Total pages in book: 138
Estimated words: 128260 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 641(@200wpm)___ 513(@250wpm)___ 428(@300wpm)
Estimated words: 128260 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 641(@200wpm)___ 513(@250wpm)___ 428(@300wpm)
As my legs buckled beneath me on the way to the water, a guy next to me grabbed onto my waist and pulled me up. “Whoa, steady. I got ya. Take it slow and give it a minute to recoup in the water. There’s no way we’ll make it back in under two anyway. Let’s just try to make it back.”
I gave my legs a minute to stop shaking and continued on with him toward the surf. “Thanks, man.” I groaned, grimacing as bolts of pain shot up both legs.
“My first name’s Noah.”
I nodded. I only knew him by his last name, Dean. “Carson.”
Noah muttered, “Fucking hell,” as he dunked himself in the cold, nighttime ocean water and then stood up and closed his eyes for a minute, unmoving, letting his body rest. I followed suit and after a few seconds, we turned and started moving toward the shore again, this time our teeth chattering, shivering with cold. It was fucking miserable.
“I can’t do this anymore,” I ground out, my jaw unwilling to move it was shaking so hard.
“I bet you said that three hours ago too,” Noah ground out. “I know I did. And yet, turned out we were wrong because here we are, still doing it.”
My face twisted into something maybe resembling a smile as we limped up the shore back toward the Grinder for another set of body-builders. Maybe a hundred this time.
I stumbled away slightly as a classmate next to me vomited onto the beach.
“Shitbags, don’t fail knife inspection again,” Instructor Flynn said, getting up from the platform the instructors had been sitting on watching us all night. We were dismissed.
As we started limping away, Instructor Flynn said, “Hold up. Before you go in, clean up all this sand you got all over the PT area.”
An hour later, we limped inside to sleep for an hour before morning PT would start. As Noah turned to go toward his room, I said, “Hey, thanks again.” I’d been seriously on the verge of quitting. I’d always been good at physical challenges, but this was beyond anything I’d imagined.
Noah just nodded, giving me his own version of something resembling a smile.
When I pulled myself out of bed an hour later feeling like I had fallen off a cliff and hit every jagged rock on the way down, I thought to myself, There is no fucking way I can do this for another day. How the hell am I going to make it through Hell Week when I can’t even make it through one brutal punishment for one night? Hell Week was going to be five days and nights like the one I’d just endured, probably much, much worse, on zero sleep. I was losing it from only having an hour of rest. How would I make it a full week with no sleep and being tortured constantly? From what I heard, by Friday, most men were delirious and swollen so badly, they were asked not to go out in public. I simply wasn’t cut out for this. It was a wrap.
I limped outside intending to ring the bell. In that moment, nothing seemed more important than getting back in bed and trying not to move. I felt half-crazed with pain and exhaustion.
As I stepped outside, the sun was just breaking over the horizon. I turned toward it and stood still, my eyes trained on that small sliver of brilliant orange. My breath released. I closed my eyes and pictured Grace standing in front of me, my arms around her as we had gazed out at the same picture. Grace.
You’re a really brave person, Carson.
I’d taken another step forward but now I hesitated again. The thing was, getting through this wasn’t going to take mere physical strength. Honestly, I’d run out of that, which was why I was standing here intending on ending this torture. But… God, Dylan had been right when he’d said this was going to come down to how much heart I had. I stood a little taller. He believed in me, and Grace had looked at me sincerely and told me I was brave.
Now it was up to me. I’d taken what I’d thought was the easier route once before, following in my mom’s footsteps and doing something that was never very personally appealing. And it had only brought unhappiness and dissatisfaction.
Either I was going to quit right now, or I was going to take Dylan and Grace’s words in and bet on myself. I was going to find out exactly how much heart I really had. Their words could only go so far.
A small slip of sand stood between me and failure.
I glanced out to that vibrant sunset again, beautiful and unceasing. And then I turned back around and limped inside, away from the bell and toward the showers.