Lukas
Death changes a person. Whether it’s losing a pet, a family member, or friend, that part of us is taken away. Our identity becomes altered, and grief fills the spot they once held.
I saw how it changed Nana when she lost her husband.
I was with Magnolia when she cried herself to sleep after losing her childhood dog.
I held her as tightly as I could when her grandpa passed.
And I knew I’d experience some of that out here. There’s no way I’d go four years in the military and come out unscathed. Iexpectedit. But seeing death, seeing it happen in real time, watching my friend lose his life while I was helpless, completely useless to him—that changes a person.
The person I was six months, ten months, or even a year ago is not the person I am today.
A part of me died with them that day, with Collins, and a new disease was born inside of me. A rage I hadn’t felt before, anger that has seeped into every cell in my body, one that calls to me to fight, to find out who did this, to serve them justice they won’t find inside a courtroom. It’s the feeling Collins always talked about. The one he seemed to be born with.
I sit on the edge of my cot, elbows resting on my knees, head in my hands. I’ve been staring down at my dusty combat boots for so long my vision stings. But I don’t have the energy to take them off.
The SAT phone sits next to me on the bed. I know I need to call Mags. Besides the occasional letter, we haven’t had a true conversation in nearly five months. I shouldn’t be sitting here, wasting away the precious minutes I get with the phone. I should be frantically trying to call her, to talk to her, to tell her how something has shifted deep within my soul. I wonder what she’s doing right now. If she’s sitting like me, slipping on her toe shoes and lacing the silk strings up her toned calves.
Maybe she’s on stage, moving her lean body under the bright lights.
Maybe the crowd is cheering for her.
In a way, the last thing I want to do is to talk to her right now, and that thought sits like a stone in my gut. What should I say?Hey, baby, how’s ballet? What’s new with me? Well, since we talked last, I watched eight of my closest friends burn to death, and all I got out of it was a nasty concussion and a set of busted ear drums.
She’ll say I'm lucky, that I should be thankful. She’ll try to put some positive spin on it to make me feel better. Fucking lucky. I was lucky enough to win the best two out of three for a rock-papers-scissors match. Otherwise, it would have been me. There’s no reason I can think of that my life was spared when theirs wasn’t. I don’t deserve to live any more than they did. Anything I say will likely end in a fight, and I don’t want to fight.
Or maybe I do. Because at least a fight will make me feel something, anything other than numb.
With a heavy sigh, I pick up the SAT phone and dial her number, silently hoping she doesn’t answer. I can leave avoicemail, a fake“Things are great, I just miss you so much,”voicemail, and we can go on pretending that it’s fine.
On the third ring, I hear her pick up, the immediate background noise—laughter and distant music—telling me she’s in the middle of something. “Hello? Lukas?”
“Hey,” I croak. The sound of her voice hitting me straight in the chest. “Bad time?”
She’s quiet for a minute, and I know that means yes, but she’d never tell me that. “No, it’s fine, just finishing up hair and makeup. I’m in the dressing room. It’s chaos in here, otherwise, I’d put you on speaker.”
“Shit, I forgot it was Sunday.” On Sundays, she has an afternoon performance.
She giggles at that. “You forgot what day of the week it is?”
If she only knew how hard it is for me to concentrate, to comprehend the most basic shit these days.
She pauses for a minute, likely waiting for me to explain, but I can’t. I press the phone to my ear, listening to the sounds in the background. The soft music and the laughter from other dancers. I can imagine her tucking a few bobby pins in her mouth, holding them with her teeth until she picks them out one by one to dig into her hair, vision laser-focused on the mirror in front of her.
“I can let you go.”
“No! No, please. Talk to me. How are you?” She pauses for a second before adding, “I miss you.”
“I’m…” I’m not okay, I think. The words sit heavy in the back of my throat, begging to be said out loud. Maybe if I could have called that same day. When the backup humvee came to pick up what was left of us, the last survivors, maybe I could have explained this new feeling to her.
I’ve had time to let it marinate. To let the pain and anger seep into every pore, ruining me from the inside out. What goodwould it do to talk about it now? What can Mags do about it? She wouldn’t understand. No one from back home would. The only people that understand it are the few left standing around out here.
Telling her now will just make her cry. If I tell her that I lost my closest friend, that I had to fight knowing he was burning behind me, it’ll ruin her night.
I roll my neck once, then again, trying to grind the tightness out of it.
“Lukas,” she says, her voice softer. “What’s wrong?” I can hear her shuffling, and the background noise ceases. She must be moving out into the hall, or into a bathroom, somewhere where we can talk. “I’m here for you, Lukas, just talk to me.”There’s your opening, Lukas, take it.
