Illya
“So . . . ” Breaking the silence only when we’d turned off my block, Theo gripped the wheel with his good hand and held up his right with a sidelong glance. “I was in Afghanistan about three years ago when my convoy was attacked.”
He hesitated, his jaw ticking noticeably as he flexed his fingers, and my eyes widened in horror. My heart nearly stopped beating at that short but powerful confession, and I covered my mouth to hide my gasp even though it echoed in the car. Theo chuffed lightly, his lips twisting in a rueful smirk, and he reached over the center console to set his mangled hand on my knee.
“Technically, my ring finger got shot off at the first knuckle, but a bullet went through the tire I was behind, and the rubber exploded and sliced them both clean off. I got med-evac’d to the States, and they decided that since I wasn’t useful anymore that they should discharge me. When I got out of the hospital, after agreeing to go to PT that I never went to.” Theo cast me an almost fondsmile— the softest, gentlest smile yet— and my heart throbbed painfully as his fingers flexed against my jeans. “They gave me a bunch of money and forgot about me. My family acted like nothing was wrong, which was inarguably worse than being shoved out of the Marines before I was even conscious.”
I opened my mouth only for nothing to come out, not even air, and Theo cleared his throat roughly.
“I was four months into being a civvi when I was invited to my sister’s house. To be honest, I wanted to go, which was my first mistake. It was a family thing. She was having a gender reveal thing. Anyway, I’m there, and I don’t drink so I’m stone-cold sober when she comes up to me and asks me to do something that required both my hands.” A gasp of foreboding wrenched from my throat, and Theo grunted in acknowledgment as his expression darkened. “I obviously can’t do shit with this hand, so I told her so. She said to my face, in front of fifty-odd family members and kids, that my fingers getting blown off shouldn’t affect what I’m capable of doing, and that I should try harder.”
“Oh, no.”
“Oh, yeah. I basically told her if that’s what she thought, I’d happily cut off her fucking fingers and see how much she likes it. My sister wasn’t too excited about that. That was the point when I decided . . . fuck it. I’m the oldest of six, and I’m being treated like that after being a Marine for eleven years? It was a huge thing. She started freaking the fuck out, and I put her hand on the table and pulled out my knife. I’m not gonna lie— I probably could’ve handled it better. The police got called. I got put in jail, and she pressed charges. At court, the old-as-dirt judge was a Vietnam vet and sided with me, but I got a protection order slapped on me. Honestly, it was a blessing in disguise. I always felt like they were my family, so they’d stick by me if I just stuck it out and eventually, I’d get somewhere.” Theo’s voice grew darker and deeper as his tangent bounced off the dashboard, and I tensed when his fingers squeezed my knee weakly. He didn’t even seem to notice, and my mind frantically tried to keep up with his story as his car eased to a stop at a sign. “I shacked up with Mateo because I went to Mexico intending to disappear and be a hermit. He needed a bodyguard, and I needed money and something to do. He pays really well.”
“You know he’s not Mexican, right?” Blurting out the only thing I could think of, I gulped down the dense lump in my throat as Theo cast me a quizzical glance. For the moment, I ignored everything he’d just told me. It was too much to process right now, and maybe he knew that. Maybe he just wanted to tell someone, and that unfortunate someone was me. “Uh-uh, he’s not Mexican. His accent sucks, and I’d bet money he learned Spanish in a classroom in a fancy boarding school or something.”
“How can you tell?”Oh, shit.Blinking hard at the question, dread gnawed at my gut, and a twitch pulled up the corner of my mouth grimly.
“I lived in Mexico when I was younger. My parents were there for work for a few years, and I’m pretty good with languages. Mateo isn’t a native Spanish speaker, even as a household language. If I had to guess, I’d say he got lucky with the looks.” Theo’s brows rose at my analysis, and I rolled my lips between my teeth as I recalled the one and only time I’d met Mateo. “I pretend to have a Spanish accent at work because it gets me more money, especially on Wednesday and Thursday nights.”
The car rolled through the four-way as I spoke, and Theo grunted lowly as he turned his attention to the road. My heart ached for him, and I tentatively covered his right hand with mine. I knew exactly what that was like, for everyone around me to act like what happened to me hadn’t changed me. The only difference was that I was twelve when my traumatic event happened.
“When did you enlist?” Launching my probe into the immense quiet, I grazed my fingertips along the smooth scar tissue where Theo’s fingers should’ve been. They must’ve taken out the knuckles and done some grafting, and he swung into a turn before inhaling in preparation.It feels like my skin.
“When I was seventeen, I graduated from high school and went to the recruitment office the next day. My family wasn’t very well off, and the military would pay for my college. I wanted to be an engineer, but I ended up going into the Marines instead as an infantryman. I found out I was really, really good at it. I was going to be a career man until my hand got fucked up.”
“I never considered the military to get out of my situation.” My mouth dried at my own admission. I sure as shit would’ve done the exact same thing if I could’ve. I knew I wouldn’t pass the physical, though, so there was no point in trying. “I’m doing pretty okay now, though. I mean, compared to the past, at least.”
“You were homeless.” His wasn’t a question, but I nodded anyway, and Theo’s hand twitched against my leg. “That must’ve sucked, but at least the weather wasn’t too bad, right? No snow or anything.”
“Um . . . no snow, yeah.” Furrowing my brows over thinned lips, I turned my gaze out the window as the grungy apartment blocks gave way to small businesses and slightly cleaner streets. Theo had told me a lot about himself in the short time we’d been driving, but I couldn’t help the reluctant pull at the base of my throat. More often than not, things went sour fast and intensely, and him confessing all this awful shit to me didn’t change what I thought.
The notion that Theo was trying to make it up to me wasn’t something I could turn down, though. He was creepy, sure, but not straight-up pervert-sexual-offender creepy. He was just a lonely guy that thought something was a good idea when it really wasn’t.I’m going to Hell for making excuses for his behavior. That’s a red flag. He’s just a bundle of red flags.
“That was one thing that sucked. I was deployed in the Philippines for four months during the monsoon season. There was mud literally up to my elbows sometimes.” Theo turned onto a stretch of road by the train station, and a sign climbed high above the single-story plaza emblazoned with a waffle and a name. Licking my lips heavily, my stomach grumbled eagerly, and I almost forgot what he said as soon as he said it. “I’d rather go back to Afghanistan than go to the Philippines in monsoon season.”
The conversation fizzled out as we came closer and closer to our destination, and Theo reluctantly pulled his hand out from under mine. Pulling into the parking lot, he prowled for a spot, but I could see even in my skewed peripheral that parking made him nervous. Keeping my eyes firmly on the window, I picked at my fingers and tried not to tense when the first available spot required some K-style maneuvering.
