Page 12 of Stranded
“I have some idea. We’ll be fine. Come and eat. It’ll be night soon, and we should get back to the RV.”
He hadn’t said it, but I knew one of the reasons he wanted us to move out was the lack of food. The goods we’d brought with us had been caught in the fire. Some of it we could still eat despite being burned. It was better than starving and made me appreciate food even more.
Tonight’s dinner was canned soup, which I found disgusting but I knew better than to say it out loud. I hated the silence of the night, so I tried to make conversation.
“Do you ever think about going back to the Marines?”
Silence followed my question. He stared down at the flickering flame of the fire, lost in thought. For a moment, I thought he hadn’t heard me, but then he finally spoke.
“I think about it every day,” he said, his voice low and measured. “It’s a part of me, you know? I miss the discipline and the structure. The camaraderie of my fellow Marines. But…” He stared off into the distance.
“But what?” I pressed. He’d never talked to me about his time in the Marines. Not that I’d asked. It was like pulling teeth to get any information out of him.
“I feel too guilty about what happened.”
“The ambush?”
He raised his eyes. “You know?”
“Some of it. After you came home, I… looked into it. So many lives were lost.”
“Yes. I was the commander of the platoon. I walked those men right to their deaths.”
“That’s not true.”
He snorted. “What do you know?”
“That you’re a good man.” I inched closer to him, wanting to squeeze his hand, but I didn’t dare. Instead, I drew patterns on the back of his hand with my finger. “That you alwaysgive a hundred percent, even when it’s arguing with me.” I chuckled, then sobered. “I was terrified when you came home. We didn’t know the extent of your injuries. If you would even be functional. Until I saw you in the hospital, I wasn’t sure I would ever see you again, and it made me sad for all the times I argued with you when you came home. I blamed myself. I thought that if I were a better stepson, you wouldn’t be off chasing one thrill after another but actually come home after a deployment.”
“That’s not true.”
“Isn’t it, though?”
“No, it’s not.”
“Then why did you stop coming home?”
Because he didn’t return, Mom started bringing a different guy home every time. Men Jackson knew nothing about. How could I tell him? He’d abandoned her. Abandoned the two of us. How could I blame her for seeking comfort in another man’s arms? Hadn’t I sought comfort in the arms of the older men I fooled around with because of my daddy issues? Twice abandoned. Was I really that horrible a son?
“I… I just couldn’t anymore.”
“Fine, don’t tell me!” I pushed away from him, but he grabbed my arm and tugged. With a gasp, I flailed my other arm, trying to steady myself. It was a lost cause. I crashed into his body.
Jackson caught me and held me against his body. A ripple ran through me. Being pressed up against him like this was electrifying.
My heart sped up. I stared at him. Into those dark brown eyes.
He swallowed. My eyes followed the movement of his protruding Adam’s apple and the expanse of his neck.
“Are you sure you want to know why I stayed away, Aiden?”
“Yes,” I gasped.
He raised his hand and rubbed his thumb over my bottom lip.
“Because when I came home that summer when you turned nineteen, you were all grown up. No longer the little boy I always had in my head. You were feisty and?—”
“And what?”
