Tortured

  The execution made national news, and the country erupted with a unified cry for justice.

  For all of two weeks.

  Then people moved on to the next headline, the next outrage, the next soapbox they’d stand upon and do absolutely shit about.

  The country had moved on years ago, but for me, moving on wasn’t an option. I was stuck. Tied to him. Bound to his fate. That had always been the way of Brecken and me, and it went on even in death. Some connections went beyond the norm, the explainable, and that was how we had been.

  When the war department showed up on the front porch of the house Brecken had grown up in, I’d managed to convince the man that I was his cousin. He seemed content enough with that, leaving me with the few personal effects they had of Brecken’s before he drove off like he couldn’t put Lance Corporal Connolly behind him fast enough. When his aunt got home later that night after work, I gave her everything. Except for one thing. His tags. Those I kept. Those I wore for months, not even taking them off to climb into the shower.

  I remembered sliding them out of the small manila folder they’d been in. How cold they’d felt in my hand. How clean and sterile they’d looked, contrasted to the last way I’d seen them on the television. They still smelled of the alcohol someone must have used to clean them before passing them on to the hands of the next of kin.

  His tags I kept for myself. The medals and accolades I left for his family. I didn’t need any of that to remember the hero he was—I’d figured that out the day Brecken had thrown himself at my dad before he could strike me again.

  Today’s grocery shopping has taken me longer than usual thanks to my mind wandering. The first couple of years, my mind strayed constantly, but I’d gotten better at blocking some of that out. For some reason, today, I felt like I was back at the beginning. Back at Day One of Life Without Him.

  However, an eighteen-year-old’s responsibilities were entirely different than a twenty-four-year-old’s. I had a schedule to keep and responsibilities to tend to. I couldn’t throw the covers over my head and pretend the world didn’t exist anymore, because I’d learned the world would come looking for me if I tried to hide.

  As I weighed the apples to make sure I wouldn’t go over the budgeted grocery funds in the envelope stuffed in my purse, I overheard a conversation going on at one of the nearby checkout stands. Gus’s Groceries was a small, locally run shop, quiet enough a person could hear what was being said all the way across the store if they wanted to.

  After putting an apple back, I twisted a tie around the rest in the bag and steered my cart up front. It was already two, and I needed to be back by three in order to have enough time to get everything ready for the evening.

  “Oh my god, I know! I just heard.” Jenn Douglass was checking out, chatting with Teresa, the checker who’d been there since I was a little girl.

  I made my way into line and started loading my groceries onto the belt.

  “Can you believe it? It’s a miracle.” Teresa shook her head as she weighed a bag of grapes.

  “After all this time. Finding him. Alive.” Jenn was staring out the row of windows like she was seeing something I wasn’t.

  “Can you imagine what that poor man’s been through?” Teresa said, and both of them shared a sigh.

  Neither of them had noticed me, or if they had, didn’t feel the need to include me in their conversation. I didn’t usually listen in on other people’s conversations, but this one I couldn’t tune out. This one I couldn’t ignore. They could have been talking about anybody. Anyone. But something inside me was telling me this wasn’t about just anybody. This wasn’t some random someone they were talking about.

  “They’re having some big homecoming for him. It’s been all over the news,” Teresa continued as she finished ringing up the last couple of items in Jenn’s order. “I heard the city council is working to put on a homecoming here for him too.”

  My throat was so tight right then, as if someone had wrapped their hand around it and was crushing it. I couldn’t speak. All I could do was listen. Guess. Assume. Hope.

  My life was so different now though. A shadow of what it had been.

  When I placed my bag of oranges on the belt, Jenn and Teresa noticed me. Their heads twisted, smiles pulling into place right away. Teresa’s eyes dropped to my hand, one side of her face pinching.

  “A first attempt at a cartwheel in a decade. A failed attempt,” I added with a smile, lifting the wrist brace strapped around my left hand.

