Page 56 of Echoes in the Storm
“True that.” He sighs, staring out the window. “I don’t know what to say about last night, Cam, other than I liked it and I’ve been trying to work it out for myself all day. All I know are three things: one, I’m only here a few more days; two, I already miss you when you’re not in the house; and three, that doesn’t change the fact your funny habits drive me insane.”
“You miss me?” I grip the steering wheel a little tighter as we accelerate onto the stretch of open road before home.
“Yeah.” He rolls his head on the rest in my periphery. “It’s quiet, and although I normally love the quiet, I think that’s because I never knew how good it was to have somebody around who drowns out the bullshit noise in my head.”
“I thought you were a hothead,” I admit, peering over at him every so often from the corner of my eye. “You lost it at me for asking what the army is like, and I thought you were an arrogant arsehole who needed to calm the hell down.”
He chuckles, his hand tapping his leg.
“What?”
“You thoughtthatwas me losing my temper?”
Oh, damn.“Was it not?”
“Nope.” He laughs, nudging my leg with a loose fist. “It’s okay, Cam. I’m sure you’ll never see that side of me. I’ve got to get pretty damn pissed off to lose it completely.”
“It’s not funny, you know. That kind of temper is the sort of thing you said split up your parents.”
“Good thing I’m not married anymore then.” He scoots up in his seat as we approach the house. “My temper is the reason why I went into the army to begin with,” he admits. “Somebody told me I was just like my old man at my age, and that messed me up. I wanted a valid outlet for my rage, a way to get rid of the fact I was nineteen and pissed off at the world. I didn’t want to be him.”
“Did it work? I would have thought the regiment of daily life would have made your anger worse, considering you’d need to keep it in check most of the time.”
“It worked at first. I threw myself into working out and staying not only physically but mentally fit.”
“And then?”
“Decked a fellow soldier for harassing one of the local women on our first tour in Iraq.”
I bring the car to a stop in the driveway, the lights inside the house beckoning me to bed. But this progress is more important. Infinitely so. “What happened then?”
Duke continues to relax in the seat, staring straight out the windscreen as he talks. “Luckily for me, it happened when we were off-duty, so I got away with a warning. The meathead I punched in the face didn’t get so much as a fucking talking to. There was evidence of what I did—his face—but nothing of what he had done to instigate it.”
“Well, I bet the woman appreciated what you did.”
He chuckles. “Not sure. She ran away screaming something in her language. Poor bitch probably thought we were arguing over who was going to have her first.”
Possibly, but still. He defended the honour of a woman he didn’t know.
“Come.” I open my door to get out.
“Can I turn my torch on now?” His whispered question stills me.
This whole time he’s held off, even when he’s been freaking out? “Of course. We’ll probably need it anyway.”
I round the car to his side and wait for him to get his phone sorted out. White light spills over the gravel driveway as I lead us away from the house.
“Where are we going, Cam?”
“I want to show you something.” I offer him my hand for support, glad when he takes it.
He follows dutifully beside as I lead him back down the drive to the gateway at the road. I come to a stop a few feet back from the road’s edge and take a deep breath. Listening to Duke share his history, the things that make him tick, it’s inspired me. If he can face his nightmares head on, dissect and work out what it is about those memories that tear him apart, then why can’t I?
“You know how you told me you fear the dark because of its connection to when you were hurt?”
“Yeah.”
“It took me almost a year before I could leave the house at dusk. That hour between sundown and night is the most beautiful of the day, I reckon, but for so long what the shades of orange and hints of purple represented scared the ever-loving shit out of me. I couldn’t come down here, on foot or in the car, for so long.”