Buddy System



Chapter  1

Skyler

I don’t know if I was shivering more because of the freezing cold or nerves. As I faced the open doorway, heart pounding, I tensed at the sound of incoming bullets and saw the silhouette of a small advancing form. Before I could grab my firearm, a heavy, bellowing body nearly flattened me by flinging itself onto me facing outward.

“What are you doing, Levi?” I shouted at him over the sounds of rapid fire and agonized screams. The lousy intel on this place had led us into a trap. I was immobilized for a moment both by his weight and by the shock of having him cover me in such a way. Levi fired off a series of shots at our intruder, and the shooter fell. Just a kid. My heart felt heavy, and I fought the urge to be sick, but then Levi moaned in pain and his body shook. I felt a warm wetness and knew it had to be Levi’s blood. His rifle dropped out of his grip and onto the dirt floor of our crude refuge.

I mentally prepared to die with my best buddy in a spray of bullets. There had to be more gunmen on the way—or a smarter, more efficient attacker with a grenade. Afghanistan was filled with people who’d like to see us dead. We were sitting ducks now that we’d been erroneously sent into this deathtrap.

Just then, an explosion shattered the area somewhere outside of the hovel that sheltered us, and its reverberation thundered through my body as pieces of debris shook loose and fell from the ceiling. It was a wonder we weren’t crushed, but the roof and walls held. The shooting stopped; the attack was over. I smelled gunpowder and dirt. And blood.

I had to get Levi off me to assess his state. Carefully, I shoved him to the side, mightily relieved to hear him scream in pain. He was alive! For now, anyway.

“Don’t you fucking dare die on me Levi Spencer, you hear me?” I shouted at him. He had taken some painful shots to the chest where he was protected by body armor, but below the armor, he was bleeding profusely. I did my best to apply pressure. I shouted over and over for medical assistance, but it was like the world had gone deaf. Finally, finally, someone squawked in my headphone and requested our location. After rattling it off, the answer I got was grim.

“We’re fifteen minutes out. We’ll do our best. Anyone else hurt or…?”

I looked around and saw that I was the only one left in one piece. “All dead except for me and Sergeant Spencer,” I answered, trying to keep my emotions under control. All dead. They had been my friends, the guys I counted on and joked with. I knew about their wives and kids, their pretty girlfriends and the beloved dogs they’d left at home so they could serve our country. All of them were gone just like that. I continued into my headpiece with a badly shaking voice, “And I don’t know how much longer he’ll be able to hang on. We need you ten minutes ago!”

“We’ll do our best.”

“Do better than that, or he’ll bleed to death!”

“Roger that.”

In the middle of crabbing to myself about how shitty it was that we were both supposed to be getting out of the Army when we got sent on this fucked-up mission, I heard a sickening noise. With an ungodly screech, the roof collapsed on us, driving a splintered timber nearly through my shoulder. The crushing pain was so intense, I could barely breathe. Terror washed through me that our rescuers would show up and find nothing but a pile of rubble and dead bodies. Then I wondered what it would be like to live with one arm if we made it out somehow. It would be better than if the wooden beam had landed on my neck. No one lives without their head, but an arm was doable. My last ridiculous thought before passing out was, “Raise high the roofbeam, Carpenters.” I always was a Salinger fan—ever since our Honeybee Hollow librarian Mrs. Lassiter introduced me to his books.

Chapter 2

Brooke

When I met Levi, I knew in my heart I could be happy for the rest of my life. He made me laugh, he was brave, handsome, and charismatic, and he was as smart a man as I’d ever encountered. He was a soldier, and one with a strong sense of pride in his country and an even stronger sense of duty to uphold his ideals.

Levi was coming to the end of his enlistment, but I never counted on Afghanistan. I thought things there were winding down…boy, was I naive.

Levi and I married only six months after we met. We were positive we were destined to be together. I knew he was a military man, and I got used to him having to be away for a few weeks at a stretch. But each homecoming was sweet and laden with pleasure. We could make love for hours, wrecking each other with our words of devotion and our divine lovemaking. He could be a gentle lover when the mood struck him, or he could burn me to a crisp with his passion. He was always unpredictable except for letting me know that I was cherished and adored. We were both insatiable and desperately in love. Most of all, I knew his loyalty to me was as strong as his loyalty to his country.