  Teresa’s smile changed to a more forced variety. “How many times do I need to tell you, Camryn? Be care-ful,” she emphasized slowly, making eye contact. “Cartwheels are dangerous.”

  The way she said it, the way her eyes looked as she did, I knew what she was really telling me. Though I pretended I didn’t.

  “Did you hear the news?” Jenn angled toward me as she swiped her card through the reader. It took a couple of moments, but then something registered on her face. It morphed from curiosity to regret.

  The hope inside me started to spread. Jenn had graduated a year ahead of me, one after Brecken. She knew about us. She knew the way things had been between us. Her eyes dropped to my left hand like Teresa’s had.

  “Did I hear what news?” I managed to force out in a voice that sounded like I was choking on gravel.

  Jenn’s teeth sank into her bottom lip, chewing on it as she exchanged a look with Teresa, who just lifted her hands.

  “If she hasn’t heard yet, she’s going to. News spreads like wildfire in a community like this. Better coming from you than …” Teresa handed Jenn her receipt, her pause stretching. “Than someone else.”

  “Jenn?” I didn’t realize my hands were shaking until the box of generic corn flakes fell out of them.

  She mustered up a smile. It was a sad one. The kind a person gave to someone they were embracing at a funeral. “It’s Brecken. They found him alive.”

  My knees wobbled, making me have to grab the magazine rack for support. “What?” I didn’t realize I’d said it until Jenn answered.

  “They found Brecken.” Her voice sounded like it was coming down an endless tunnel, almost indiscernible. “He’s coming home.”

  An entire century passed me by right then as I replayed those words in my head. Even though the clock on the wall revealed barely a minute had passed, I knew better. I felt ancient when I came back to life. Or came back to the present.

  “Camryn? You okay, sweetheart?” Teresa started to slide out from behind the register. “You need to sit down?”

  “God, I’m sorry. I should have thought about what I was saying—who I was saying it to.” Jenn slung her purse over her shoulder, her gaze fixed on my left hand like it was about to make her cry.

  “He died.” The whisper floated from my lips. “I watched it. They killed him. I was there.”

  Teresa and Jenn exchanged a look as Teresa slid up beside me, picking up the fallen box of cereal and dropping an arm around my waist. It enveloped me, her hand managing to wind all the way around to my stomach. “You’re wasting away on me, Camryn. Do me a favor and eat some of this food you’re in here every Tuesday afternoon buying, okay?”

  I nodded absently, concentrating on staying on my feet.

  “I know, we all thought he was gone. The whole world did. We all watched that—” Teresa stopped herself as she finished unloading what was left in my cart. “The news just broke a few hours ago, but it sounds like the person they executed was someone else they’d dressed up in Brecken’s fatigues.”

  My mind went back to the image of him kneeling, frail-looking, head hidden by another burlap bag. Could that person really not have been him?

  “They’re sure?” My hand curled around the cart, my knuckles turning white.

  Teresa nodded slowly, her hand giving mine a soft squeeze. “I saw it on the news. I saw him. It’s Brecken.”

  Jenn was still lingering at the end of the checkout stand, like she wasn’t sure if she should
stay or go, working her lip still. I didn’t miss the way she lifted her eyes to the ceiling as she wiped at her eyes, like she was trying to keep tears from falling.

  “It’s been six years. Six years,” I repeated. “Where’s he been? All this time? Where was he?”

  Teresa rolled my empty cart up a ways so she could ring up my items. She was having a hard time looking me in the eyes. “They had him in some old underground military barracks on the border of Iraq.”

  The grocery store started to revolve. “He’s been a prisoner this whole time? They’ve had him for six years?”

  Teresa didn’t answer as she rang up my first items. Jenn did though—that first tear finally slipped free.

  “Why? What have they been doing to him? What did they need from him?” The words that had evaded me minutes ago came spilling out like a volcano erupting. “Why the hell would they film his execution if they were planning on keeping him alive all of this time? Why would they do that to someone? Why would that do that to me?”

