It takes me half an hour to calm my shaking hands and my frazzled brain enough to even begin considering what has happened. Blessedly, the calculating bitch in me, Self-Preservation steps in and takes over for the girl I used to be. First things first. Intelligence. Find out what has happened. Second, a plan. Sy’s family will want to be with him and I can get them out to Bethesda quicker and sort accommodations on their behalf if need be. The hospital is only forty minutes away from my office. Third, execute. I land in my office chair roughly and shout for my assistant who discreetly slipped out of my office the minute I began crying.
“Bethany! Get in here,” I shout. Two seconds later she scurries around the corner ready to sprout wings and fly should I ask her to.
“Who do we know on retired General Reese’s staff?”
“Um,” she blinks with her lips parted. I clap my hands then motion my hands forward, urging her to think. “Okay, um, I—I just started seeing a guy whose ex-roommate is one of his Junior Staffers, Jared. He is a friend of Reese’s driver. They all do poker night together every once in a while.”
“Call him, call them all, and trade your soul, my soul, whatever you must, but I need information on a Marine named Sylas Broussard who has been injured in Afghanistan and is awaiting transport to Walter Reed.”
“Got it,” she says scribbling notes then rushes back to her desk.
Four nerve wracking hours later with wheels thoroughly greased in exchange for plenty of promises and IOU’s I’m not even sure I can honor, I know that Sylas is set to arrive at Walter Reed the day after tomorrow as long as his condition remains stable. I also discovered that he was in a convoy of vehicles that was hit with a series of improvised explosive devices rigged in such a way that they detonate in a string like a length of firecrackers. He was blown from the vehicle and sustained life-threatening injuries according to my sources.
Blown from the vehicle. His body, the same one I have kissed and held and loved and hated and missed so desperately—was violently blown from a big steel box on tires in a war zone. He was attacked, like Teddy, by people that want very badly to see him and his fellow brothers and sisters in arms dead.
My throat closes and panic rises like a tsunami. Placing my head between my knees I close my eyes and work hard at breathing in a rhythm, which is no easy task considering the insurmountable torment pooling in my brain like poisoned waters.
With the information we were able to gather clanging around in my brain I summon an image of Sylas, grinning like a loon just as he crawled out of the bayou, unafraid of the occasional gator or water moccasins, his body glistening with the salt water, his wavy hair weighed down and sticking to his head before he shakes it like a dog, flinging water all over me. Suddenly the image is of that same hair cropped short and smattered with blood. That same smile broken and turned down with fear, those dark eyes I loved so deeply open but wholly lifeless. I press the heel of my palms to my closed eyes and choke on the sob that those imaginings draw from me. It makes me think of Teddy and of his memorial service. It makes me recall how the shots fired rang and reverberated around us sending the birds in the trees scuttling away, their feathered wings rustling furiously as they made their escape. I wished very badly that day to be one of them. His burial, the shining white headstone that is supposed to be a comfort to talk to, but it isn’t. I visit Arlington every chance I get and I leave with an emotional hangover that usually lasts days on end. Can I survive that again? Could I live with myself—live this life if Sylas died? Every cell in my body knows that I could but I would not want to at all. I snag my bag from my desk and stuff a few things inside, then escape the office, batting my invisible wings. I need to be alone for the meltdown I can feel coming on.
I cried for two days waiting for him to arrive—praying he’d arrive. The years we’ve spent estranged mingle with the years we shared growing up together and every decision I had ever made regarding Sylas Broussard is subject to my own harsh scrutiny with plenty of input from my inner circle.
I fucked up.
No. I did what I had to.
I’m tainted and can never be with him.
It’s his fault, anyway!
He deserves better.
We deserve us.
What if he dies?
My mind was a labyrinth of the worst brand of regret and fear. Two days of that madness was enough for a few lifetimes. The minute I got the word that he had made the trip I was finally able to pull myself together enough to orchestrate a solid plan that I could coordinate fairly easily. It isn’t unusual for politicians to visit Wounded Warriors in the hospital, often publicizing the visit for their own slimy benefit of course, and Cline was pleased with my idea to utilize a vacant block in his calendar to visit the hospital. He was tickled even, that I had organized the visit on my own and with impressive efficiency. He praised my “leadership capabilities.” Of course he has no idea that I cleared his schedule and I was highly motivated by the fact that Sylas is there. I gathered—with my mom’s help—that Audrey and Scott will probably be arriving in DC as soon as Sylas is received, assessed, and settled at the hospital. He arrived two hours ago which means I will be the first to see him… if I can manage access to his room—hell to the floor he’s on. I haven’t gotten that far but I am hoping that being in Cline’s camp as an official staffer, I’ll be able to squeak by unnoticed. I’m not at all above sneaking around in a housekeeping cart if that’s what I have to do. I need to see him. The sense of urgency I feel just to see him and make sure he’s okay with my own two eyes outweighs security concerns and our past and how we fell apart. It even outweighs the fact that being there amongst so many wounded will likely trigger unresolved grief I have battled since Teddy died. Still, I can’t imagine not getting in that hospital if only long enough to see that he is in fact alive. What’s pouring a little more gas on an already blazing emotional dumpster fire? A bigger dumpster fire, so what? I’ve been the same emotional dumpster fire for years now. I’m fine with the familiar scorching heat even if it does stink to the high heavens.
A tiny voice in the back of my mind warns me I may not like what I see. It may be too much to handle. What if he never recovers? What will his quality of life look like if his wounds are as severe as I assume they must be? A vision of Sylas in a wheel chair snakes through my mind unbidden and I shake my head, willing it away. If he makes it through this will he be able to have kids? Sy always said he wanted kids and couldn’t wait to teach them everything he knows. What would it do to him if that dream vanished? It’s a topic I don’t wish to linger much on.
Our camp—fifteen or so people largely composed of Cline’s public relations team and communications team—are en route to Walter Reed. The interior of this SUV feels too small. Everyone is chattering, monitoring social media, and doing other work-related tasks from their phones but I can’t bring myself to work. My mind is on the dark side of the moon trying desperately to recall every tiny detail about the last time I saw Sylas in person, which hadn’t been at all good. Or when I last touched his skin or listened to his heart beating with my ear pressed to his chest lying out on a blanket beneath the canopy of a huge magnolia at the edge of a secret bayou. It’s difficult to conjure good memories through the wealth of sadness, anxiety and trauma. Still… I try.