Chapter Two
Dear Grace,
Thanks for the care package. It was awesome and really, really big. I appreciate you not sending me the extra bottles of nail polish that you and Lana received from your Uncle Louis. I’m not a big fan of nail polish myself, but you can make a pretty good incendiary device with it. Don’t paint your nails near a fire, or maybe even a candle.
Today was hot—like yesterday and the day before. I don’t remember what 60 degrees feels like. It’s either brutally hot (day) or freezing cold (night). I can handle the hot. I’m from Texas after all. It’s the huge swings in temperature that are hard to get used to.
We’ve been going on a number of walkabouts that are essentially a bunch of guys going from hut to hut in a small village looking for insurgents or handing out aid. I always think that it’s ridiculous to be handing out paper and pens and candy while we are carrying assault rifles, but everyone here treats it like it’s normal.
Yours,
Pfc. Noah Jackson
P.S. You can just call me Noah.
Grace
Lana and I lived in this amazing apartment just two blocks off campus. One thing about going to a pricey and old private college was that the surrounding apartments weren’t run-down shitholes owned by slumlords. We lived on the top floor of a renovated Victorian.
It had high ceilings and oversized doors. The lights were reproductions of late 19th Century Victorian decorations, made out of iron and frosted orbs of glass, according to the apartment rental sheet. It was altogether too beautiful to be housing college students, but I guess when the annual tuition at Central was more than the price of a luxury car, the landlords expected a higher caliber tenant. Those were silly expectations. We were college students.
When I came home from the library, I forgot all those things and treated the apartment door like it was the entrance of a flophouse, throwing the heavy wood structure open with a bang, not caring that the newly plastered walls might be dented by the antiqued brass doorknob.
“Lana!” I called as I burst through the doorway, placing my padded backpack holding my camera and laptop on the floor. She shot up from the sofa as if electrocuted and a caramel-brown head of hair immediately followed. I groaned inwardly when I saw it was Lana’s boyfriend.
“Hey, what is it?” she asked, smoothing her hair out of her face. I waved my hand in front of my chest to indicate that her shirt was unbuttoned and her camisole askew, and then averted my eyes while the two proceeded to right themselves. Too bad I couldn’t cover my ears to avoid the sounds of zippers and snaps. It’s not like I’m a prude, but I just didn’t like Peter. He didn’t treat Lana right, and I didn’t like knowing they exchanged body fluids. She deserved better.
Thankfully, interrupting their intimate moment managed to stop the cycling of crazy thoughts in my head. I felt almost foolish over the panic I had gotten into at the library. Looking down at my hands, I saw they were still trembling. I pressed my palms together as rational thoughts began filtering through my thick head.
I went to the kitchen to grab a water bottle. I busied myself and tried to block out the kissing noises from the entryway that indicated an extended goodbye.
“Even God rested on the seventh day,” I told Lana after she closed the door.
She grinned unrepentantly at me and then laughed outright when I screwed my face into a fake offended expression.
“Sorry, I figured you’d go out with the library crew tonight,” Lana said. My library crew consisted of my student supervisor Mike and two others. Ordinarily, I’d meet up with them to have a post-work drink and complain about all the dickheads who needed help in the library. I think a whole set of other library students drank on another night. I had no fake ID yet so I was limited to early hours at a diner that also just happened to serve liquor. “Or be hanging around to find out if the brown haired muscled guy is your fabled Noah.” Obviously Lana had noticed my reaction to the guys in the library.
“It’s crazy, right?” I needed her reassurance. “I’m just imagining things.”
She nodded slowly. “I would think so. What makes you think it was him?”
I dragged myself over to the living room and sank into a side chair.
“At first I convinced myself that it was just another pair of guys who looked like Noah and his buddy Bo. But later, Mike told me there were two junior college transfers from California who were fighters. Noah once wrote that he was interested in fighting after getting out.”
“So you added up two guys, one blond, one dark, plus fighters from California, and got your Marine from high school?”