  Jenn had given up wiping her eyes, electing to just let the tears fall while Teresa focused on bagging my groceries. “I don’t want to pretend to think I know the answers to those questions, Camryn.”

  “Is he okay?” I croaked, feeling every extreme a person could experience all at once. Clammy hot to ice cold. About to pass out to never feeling so awake. Floating to falling. Weeping to laughing.

  “The news didn’t have a lot of details yet. This is all just coming to light.”

  My head shook. “Did he look all right?” I glanced at Jenn since she was the one who’d said she’d seen him on the news.

  Jenn’s gaze drifted to Teresa, as though she needed her help to answer my question.

  “It’s been six years,” Teresa said, the corners of her eyes creasing. “A lot’s happened.”

  Six years incarcerated by an enemy not known for their mercy. My stomach churned.

  “He’s changed, we’ve all changed—” Teresa’s eyes drifted back to my left hand.

  I pulled at the sleeve of my sweater to cover more of the wrist brace. It seemed ridiculously trivial to be concerned over something as little as that when we were discussing Brecken and what he’d been through.

  “But he still looks like Brecken Connolly. He’s still part of that boy we all remember. Coming back as a man we’ll have to get to know.”

  The entire bag of carrots was peeled. I’d only needed three for dinner tonight. Chock that peeling marathon up to my mind reeling and my life feeling like it had fallen out of orbit. This morning when I woke up, everything had been normal, expected, and ten hours later, nothing felt right. I had to check four different drawers to find my measuring cups even though they’d been in the same one for the past few years. I’d walked smack into the side of the hall table that had been resting in the same place since last summer.

  The world outside hadn’t changed. But the world inside me had.

  Brecken.

  He was …

  Alive.

  Alive.

  He was …

  Safe.

  He was …

  Coming home.

  My emotions had run the full gamut since leaving Gus’s this afternoon. From crying tears of joy in the car to weeping tears of devastation when I realized that while I’d found comfort in knowing, for the past six years, he was resting in peace, he’d instead been in the hands of enemy interrogators, enduring anything but peace.

  Worry as I unloaded the groceries.

  Relief as I started the laundry.

  Anxiety as I ironed shirts.

  Excitement as I checked the mail.

  Hopefulness as I started dinner.

  Hopelessness as I set the table.

  Emotions were a strange thing. How they could propel you forward one moment, only to bury you in an unmarked grave the next. I wasn’t sure what mine’s intentions were for me—to bring me back to life or complete the process of finishing me.

  While dinner finished cooking, I moved into the living room, checking the time. I had another half hour at least. All afternoon, I’d kept the television off, the newspaper folded on the entryway table. I wanted to let myself get comfortable with the realization that Brecken was alive before I let the world fill in the details I both wanted to know and wanted nothing to do with.

  Crossing my arms, I stared at the blank screen. Clicking it on felt as though I were opening Pandora’s Box. I didn’t know what I’d find when I did but accepted that once that door was open, it couldn’t be closed. There was no going back.

  Shuffling closer, I grabbed the remote, punched a couple of buttons, then dropped to the carpet a few feet in front of the television. Sitting across the room on the sofa felt wrong. It felt right being right there, a few feet in front of the screen, on my knees.

  The first news channel I scrolled to had the story going. The second one too. The same could be said for the others. Brecken Connolly had captured the attention of the nation again. I wondered how long it would last this time. Two weeks for being executed on live television. How many for coming back from the supposed dead?

  My hips sank to the floor as I watched the broadcast, my eyes refusing to blink. I kept the volume low, like the newscasters were sharing with me a secret that couldn’t be spoken too loudly or else.

  Or else what? The same men who’d held him prisoner for six years would come back to get him? The same life that had held me prisoner for the same amount of time would suddenly set me free?

