It happened so fast I missed the gunfire behind me… a different sound than the M16s we were using, but I didn’t have time to turn and look. Several enemy combatants emerged from the darkened shadows and advanced on the Brits, raining down a hail of bullets.
I made my choice and stuck to my plan, aiming, and then picking them off one by one so the Brits could make their way to safety. In under twenty seconds, I took out four, giving the others time to scramble out. When I turned back to check in on Jimmy and Sal, I knew I’d made the wrong decision.
Apparently, they’d taken fire from the rear because both were crumpled in the ditch. Motionless.
I slung my rifle strap over my shoulder, starting to belly crawl their way, but then something hit me hard on the back of the head. Jimmy’s sightless eyes, glowing almost green through my night-vision goggles, were the last thing I remembered before I lost consciousness.
Opening my eyes, I focus on Corinne, who stares with empathy.
And so now she knows all of it.
Knows exactly how fucked up my feelings for Anna are, and why it’s tearing me apart… because I could have saved her husband.
“Quite a burden you’ve been carrying,” Corinne murmurs thoughtfully.
“Anna will hate me if she knows I could have saved Jimmy,” I mutter.
“I’m not so sure you could have,” she points out. “Seems like the enemy snuck up behind all three of you.”
“I made a choice—assumed my teammates were relatively safe—and I concentrated on helping someone else,” I growl. “It was the wrong choice.”
Corinne caps her pen, sets it and her notepad on the table between us. She leans against the armrest, lasering her eyes to mine. “Look, Malik… I’m not even remotely qualified to understand battle protocol, nor could I begin to try to understand the enormity of the decisions you had to make in just a few seconds of adrenaline-charged time. But what I do know is the information you just gave me… it’s nothing new. It’s the same information that was compiled in the debriefing reports from the other people involved. Kynan interviewed every single member of that attachment… Tank, along with every Brit and Aussie who made it home. They all talked about your heroics in holding off those advancing men—how you saved many lives that day. I’m pretty sure if Kynan were here, he’d tell you that you made the right decision.”
“Big words coming from someone who just said she can’t begin to understand those things,” I growl bitterly.
“True,” she replies with a shrug. “But I have read the final report Kynan issued, and there’s nothing but praise for how you handled the situation. No recommendations for further training. No good solutions on how you could have better protected Jimmy and Sal. The fact of the matter is you were surrounded on all sides. You had no clue there were people coming up behind you. You could only deal with the problem in front of you, which you did efficiently.”
Taking a deep breath, I place my hands on top of my head and lace my fingers. I stare up at her ceiling, letting the air out of my lungs. Finally, I let my gaze swing her way. “From a military perspective—I understand that. Rationally, I get it. Truth be told, I could probably get to a point of acceptance for Jimmy and Sal’s death. But now…”
I pause, unsure how to express my disgruntlement of the situation. I had no intentions of even going here with Corinne. Talking to Anna this weekend was a fucking revelation. I’m ashamed I let any type of bond form with the woman whose husband died on my watch.
“But now you have feelings for Anna, which you are having a hard time processing?” Corinne asks, finishing my thought.
She’s completely right, yet I still jerk in shock over the way it sounds when said aloud. Heat creeps up my neck, and I rush to assure her, “I don’t have feelings like that.”
“Like what?” she counters, knowing damn well what I mean.
I refuse to answer because a million different types of feelings bundle up inside me when I think about Anna… and they all seem wrong to me.
Wait… that’s not it. They seem right to me, but I’m afraid they’ll seem wrong to everyone else.
Corinne attempts to come at it another way. “You know there are no rules when it comes to matters of the heart, right?”
My jaw locks down tight, and I make my expression blank. I refuse to believe any of this with Anna has become embedded in my heart. I don’t want that at all.
“Anna is free to do what she wants,” Corinne reminds me. “Free to be your friend. Even free to be your lover if it comes to that.”