That’s the part they never teach you in boot camp: how the danger ends, but your body keeps fighting ghosts.
The red numbers on the clock glowed2:14 a.m.
I sat on the couch, hunched forward, elbows on my knees, staring at my phone intently.
Her contact name glowed back at me:Camille.
I thumbed the screen, opened our thread. The last message was from her earlier that evening:Thanks for the ice cream. It was nice to just laugh.
I reread it for the tenth time. “Just laugh.” That’s what she’d said. And, it was nice. The kind of nice I hadn’t felt in years.
But here I was, sweating through another shirt, body wired like I was back in the desert, mind replaying sounds and sights I couldn’t explain to anyone who hadn’t been there.
My thumb hovered over the keyboard, but the words wouldn’t settle. What was I supposed to say? “Hey, I really like you, but sometimes I wake up convinced I’m still overseas. Still in the fight. Still broken.”
No. That wasn’t fair to her. Not now. Not when things were still so new.
I locked the phone and tossed it onto the cushion beside me. My breathing came rough, uneven. I forced myself through breathing. Again. Again. Until my heart stopped trying to punch its way out of my chest.
Still, sleep didn’t come.
I leaned back, eyes on the ceiling. I’d promised myself after the divorce that I wouldn’t drag anyone else into this. Better to keep things surface-level, keep myself detached. And yet here she was, laughing at my stupid jokes, looking at me like I wasn’t a disaster, telling me about her kids and her classes and, trusting me with pieces of her world.
Every instinct told me to text her. To tell her she made me feel alive again. To admit she scared me in all the right ways.
Instead, I stayed quiet because hope was dangerous, and I wasn’t sure if I was ready to let her see all the shadows I carried.
Chapter Nine
Camille
Morning came like a slap.
“Mommy!”
“Mommy! Snack!”
“Mommy, I spilled the milk…”
I rolled out of bed to the chorus of my kids, half-dressed and half-ready, like a marching band of chaos. My curls stuck up in every direction, my eyes heavy with sleep I didn’t get.
“Shoes are by the door!” I called, tying my youngest’s hair into a ponytail. “Stop touching your sister! We don’t have time for fighting, we’re already late!”
I hustled them into clothes, filled sippy cups, and yelled reminders to brush their teeth like a drill sergeant. My mom popped in right on cue to lend a hand and laugh at the spectacle.
“You look tired,” she said, pouring herself coffee.
I groaned, shoving one kid’s arm into a jacket. “Iamtired.”
But it wasn’t the kind of tiredness I usually carried, the bone-deep exhaustion of working, studying, and raisingthree kids alone. This was a different tiredness. A softer one, because under the chaos, under the spilled cereal and homework papers, I was still smiling.
Every time I thought about Hunter leaning back in the chair, smirking at me, calling me out on my sweet tooth, my stomach flipped. Every time I remembered the way he said,Well, I’m not most guys,when I mentioned single moms being left behind, something warm spread through my chest.
“Why are you smiling?” Mom asked, raising an eyebrow.
“Am I?” I asked too quickly.
She smirked. “Mmhm. I know that look. It’s a boy.”