The skepticism in Lana’s voice was exactly what I needed, and I mentally leaned into it, relaxing for the first time since I had spotted those two guys in the library.
“I know, honestly. Only I could come up with such a thing,” I tried to make it sound like a joke, but I knew my tone was wrong. More hopeful than mocking.
“Oh Grace,” Lana sat down on the edge of the chair and put her arm around me. “Don’t you worry that you aren’t open to new things here?”
Was that what I was doing? Were my hopeful imaginings just a way to keep myself from getting close to others? Even if I could wish Noah into existence here at Central, I couldn’t make him love me. And if he had loved me, he would be here. Or I would be with him. I rubbed my forehead. I couldn’t even stand to think about all that now. Time to change the subject. “Have you talked with Amy about the picture?”
Lana played along, sparing me any more potential humiliation. “Yeah, we want you to do one of those miniature pictures.”
“The tilt shift?”
Lana nodded. “That the kind that makes everyone look like little plastic figures or models?”
I took out a pencil and paper and sketched out the front of the Alpha Phi house. “What do you want me to focus on? Are you going to stand outside and hold hands and sing?” I asked.
“Not sure.” Lana was an apathetic sorority sister. “I’m going to be the photographer’s assistant and make sure the Delt’s house doesn’t swallow you whole.”
“I thought you wanted me to be swallowed by a Delt,” I teased.
“I think I said last year that a cure for one man was another. It was in an attempt to get you over the Noah phase.”
“Thanks, Dr. Lana.”
“I’m just a psychologist-in-training. I promise to give you free therapy sessions if I mess you up too bad during college.”
“I’m holding you to that,” I said. “Guess I lucked out when we Sullivans came to live with you guys.”
“I think it was kismet,” Lana replied, smiling at me, probably relieved I hadn’t started crying again.
“Kismet doesn’t sound very science-y.”
“Still in training, Grace. Still in training.”
Noah
Bo’s left cross glanced across my chin and I stumbled back against the ropes.
“F*ck me,” he swore. “What’s wrong with you this morning?”
As if he had to ask. My trainer, Paulie, jumped into the ring and bustled over to me.
“I only get you for two hours in the morning and this is the effort you’re giving. F*ckin’ ingrate,” Paulie muttered, pulling off my gloves and protective facemask.
Getting hit in the face is probably my least favorite part of mixed martial arts. I could take a body blow or three, but the other guys at the gym joked about my glass jaw. Paulie has tried to beat that out of me. On a regular basis, he and a few other guys punch me in the face while I wear a protective mask. The goal is to make me so accustomed to getting a fist to the face that I become like a comic villain, always getting up again even after the good guys thought they’d killed me.
Taking a blow to the head or the ribs is one thing. What separates the winners from the wannabes is the ability to think. If you’re hit with the left cross that usually means the right side of the fighter’s upper body is open. Only the most disciplined of fighters always keep their right side protected, and Bo isn’t a disciplined fighter. He’s fast and he has hammers for fists, but he’s lazy, which is why he’s only my sparring partner and not competing professionally. This morning, though, my reflexes were coated with tar. Gym chum could take me down this morning.
Bo sensed this and apparently Paulie did as well. “Get over there and do chest crawls. Twenty five times,” Paulie instructed. Holding the upper rope up and pushing the lower rope down, he gestured for me to get going. Bo helped by shoving me in the back.
Military crawls? I could do those in my sleep. I tried not to look grateful at being released from sparring. Pulling my body across the gym mats, one forearm and knee at a time, required no thought at all. By the tenth one, my mind was completely blank of everything but the abrasiveness of the rubber weave of the mats cutting into my arms and legs. By number fifteen, I wasn’t feeling anything but a burning sensation in my abdomen. Pain is weakness leaving the body, I repeated in a loop. By twenty-five, I felt like liquefied rubber.
My effort didn’t quite meet Paulie’s standards. When I stood up, he looked at me grim-faced. “Took you two minutes longer today. You’re a worthless schmuck. Go run and get the f*ck out of here. When you come back tomorrow, your mind better be in the game. We have a f*cking meet in four weeks. Do you want to get on the card or not?”
