Free Here With Me by Heidi McLaughlin

until I look at her. “Twenty minutes, but we can go over. I’m just seeing you and Evan today. We still have a lot to cover.”
    “What do you think you’ll be able to tell us after all of this is over? This was Lois’s idea, not mine, although I made Evan come. What are you going to do for us?” I look back at Evan and wish I were down there with him. I’m not sure what I’d say, but I think I’d like to hold his hand.
    “Ryley, I’m hoping by the end of the day I can give you an assessment. Provide you with an outsider’s opinion on which way you and Evan should go. It may not be what you’re looking for but it may be exactly what you both need. We won’t know that until we’re done and I’ve had a chance to go over my notes.”
    I stand up straighter when I see a woman approach Evan. She’s in NWU’s, identical to his. He leans back and greets her as she sits down. I want to bang on the glass, but what good will it do me? I’ve moved on.

I PONDER HER QUESTION. It would be so nice to talk to someone, anyone, who isn’t tied to the military. All week I’ve been asking the questions, and each answer is ‘ it’s classified ’ or ‘ we don’t have any recollection of that happening ’. My favorite one is, ‘ the mission went as planned .’ No, the fuck it did. Snatch and grab and with a four man crew, I should’ve known something was up from the get-go.
    However, I don’t have the answers the doc is looking for. I only know what I know and what our mission was. If I tell her, is she at risk? Probably, but what if she’s able to take my story and help Ryley and I figure out how to co-exist? As much as I’d love to think the doctor is going to convince Ry to stop her wedding, I don’t think that’s going to happen. Ryley owes me nothing, even if I think she does. She was the dutiful girlfriend waiting for my return, and when I didn’t, she moved on. It’s expected. She did exactly what I wanted her to do; I just didn’t expect it to be with my brother.
    “My unit leader, River, had just gotten married when we got the call. We had been home for some time, and I actually started to have a routine with Ryley. She’d get up with me in the morning, we’d make breakfast together and I’d make love to her before I left for work. I never wanted her to feel like we didn’t have a last time together. I know it seems chauvinistic, but it was important to me that she and I had connected on that level before I went to base. Reporting to base each day, I never knew if I’d be home for dinner or not, so I had to treat each day like there wasn’t a tomorrow morning.
    “Anyway, we’re at the beach, ya know? It’s a normal day. The sun is out, we’re eating and lots of guys and wives are there. River’s phone rings, and he excuses himself. When he comes back, he says make sure everything is right at home. That was his code for we’re leaving. Right then and there, everything shifted. It was time to go home, make everything right with our spouses and pack.
    “River, Frannie, Ry and I were the last to leave, and as the girls walked to our cars, he stopped me and said that it was just four of us going: me, him, McCoy and Raskin. It wasn’t the first time a unit of four had gone out, but the way River said it made me pause. We were heading into Cuba and a child of a U.S. politician had been kidnapped and taken there. Intel told us where the child was, and the commander said it’d be in and out.
    “I echoed River’s thought though and felt that something wasn’t right. It wasn’t our territory, and it should’ve been a unit from the east coast going, so why did we only have four members if we were going into hostile territory? He didn’t have the answers and wasn’t about to question our CO.”
    I stand and retreat to the water cooler and fill yet another paper cup. I keep my back to her, hiding my expression because this is harder than I thought. I shouldn’t be talking about that day, but