Page 79 of Echoes in the Storm

With the book held in my hands, I slowly fold my legs and drop to the floor in the strip of afternoon sun that spills in the window. The light illuminates the thin pages, showing the mass of writing behind. I turn the sheet over, my throat thick with apprehension as I prepare to dive in.

They say man’s greatest enemy is himself, and I never understood the depth of that idea until I killed my first stranger in the name of freedom. You’re repeatedly warned that you can never truly be prepared for how it feels to take another man’s life. Of course, you bullshit yourself with the theory that you’re out there to kill the bad guys, that you won’t feel cruel because you’re ridding the world of the evil scum that slights the face of the earth.

But then you shoot him. He doesn’t die with the first bullet, of course, because you’re new to this and, well, killing a man isn’t quite the same as taking down a buck on your uncle’s back block.

He barters, pleads with you, but you don’t understand it all because the guy talks a whole different language. But you get the gist of it. You realise that youdocare because this guy … he’s you. He’s a man who fights for his ideals as well. A guy who fights for his country. His freedom.

And so the next guy you shoot, you spend a bit more time lining up, because fuck knows you don’t want to hear that all over again. You get quicker, sharper, but not because you want to be the lean, mean, killing machine you fantasised over when you first enlisted. You do it because you don’t want to fuck up. You don’t want to hear their words, their cries.

Their humanity.

You disassociate to survive. Close off the parts of you that mean you feel compassion, love, and empathy. Lo and behold, you become a fucking universal soldier: robotic, detached, and clinical.

Yet, when you come home, that mindset doesn’t magically vanish the second your foot hits home turf. Itisyou. You are the war, and you are death. Family, they see the change, and they try to connect. But nothing works, because of course you’ve shut down all channels to the things that used to make you happy, the things they know you like.

They don’t know this new guy. Nobody does, least of all you.

He’s a stranger to everyone.

That’s where you came in, Cam.

I rest the book in my lap, my heart thundering in my ears. Closing my eyes, I will my pulse to ease off and concentrate on taking deep, equalising breaths.

It does stuff-all to help.

My finger twirls in the end of my hair as I continue with the journal Duke left for me, clearly knowing that one day, I would find it.

You were the echo in my storm. At first, all the little things you did differently irked at me. They niggled, annoying the shit out of me constantly. I thought it meant we couldn’t get along, that there was no chance we’d work out. But you know what I figured out when Archie phoned to tell me the car was ready?

They were like the faint call of home, lost in the wind and the roar of thunder. It was you calling me, hoping I’d hear you and find my way out of the dark that I had lost myself in when I detached from life, when I shut off to survive.

You, Cam, were my echo. My call back.

And fuck it all if I didn’t find home in the end.

A single drop hits the page, blurring the words I’ve yet to read. I dab at it with my sleeve before wiping my cheeks, panicked that I’ll ruin even one of his precious words and miss what it is he wrote to me.

As I write this, I can hear you crying in your room. You think I left, but the truth is I made it as far as the end of the driveway. I stopped to check the road and found myself staring at the spot you told me Taylah lost her life.

I realised then that I couldn’t leave you without telling you how you saved mine. But letting you know now, while you’re upset and angry … you wouldn’t believe me. You’re mad I’m going home, and I get that, babe, I really do. But I think you need this as much as I do.

We both have loose ends to tie up before we’ll get a proper chance at making it.

You need to stand on your own two feet for a while to remember how strong you are against the winds of change.

So this is me, in the dark with only my goddamn torch to light the page, thinking of where I can leave this so that you’ll see the truth when you’re ready to.

I know where. And if you’ve found it, it means you do now, too.

It means you are ready.

I’ll be waiting for you, Cam. Waiting for you to hear my echo.

“Mum!” The notebook hits the floor as I launch from the room, swinging myself through the doorways to find her where she said she’d be—in the kitchen. “Mum.”

“What?” She sets her coffee mug down. “What’s going on, Cam?”

“I need Duke’s number,” I pant.