took hold of the flag’s edges and lifted it, the one at the end raised his hand in a solemn salute and held it there. Every military member present followed suit, raising their hands to salute.
Seven more men stood in a line a distance away from the grave site. Their movements were precise and mechanical as they began shifting their rifles into position following a series of commands from another standing behind them.
“Ready. Aim. Fire.”
The first volley sounded, and I tensed as my chest tightened with my hard gaze locked on the casket.
With the second volley, my jaw clenched and my eyes stung.
At the third and final volley, the hand at my side balled into a fist, the other still holding salute as I felt a lone tear slide down my cheek.
I’m so fucking sorry.
The words screamed inside of me with jagged desperation while the bugle played Taps. I hoped that somehow, wherever he was, it would get to him. That he knew I never meant for this to happen. That I never meant for his life to be cut short, to leave his wife a widow and his children without a father.
The air seemed to turn deathly still once the bugle stopped. As the six men holding the flag began to carefully fold it, only the light sniffles from Melanie and the other mourners could be heard breaking the silence.
Once the flag was folded, it was passed to another man. He turned, walked to Melanie, and leaned forward to present it to her as he lowered his voice. “On behalf of the President of the United States, the United States Army, and a grateful nation, please accept this flag as a symbol of our appreciation for your loved one’s honorable and faithful service.”
A quiet sob escaped her. She kept her arms around the twins and lifted her trembling hands to take the flag that served as the last searing reminder of what they’d lost.
Once the service had concluded, everyone stopped to speak to Melanie on their way out while her parents took the twins.
I lingered in the same spot I’d been standing in. Hesitating. Debating.
I knew I should go speak to her. She was probably expectingme to. But in the end, I couldn’t bring myself to face her. I couldn’t look into her eyes, knowing what I had cost her. And I was afraid that if I did, the last thread of my already fraying composure would break.
So, I quietly slipped away while she was occupied with others.
As I turned away from the burial site to head back toward the parking lot, my mind was a whirlwind of too many thoughts—and not good ones. I happened to glance up toward the edge of the grass along the cemetery pathway, and my steps slowed to a stop. My chest tightened and I clenched my jaw, fighting back another wave of emotion.
There stood my older brother, Gabe, and my two best friends, Lucas and Wes.
