“Who’s Dave?”

“My buddy in Afghanistan.”

“Uh-huh.” I type out a quick message while Dylan watches.

Dylan: He’s trying, you cock-blocking gimp.

Dylan says, “You make it impossible not to like you as much as I do. You know that, right?”

Dave: Pic or I call bullshit.

Dylan laughs. “Just ignore him, babe.”

“Or we could have fun with him,” I respond, pulling him by the back of his neck until his face is buried between my breasts. I snap the pic and send it, all while Dylan watches me, his eyes wide in shock.

Dave: Carry on, my man. Carry the fuck on.

Dave: Also, I wish you were more technically minded. I could use you right now.

Dylan’s face turns serious when he reads the text. He takes the phone from me and I witness first hand his snail-speed typing.

Dylan: You good?

Dave: Yeah, man. We’re on base at the moment so if you can tear yourself away from your girl for a minute, set up Skype and we can organize a time to call.

Dylan looks up at me. “What’s Skype?”

“It’s like a video chat thing. I have it on my phone.” I get off him and grab my phone from the pocket of my shorts sitting on the floor. “Tell him to add me.”

He looks at me confused.

I take the phone from him.

Dylan: Hey. It’s Riley. The girl in the pic. You can add me on Skype. I have it on my phone. xoxR1L3YHxox

Dave: Oh. Seriously, it’s cool. You guys do your thing. I didn’t mean to interrupt.

Dylan: We can continue any time. I don’t mind.

Dave: Thx so much. Honestly. I kind of just want to see his ugly face, you know?

Dylan: lol. I’d miss him too.

“What are you writing?” Dylan asks.

“Nothing.”

Dave: Okay. Added you.

Dylan: I’ll get him to call now.

I open the app and accept the add request, then hand the phone to Dylan. “Just press the green video camera icon to call him. I’m going to raid your fridge. You want anything?”

Shaking his head, he says, “Thanks, babe.” Then kisses me quickly, but I can already tell his mind is elsewhere. I button up my shirt as I exit his room, leaving him to talk to his buddy.

There isn’t much in his fridge. Milk, butter, bologna, and a block of cheese. Shutting the fridge, I look around the kitchen. It’s as bare as the fridge is. The table in the middle isn’t even a real table; it’s one of those foldout poker ones. I open the cabinets, searching for the glasses and when I find one, I turn on the tap and fill it with water. I take it with me to the garage and sit it on the workbench where the engine he’s told me all about sits in pieces. Grabbing a smaller piece, I ignore the shaking of my hands, matching the shakiness of my breath. And for the countless time since we got back in his truck, I try to ignore the day’s overwhelming emotions.

Surely, it can’t be that easy to go from one extreme to another. To wake up knowing that the secrets of your past could be the undoing of your future to this—being insanely attached and falling in love with a boy I barely know—a boy who’s declared time and time again that he feels the same way. He’s shown me his heart; I’ve shown him mine. And the best, or maybe the worst part is that I haven’t felt an ounce of guilt.

Grief, yes.

Longing, definitely.

But guilt? No.

I don’t know how to explain it—what it’s like to be in unfamiliar arms, kiss in an unfamiliar way, laugh with an unfamiliar sound… but I haven’t felt this connected since the moments before I climbed that cliff. And I don’t mean connected to someone, but connected to the world.

I wipe the tears, the emotions flooding me as the excitement builds. The thrill of waking up every morning with more to look forward to than the next sip of alcohol. I want to drive in his truck, I want to see the world again, and I want him next to me, keeping me safe and sane and knowing that when things get too hard, too rough, and the guilt becomes too much to bare—not just the guilt of my feelings for him but the guilt of my past and the pain I’d caused others, he’ll do exactly what he said he’d do: he’ll be the glue that holds me together.

He calls my name from somewhere in the house, and I tell him where I am. He shows up a moment later, his eyes going from me to the engine. “What are you doing, babe?” he asks.

I love that he calls me babe. “Just tinkering with your engine, Lance Corporal Banks.”

“Oh my God,” he murmurs, his grin wider than I’ve ever seen. He steps forward, looking in my eyes, and then he runs the back of his finger across my cheek. “You got grease on your face, Riley. So fucking hot.”

I roll my eyes and keep him at a distance. “How’s everything with your buddy?”

Shrugging, he releases a long drawn out sigh. “He’s in a war. It’s as bad as you’d imagine it would be.”

“I don’t imagine it as anything. You don’t really talk much about it.”

He takes the part from my hand and holds it in his, palm up as he looks down on it. “You know when you’re having a nightmare and you know it’s just a dream so you try to wake up but your body fights it, so it keeps going and going until something finally happens which forces you up, and you wake up in a pool of sweat but your mind is still there, stuck in the nightmare?”

“I know it well,” I whisper.

“War is like that, Riley. Only the things that wake you up are the cause of the nightmares.”