He nodded, numbly. “Since the very first time I saw you. Donovan called me up, late one night, wee hours of the morning. And there you were, huddled up under some blankets. You’d fallen asleep on the couch.”
He looked down again, into his glass, as if looking for the words.
“You were sleeping so peacefully. Like an angel. I couldn’t believe he had something so precious, so perfect. Andall this dickhead wanted to talk about was me, going after his enemies.”
“I… I didn’t know.”
“Of course not. I didn’t want you to.”
I tried to think back, to all the many times Colson and I had been around each other. There were no hints, no stolen looks — no indication he felt this way at all. With Theo, it was a lot more obvious. But Colson had done what soldiers often do: internalize his feelings. He’d put them aside completely, for the sake of the mission.
For a minute we just stared off into the dark horizon, each lost in our own thoughts.
“So how’s it feel, now?” I asked him.
“How’s what feel?”
“Being free,” I sighed contentedly. “Not having Donovan own you any longer.”
“He never owned me,” Colson replied evenly. “He just thought he did.”
“After… what happened?”
“Yes.”
He brought the glass to his lips and took a man-sized sip of whiskey. For a while, neither of us said a word. His face was a mask of indifference, but his eyes betrayed a much deeper conflict. Colson was somewhere else. Somewhere familiar, but also painful.
And somewhere very, very lonely.
“I was a Marine,” he said heavily, breaking the silence. “Long enough that I didn’t know anything else. It was my life, my blood, my family. It was everything, really. And then,suddenly, it wasn’t.”
The shadows around us grew darker somehow, or maybe it was just my imagination. Either way, even the waves seemed to fall silent. Colson raised his glass and drank again. This time, much more deeply.
“On our squad’s last deployment, everything went sideways,” he exhaled slowly. “Orders changed, mid-operation. We didn’t so much walk into an ambush, we got sacrificed.”
He turned to me, and my chest went tight with sorrow. The depth of pain in his eyes seemed endless. I wanted so badly to take it away from him.
“Only three of us made it out. The rest… didn’t.”
A boulder formed in my throat. All I could do was cover his hand with mine.
“Colson…”
“I found out later the mission had been greenlit for political reasons. Money. Power. Whatever it was, somebody got paid for the blood that was spilled that day. When I confronted my commanding officer…” the hand beneath mine tightened into a fist. “Let’s just say I didn’t go through proper channels.”
I nodded, numbly. “You shattered his jaw.”
“Almost killed him,” he confirmed. “Didn’t want to, I just needed him to stop lying to my face.”
He stared outward again, into the night, the muscles in his mighty neck flexing beneath his tanned skin. For a brief moment he looked frighteningly animalistic.
“After the dishonorable discharge, no one would touch me,” he finished. “Donovan was right there to scoop me up. I hated taking the job, but he promised he could help restoremy reputation. I told myself I’d use him, and not the other way around.”
“And did you?”
“Not nearly enough.”
He drained the rest of his drink without so much as a grimace. Rearing back with one great arm, he flung the glass high overhead, and into the sea.