I nodded and took the water bottle that appeared at my side. Gulping down some much-needed hydration, I went over to the bench where my running shoes were. I pulled them on and nodded to Bo. He always ran my cool-down with me.
Every morning I got up at 5 a.m. to train with Paulie Generoli. When I had decided to come to Central, I figured that fighting would’ve to be shelved or put aside entirely. I wasn’t broken up about it. Few fighters ever made any money, although with new network television contracts, and increasing interest in pay-per-view events, the sport was making everyone richer.
Even with the influx of new money, though, the likelihood of fighters making a real living out of it was low. The goal was to get on a television fight card. You do that and you get a pretty nice payday. I played high percentage shots, like saving all my money while deployed, instead of buying new trucks, bikes, or boats. But the lure of getting paid big money for beating the shit out of someone was too enticing to pass up.
My trainer in San Diego begged me not to leave, but when it became clear that I wasn’t going to change my mind, he hooked me up with Paulie, a former Olympic wrestling coach. I was lucky to have him and even luckier not to have to pay Paulie for his training services, only for my gym membership. But if I could win something—anything—then Paulie could use me to bolster his gym’s reputation. It was a mutual back-scratching arrangement that could all go to hell if Paulie found out that I was messed up this morning because I couldn’t stop thinking about a girl.
Never a big equal rights supporter, Paulie had become increasingly angry toward females after so many colleges began eliminating their wrestling programs. He viewed women as good for only one thing, and Paulie was perpetually single because he couldn’t keep his opinions to himself.
“I’m going to talk to her after her last class today,” I told Bo as we ran along the nearly deserted downtown streets. Traffic would pick up in about fifteen minutes, but we’d be close to done by that time.
“Where?”
“Outside her classroom.”
“Sounds like a terrible idea.”
“It’s not,” I denied. I had debated this all night. It was why I couldn’t focus this morning. “Or it might be, but it’s the best I’ve got. I’ve let it fester too long. It’s time to pull the Band-Aid off.”
“What was the Band-Aid, exactly? The Dear John letter you wrote to her?”
“Was I supposed to show up at her door with my rucksack and say, ‘I’m a f*cking mess. I can’t sleep. I jump at loud noises. I’m likely to strangle your cat if you have one,’” I retorted. When Bo and I separated, I’d spent three months wondering if I had made a big mistake by getting out. I wasn’t suited for anything but being a Marine, but time and multiple visits to the VA helped calm me down.
I had wanted to separate, get Grace, and start a new life together. Instead, I sent her a letter telling her she reminded me of someone’s little sister and friend-zoned her. I didn’t want to think about the anger I would’ve felt getting that kind of letter from her. The guilt wore me down sometimes, but I didn’t want to present a f*cked-up version of myself. I’d spent the year putting myself back together, physically and mentally, and another year making sure I could not only get into Central, but pay for it.
If it took another year to win Grace back, I would do it. I’d hate it, but I’d do it.
Grace
When I left class, my first thought was that I was still in bed dreaming, because Noah Jackson was standing there, leaning against the interior brick wall next to my classroom with his backpack slung over one shoulder. Even slouching, he was still taller than many of the other students passing him.
I let out an involuntary cry and swallowed it back, but it was too late. His head popped up and, as he straightened and looked right at me, I got my first full view of him. I wasn’t even surprised I recognized him. I couldn’t delete his image from my memory like I could from my hard drive.
Noah was older than most of the students. He had never revealed his birthday, even though I asked repeatedly. His excuse was that I would try to do something too extravagant, and he would feel guilty. But based on his years of deployment, I knew he had to be around 23. It wasn’t just his age that set him apart from my classmates, but the way he held himself.
I drank him in, mesmerized by the sight.
Even standing silently near the wall, he had presence and an innate confidence. He didn’t shrink in on himself, but stood there comfortably, arms loose at his sides. The crowd moved around him instead of the other way around.