But five months after our wedding, he was deployed, and I felt like a wreck. I was so lonely for him—my best friend in all the world, my lover, my protector, the father of our future children. I was sad I wasn’t pregnant; then at least I would have had that bit of him with me. I tried to hide my fear before he left, but I know he knew.

We went from daily interaction to virtually no communication at all. I couldn’t call him or text him, so I wrote daily letters telling him about regular life, not knowing if he’d ever even see them. My job as a data analyst was going fine and paid well, so I had no complaints other than I missed Levi and hoped he would stay safe. When my friends asked how I was doing, I would thank them for their concern and say I was worried for Levi, but I always downplayed the absolute nightmare my nights had become. I was used to Levi’s large presence in bed—his soft snores and a body that warmed me like a sauna. It had been a pleasure to work remotely for the past few years, but now our house felt oppressively quiet except when jets flew over, and they were a cruel reminder of the military that had taken my beloved Levi into danger. We didn’t even have any pets I could dote on. I routinely lay awake for hours trying not to worry.

Often during that time, I thumbed through our wedding album. He was dashingly handsome in those photos, and his happiness and pride were obvious. But it was a candid shot of him that was my favorite—one I’d snapped when he was sitting on his sister Kate’s couch talking to his four-year-old niece Louisa. He called her Lulu the moment he met her, and the nickname stuck. His earnest expression and the sweet look in his eyes just flattened me. So I blew up and framed that picture and carried it with me from room to room. He would eat dinner with me that way. He watched over me as I did my work, and I could say goodnight to the Levi I loved each night.

I counted the months, the weeks, the days, the hours of his deployment. Time passed too slowly, but I tried to stay positive. After all, the longer he was gone, the sooner he’d be home. The idea bolstered my spirits tremendously—especially when I knew it was less than a month away. I started going back to the gym and spruced up the house for his return. All of the household projects I’d planned to do finally kept me occupied so I wouldn’t fixate on his return. I wanted everything to be perfect for him. I cleaned the carpets, painted the kitchen, planted some flowers, and got rid of a bunch of junk from the garage. Our little house in Hopkinsville, Kentucky gleamed with readiness for his return. In the back of my mind, I decided it was time to talk about starting a family when he came home.

But a week before he was supposed to arrive, I got the word that his deployment was extended for another unspecified length of time. I understood this was often the case, so I wasn’t overly worried…just really frustrated. It was so unfair!

Though, I reminded myself, no one promises life will be fair. I squared my shoulders and waited.

Anyway…it got worse. Three weeks after that, I got a call that made me want to faint. Sergeant Levi Spencer had been injured in the line of duty and would be treated in a military hospital in an undisclosed location.

I was crushed and terrified. What had happened? How was he? When could I see him?

All I knew was that he’d been in a “skirmish.” Facts were scarce. I thought my world would fall apart. Calls to his parents didn’t afford me any relief. They were just as freaked out as I was. No one knew what kind of shape he was in or if he’d come home draped with a flag. His dad had been in the Army too, and he tried to keep a stiff upper lip, but the poor man was losing it with worry. He vowed he’d make some calls and try to get more information, but he didn’t know how effective he would be. We promised each other to call the minute we had any more news.

Levi’s dad surmised that the next step for Levi would most likely be a transfer to Walter Reed, “Depending on his condition.” No one would give him any more specifics than I already knew. I had to ask him where Walter Reed was and found that it was in Bethesda, Maryland. I didn’t grow up in a military family, so my knowledge of things like this was lacking.

Time ground to a halt. I lost weight from not eating and worrying myself into a stupor, and each time my phone rang, I thought my heart would beat right out of my chest. Finally, I got a call telling me that Sergeant Spencer’s surgeries (yes, plural) had been successful, and he would be transferred to Walter Reed as soon as he was able to be moved. I asked if I could speak to him, and the caller had no idea what to tell me about that. He was just the messenger, he told me, and had many more calls to make. “Have a good day, ma’am,” he said and hung up. Good day? I wanted to scream.

At least I knew Levi was alive.

I waited one day before calling Walter Reed. I called every morning and every evening to see if Levi had been admitted. A week went by, and then, finally, I got an affirmative answer. I asked to be transferred to his room so I could speak with him, but I got absolutely nowhere. Nor would they tell me anything about his condition. “HIPAA rules prevent that,” they said. Caregivers would only be given information upon the patient’s discharge if it pertained to their well-being. I called his parents, and we all booked flights to Reagan Airport.



Although my imagination had come up with every scenario I could dream up, I was not in any way prepared for what I found.