Page 74 of After We Fall (After We Fall 2)
“No. But…there was a different car.” My voice was weak, and my body started to tremble. “Years ago. In Iraq.”
Margot’s hand began rubbing my chest in slow, soo
thing arcs. “I’m listening. Tell me.”
My throat was dry and tight, but the story forced its way out. “My convoy was moving through the country and we’d stopped to rest. Three of us set up a checkpoint. Cars were being used as rolling bombs, so we had to stop every vehicle from coming into the zone where soldiers were resting.”
She shivered, as if she knew what was coming. Pressed her lips to my head.
“We had signs in Farsi instructing drivers to stop, and if a vehicle didn’t stop, we fired warning shots at six hundred meters. It was rare that cars tried to go through, unless they carried IED’s. But one night…” I paused. Inside my head was a voice screaming at me to stop talking, but I couldn’t. Every word out of my mouth relieved some kind of pressure inside me. I had to get it all out.
“One night someone didn’t stop?” she prompted. “Was there a bomb in the car?”
I shook my head, swallowing the sob threatening to choke me. “No. But it’s possible the driver thought the warning shots were coming from behind, because the car sped up as soon as they were fired. So I fired directly at the vehicle. I didn’t even think twice.”
“Of course you didn’t.” Her voice was strong. “Jack, no one would ever blame you. You did your job. You protected people.”
“I didn’t even see who was in the car until morning and it was time to move from that position.” My eyes filled.
She went completely still. “And?”
“The driver was a woman. And there were children with her.”
“Oh, my God.”
“Three of them.” My voice cracked, and tears dripped from my closed eyes.
“Oh, Jack.” Margot’s voice was splintering too. She held me tight. “That must have been horrible for you.”
I inhaled, regaining control. “You know what? It wasn’t. It barely registered. At the time, I remember feeling proud for doing what I had to.” The words were bitter in my mouth. “Later, after I got home, it hit me what I’d done. I was a wreck. I couldn’t talk to anyone, didn’t feel safe, couldn’t make myself feel normal. Every single minute I was just waiting for the retribution, you know? I was positive there was no way what I’d done could go unpunished. I wanted the retribution. I nearly brought it on myself.”
She hugged me even tighter, and I felt the trembling in her body as she wept. Kissed my shoulders, my head, my neck. Ran her hands over my chest and stomach, as if she had to reassure herself I was still here. “I’m so sorry. And I’m so glad you’re here. You didn’t do anything wrong.”
I didn’t deserve her sympathy or her tears.
“Do you know how many fucking nightmares I’ve had about that woman?” I touched my thumb and index finger to the insides of my eyes. “She’s right there in front of me and I’m begging and begging her to stop, and she doesn’t. I wake up shaking and screaming.”
“Do you still have the nightmares?”
“Sometimes. For a while, they got better, after I went to the doctor. I started taking meds that would make me forget what I’d dreamt. I didn’t dread going to sleep so much. But I stopped taking them after Steph’s accident.”
“Why?”
“Because it was my fault.” I retreated into the truth that tortured me, repeated the words that haunted me. “‘Just as he has done, so it shall be done to him.’”
“No, Jack. You’re wrong.” She sniffed and sat up taller. “What you did saved lives, and it had nothing to do with Steph’s accident. You are not responsible.”
I closed my eyes. “It’s the only way I can make sense of it.”
“No one could ever make sense of a tragedy like that.”
“Sometimes I dream about the checkpoint, and it’s Steph driving the car,” I whispered. “In my subconscious, they’re connected forever.”
Gently she rocked me, her words laced with quiet sobs. “It wasn’t Steph, Jack. She was the love of your life, and you never would have harmed her. You made her happy.”
“I wanted to. God, I wanted to.”
“You did. And if she were here right now, I know she’d be saying the same thing to you that I am—it wasn’t your fault.”
