Total pages in book: 122
Estimated words: 115997 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 580(@200wpm)___ 464(@250wpm)___ 387(@300wpm)
Estimated words: 115997 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 580(@200wpm)___ 464(@250wpm)___ 387(@300wpm)
“You want in? Fine. I killed one of my best friends, Izzy. How’s that for letting you in?” I threw up my hands.
Her lips parted, and she stopped short.
“Bet you’re regretting wanting in now, huh?” My arms fell to my sides.
“I don’t understand,” she said, confusion puckering her forehead. “Are you talking about Ju—”
“Yes!” I interrupted. “It’s my fault that he’s dead. He yanked me out of the way when a timber rattlesnake struck after we’d both finished our forty-mile ruck march during selection, and it bit him instead.” It was the first time I’d said the words out loud.
She blinked. “Nate, that’s not your fault.”
“Yeah? Well, when I told him we had to tell someone, he refused and said he hadn’t come this far to get med-boarded before the interview portion, which was the final part of selection. Getting through the first courses—” I set my hands on top of my head and closed my eyes. “It was the hardest thing I’d ever done. The hardest thing any of us had done.” It took two deep breaths to steady me before I could continue. “So, I told him fine. I wouldn’t tell as long as he agreed to get help as soon as the interview was over.” And he’d grinned at me, so certain we’d both make it. “I let him walk into his interview with a venomous snakebite, and when it was my turn for the interview, when they told me one of my best friends had just died due to anaphylactic shock in the next room, I rolled with it, thinking it was part of the fucking interrogation. That they’d want a calm, cool, collected soldier in the unit, so that’s what I gave them. Figured we’d both get a laugh out of it afterward, except he really was dead.” There. I’d said it.
Someone knocked on the door.
“Oh God. Nate, you didn’t kill him.” Sadness filled her eyes, and I didn’t deserve an ounce of her pity.
“Yes, I did. If I’d told, gotten him help sooner, he’d be alive. Instead, I’m the one in the unit and he’s the one in the ground. How is that for letting you in, Izzy?”
Another knock sounded.
“That’s why you were so distraught. It wasn’t just that he died.” She came toward me, her face crumpling in a way that made me want to take every word back and just hold her. “I knew something was wrong with you. I was so worried that I stood there for a half hour, soaking wet—”
“You were inside when I proposed.”
“I came after you!”
“You . . . what?” The wires in my brain must have crossed because it felt like I was short-circuiting.
The knock turned to a pound. “I hate to interrupt you guys, but I need to talk to you now,” Graham shouted through the door.
“I came after you,” she repeated in a whisper, desperation clogging her voice as she grabbed hold of my uniform.
“Come in,” I managed to call out.
The door opened, and Graham walked in, his face tight.
“What’s up?” My stomach tensed, bracing for bad news.
“I’m sorry to tell you, but Mazar-i-Sharif is falling.”
CHAPTER TWENTY-EIGHT
IZZY
New York
October 2018
“You what?” Serena shouted, wrapping the towel tightly around her body and staring at me like I’d lost my mind.
I’d all but hauled her out of the shower in my hysteria, ignoring Mom and Dad as they stood in the living room, waiting for answers I didn’t have. “You heard me!”
“And you just let him go?” Serena’s eyes flew wide.
“It wasn’t like I had the power to stop him!” God, he’d been so . . . lost. My heart ached, demanding I chase him down and give him whatever he needed. “What was I supposed to do? Hold him down?”
“I was thinking you’d say yes, seeing that you’re obviously miserable without him, and it seems he had a pretty good reason for not showing up on your vacation.”
“Say yes? That wasn’t him. He wasn’t really asking me to marry him, Serena! He was reacting out of trauma after burying Julian today.”
“Wait. He buried his friend today? You left that out.” Her brow knit. “Which one is Julian?”
The tall blond guy with the smirk came to mind. “I think his last name was Rowell. He was one of the guys he went into Special Forces with. One of his best friends.” I rubbed my hands over my face. “He was so hurt. I hurt him. But how could I accept his proposal when he clearly wasn’t in a clear state of mind? I kept trying to poke holes in his argument to get him to see that he was acting irrationally. The Nate I know would never have proposed like that, and when I said that . . .” My throat started to close, thinking of his face. “He needs a good night’s sleep, or help—not an engagement.”