He was shorter than my brother, Josh, who stood at 6’ 5, but was more solid. Dressed simply in jeans and a dark gray T-shirt, his body had not lost any of the muscle he had gained while in the Marines. If anything, he looked bigger than he had in the one picture I possessed.
I could see the veins in his forearms and biceps prominently displayed under the skin. Like the arms of a drummer in the marching band. Strong. Powerful. Capable. His eyes were deep-set but in perfect symmetry to his mouth and angular nose. His cheekbones were sharp and high, reminding me of a manga character. But where those characters had rounded baby faces, Noah’s jaw and chin were squared off, as if the sands of the desert had hewn that portion of his face out of rock.
I tried to move back into the classroom, but the collective force of the exiting students continued to push me outside. We stood there for a moment, just a few feet away; the distance seemed at once yawning and stifling.
I should’ve said something witty, like “where have you been all my life” or “long time, no see” because really did he expect he could show up and I’d fall at his feet? But my actual thinking capabilities were currently somewhere on the hallway floor.
It was like fate, or life, or karma hated me. I needed to be in a men-on-their-knees outfit, not dressed in my brother’s flannel shirt, baggy boyfriend jeans, and battered canvas Chuck Taylors. I hadn’t even showered today because I overslept, spending most of the night tossing and turning.
I wanted to run away before I broke down and completely embarrassed myself in front of my classmates. I turned away from him to head out the opposite end of the building. I couldn’t hear the sounds of dozens of students going from one class to the next. Nor could I see.
Anger, resentment, and, if I was being completely honest, joy filled my head and clouded my gaze. I moved down the hall by rote memory. I could see the rear entrance of the square building. The light filtering through the doors seemed like some kind of salvation, and I hurried toward it.
“Grace.”
I heard his voice behind me. I sped up. I may have been running. People moved out of my way.
I hit the metal release bar on the back glass doors with the flat of my hand, and the metal clanked loudly, I noted with satisfaction. I wished I had five more doors to bang through, but I guess that would’ve impeded my stomp toward my apartment.
Ordinarily, I would meet Lana for lunch at the campus café. Today I was going home and hiding in my apartment until I could decide what I was going to do. Like transfer out to another college or figure out how to avoid Noah for the rest of the time he was here. Problem was, I didn’t know why he was here or for how long. Transferring might be the best option. I could go to State University where my brother Josh went. It was only three hours away.
I had reached the edge of campus and could see my house just two blocks away. I was convinced that if I reached the porch of the old Victorian, I would be safe, like when we were kids playing tag. As I stopped for traffic, I felt Noah behind me, his big body throwing a shadow that swallowed my smaller one. Out of the corner of my eye, I could see his hand hover over my shoulder. My whole body tensed. I didn’t know what I would do if he touched me, but it wouldn’t be good. He sighed softly and dropped his hand away.
“Grace, you’re mad. I get it. But can we at least talk?”
I had never heard Noah’s voice before. We never exchanged voicemail messages, never Skyped. We had just written to each other—World War II-style. I thought our decision to write only was impossibly romantic. Plus, I didn’t want him to see me over the Internet and decide I wasn’t attractive enough to write to anymore. I still had those damn letters in a carefully preserved state in an archival box designed, I think, for scrapbooks. But I had imagined what he would sound like. Low, because it seemed manly, and maybe a little gruff, because of all the sand in the desert. And look, I was right. His voice was low, gravelly, and panty-dropping sexy.
Who was I kidding? The panties probably came off even if he didn’t talk to a girl. He could smile or just acknowledge her presence and she’d swoon into his arms. I needed to avoid him, if only to preserve my dignity. I was too afraid that I’d throw myself at him and beg him to take me in all the ways that a virgin could dream of and then some. I kept moving toward my apartment, trying not to race, trying not to look tragic.
Once we reached the front of my apartment, I was stymied.
I had just let Noah know where I lived. Plus, I doubted I could get behind my security door before he put his big foot in and prevented it from closing.