  The broadcasters only knew so much at this point, but people were already speculating which super anchor might get the exclusive story from Lance Corporal Connolly, which publishing house would print the biography. They were almost talking about him like he was a commodity, a card to be played, instead of a human being.

  There were a few photos of the underground barracks he’d been kept in, along with names and pictures of the SEAL Team responsible for finding and rescuing him. From the sounds of it, they hadn’t been looking for POWs in those barracks. They’d been looking for a high-profile enemy soldier whose policy on brutality was unmatched.

  They hadn’t found that man, but they’d found another. Nothing was mentioned about the other three POWs who had been captured, but the nation had believed them dead as well.

  It wasn’t until I saw him that I started to cry. Not the same wet sobs I’d broken into in the car earlier, but careful, almost measured tears. Each one I felt. Each one felt like a silent echo of the scream thundering inside me.

  The first image I saw of him was the photo he’d had taken straight out of basic training. Buzzed head, tough face, alive eyes. It was the same picture I’d had on my nightstand.

  The second was a photo someone had snapped of him on a stretcher as he was being carried out of the barracks by the SEAL Team. Long hair. Weak face. Dead eyes.

  He barely looked like the same person. The rest of his body was covered in blankets, so all I could see was his face, but that was enough. I didn’t want to imagine what his body looked like if his face was unrecognizable. His eyes were sunken, his skin so pale it was almost transparent. The dark splotches on his cheeks and forehead could have been bruises or shadows.

  More tears. One for him. One for me. For him. For me. Endless tears. For what had been. For what could have been. For what could never be again.

  Tears for six years of hell. His. Mine. Tears for the however many years of hell to come. For him. For me.

  Tears for hoping his stint in perdition ended sooner than mine.

  Time became irrelevant as I sat there staring at the face of a man I thought had left this life years ago. I didn’t hear the car. I didn’t hear the door. I didn’t hear the footsteps.

  “You heard the news.”

  I did hear the voice. His voice was hard to ignore.

  My eyes still glued to the television, I nodded. I should have turned it off. I should have wiped my eyes. I should have gotten up.

  I couldn’t do any of that.

&
nbsp; “I heard,” I answered in a voice that was more robotic than human.

  The footsteps tapped closer. “Isn’t it great?”

  Taking a moment to consider my answer, I swallowed. I decided agreeing with him was the best option. “Yeah, it is.”

  He’d said he’d be here later, I thought as I checked the clock on the wall. Instead, I discovered he was actually fifteen minutes later than I’d expected him.

  “Are you happy you get to see him again?” His voice gave nothing away. Which, from my experience, gave everything away.

  Putting my answer together in my head first, I forced myself to glance over my shoulder. He was loosening his tie, sliding off his watch, his expression a tomb of emotion.

  “I’m happy he’s alive,” I replied, putting on a smile when he glanced at me.

  “Do you want to go to the homecoming party next weekend? It’s all anyone is talking about.” He moved to the edge of the area rug, looking down at me in a familiar way. His jaw twitched when the basic training picture of Brecken flashed up onto the screen again.

  That was when I turned off the television. “Do you?”

  “Of course.” A shrug as he wandered onto the carpet and moved behind me. “We were friends. All of us. Good friends.”

  My hands twisted in my lap. “After everything he’s been through, he probably doesn’t even remember me.”

  “I highly doubt that.” He squatted behind me, his bent legs coming around me, trapping me inside them.

  “Why?” I tipped my head to the side as he slid a sheet of my hair aside.

  “Because you’re unforgettable.” Nuzzling my neck, his mouth covered the skin below my ear. He sucked at it, his tongue tasting before his teeth nipped at me.

  I flinched, but his legs held me where I was as his mouth pulled away.

  “How’s that wrist?” he asked, gently lifting my injured hand in front of us.

  “Better,” I answered, closing my eyes as his other hand skimmed beneath my sweater, moving up.