As if he could read my mind, he said, “I already knew where you lived. You aren’t showing me anything I didn’t already know.” I still didn’t turn around. I could feel the tears I had tried to keep away begin to well up. Any minute now, I was going to start crying, and he so did not deserve to see me cry. That a*shole.
This time, I felt his hand on my arm. I wanted to shake it off, but I didn’t move. I didn’t want him to know he affected me at all. Or at least more than he already knew. His hand slid down from my elbow to my palm, and I felt a piece of paper being pressed into my hand.
His body crowded mine for a second and I thought I felt his lips touch my hair. “Read this. It’s how we’ve communicated best in the past.” With that, he let go slowly. I wanted to just let his note drop to the ground, but as his hand released mine, I felt my fingers curl up involuntarily to crush the note in my palm. He squeezed my now-closed fist and walked away. I heard his footsteps fade, felt the warmth of his body dissipate.
I didn’t look back but instead went into the house and walked up the stairs. My feet felt like they had cinder blocks attached. By the time I reached the apartment door, I was shaking. It was hot outside and even hotter on the third floor, but my internal body temperature was telling me I was freezing. Maybe I was going into shock.
I dumped my stuff right inside the front door. I vaguely heard the chirps of my phone, informing me I had unread texts. Ignoring them, I walked into my bathroom, turned on the shower and stripped. Inside the glass cube, with water as hot as I could get it shooting out of the showerhead, I let go.
I wasn’t even sure what I was crying about. My own stupidity. My years of not dating, because I was so sure that Noah was my happily ever after. My lackluster freshman year. My inability to gather up the courage to submit my portfolio to the Fine Arts school. My certainty that no one would ever love me. All of it, I guess.
I cried for what seemed like hours, not noticing anything until the water shut off. I looked up and Lana was standing there, her eyes wet and concerned. She held a towel in her hands. I stumbled forward and she hugged me, wrapping me inside the terry cloth. I allowed her to lead me to the bedroom where the shades had been pulled and a towel placed on my pillow.
She held up the covers and I crawled inside like a five-year-old. Once she pulled the covers up over my body, Lana left the room quietly, closing the door behind her. The crying jag, the darkness of the room, and the weight of the covers dragged me into a dreamless sleep.
Hunger woke me up. I glanced at the clock—I had slept for three hours and it was nearly dinnertime. My hair was mostly dry, but I wrapped it up in a towel anyway and shrugged on a robe. I heard the television in the living room. Lana was on the sofa with a textbook in her lap and the remote beside her. Two Diet Cokes were open on the table. I knew she was dying to ask me what was going on, but she managed to stay quiet for the moment, at least.
“Should we have ice cream for dinner?” Lana asked as I walked over and took a long drag from her Diet Coke. I was parched. Dried out. I had no liquid left inside me after all that crying. And I was so shook up by Noah’s appearance two thousand miles from San Diego that I actually sat on the sofa, which I ordinarily avoided since Peter and Lana seemed to spend so much time making out on it.
“No,” I put the now half-empty soda can on the table. “But I’m hungry.”
“I was thinking of ordering in.”
“Good call.” And then knowing Lana needed an explanation, I told her, “He was waiting outside my Poli Sci class.”
“Did you talk?” Lana was matter-of-fact, as if she knew I needed steadiness not sympathy.
I shook my head. “No, but he gave me a note.”
“Like you’re third graders? What did it say?”
“I don’t know,” I admitted. I turned toward the entryway where I had dropped all my stuff, including the note, but Lana had cleaned it up.
“Oh!” She popped up. “I saw it and stuffed it in your bag.” She brought my backpack over, and I rooted through it to pull out the folded piece of lined notebook paper.
The note felt combustible. I was afraid to unfold it. I shoved it back into the bag, as if I could hide the whole situation away without having to deal with it again.
“What does it say?” Lana leaned toward me, peering into the bag.
“I don’t care. What could he say?”
She shrugged and pointed out, “You don’t have to guess. The answer is right there. Want me to read it for you?”
In all the years that Noah and I had been writing, no one else had read his letters to me. They were my private property, and I had hoarded my stash like a dragon guarding her gold. But for the very first time, I was afraid of what one of Noah’s letters said, so I reluctantly handed it over and covered my eyes.
I heard the crinkle of paper as Lana unfolded the note, and then silence. Impatient despite my fear, I lifted my hand and peeked over at her. I could see the pen marks through the back of the lined paper. The note was short. Without even thinking about it, I grabbed the note back and read.
Dear Grace,
I thought about how to introduce, or should I say re-introduce, myself to you a million times. In all of my scenarios, I looked like a douche, but I don’t feel right explaining the last two years to you in a letter. But I need you to know that your letters to me while I was in Afghanistan were the only things that kept me sane. I don’t want to lose the friendship we built over those four years. Meet me and let me make amends for what happened. I have an explanation. Whether it is any good, whether you forgive me, is all in your hands.
Text me at 619-867-5309. I’ll meet you. Any time. Any place.
Love,
Noah
“Love?” He had never written those four letters before. I had. Like an ass, when I wrote to him and told him I wanted to meet him, I signed my letter “Love, Grace.” I wondered if that was partly what set him off, what made him decide he couldn’t meet the teenage freak he’d conned out of forty-eight care packages and letters. I crumpled the letter into a ball.
“Are you going to meet him?” Lana asked, leaning over and prying the ball of paper out of my hand. She tossed it onto the coffee table. I immediately reached over and started smoothing it out. Even now, after everything he had done, I couldn’t help myself.
“I don’t know,” I mumbled. Why was he here? Was he a student? He had a backpack, but that could mean anything. It must have really been him in the library the other day.
“Let it go for tonight. Come to the party and enjoy yourself.” Lana looked at her watch. “We can toss back a few drinks here and then go to the Delt house.”
The mention of the fraternity reminded me I had promised to take rush photos for Amy and the other Alpha Phis. I groaned in dismay and embarrassment. “I totally forgot about the photos. Is Amy furious?”
“Nah, I called her right away and said that you weren’t feeling well. She said tomorrow would be fine.”
“Lana, if you weren’t my cousin, I would kiss you on the lips.”
“It’s only the cousin thing that is stopping you?” She teased me.
“You’re the finest piece of ass here at Central, but I have to resist your charms. It’s the law.”
“If you’re making jokes, I pronounce you sufficiently recovered to go and get shit-faced and leer at the Delt rush candidates,” Lana proclaimed.
Lana went to make some calls, and I sat on the sofa and tried to stop all the crazy thoughts I had from racing through my mind.
Noah
Bo was lounging against my truck when I returned from Grace’s apartment. He was chatting up some blonde chick who looked like all the other girls he’d ever been with. They were interchangeable to me, and likely to Bo, too, since he called them all “babe.”
I figured I would know if he ever fell for a girl when he called her by her first name instead of some random endearment.
“That was a clusterf*ck, eh?” he asked as I approached.
“Yup,” I climbed into my truck and threw my books into the back. I revved the engine a couple of times to signal that I wanted Bo to get in the damn truck. He could pick up chicks another time.
“At the risk of sounding like a girl, do you want to talk about it?” Bo asked when he finally got into the passenger seat. I threw the truck in reverse and peeled out of campus parking lot.
“No, Bo Peep, I don’t,” I bit out.
So much for being good at doing.
“What were you thinking?”
“What part of ‘I don’t want to talk about it’ did you not understand?”
“Are you giving up?”
“What?” I swung my head toward him. Bo threw up his hands. “No way.” I looked back at the road.
“Then let’s strategize.”
“I’ve already made every strategic mistake possible. I left too late last night to catch her. I surprised and maybe embarrassed her after class. If I see her at a party and spill beer all over her, my trifecta of stupidity would be complete.”
“So now what?”
“Now, it’s time to regroup.”
“You want to fight or drink tonight?”
“Both.”