Live Free and Love (4 page)

“So, what?” Kristina said, knowing exactly what her friend was talking about.

“Oh my God, Kristina, I’m going to punch you. Did you find him?” Janine said excitedly.

“Actually, I did. We spent the entire afternoon with each other. It was nice,” she said, intentionally leaving out his breakdown.

“Do you think you’ll get anything good from him for the story?”

Kristina put her head down. The damn story. She knew why she was here, knew it was for a story, but whatever Danny was going through was more than just headline-worthy. She felt torn.

“Hello? Kristina, you still there?” Janine said through the phone.

“Yeah, I’m here. Look, I’ve got to go. I’ll call you a bit later, okay?” Kristina said.

“Okay, but make sure you do. I have to tell you about my date.”

Kristina laughed. “Sure, I bet you’re dying to tell me, too!”

“You have no idea. Hurry up,” Janine ordered before she hung up.

Kristina’s mind went back to Danny. From the looks of his home, he was drinking too much to try and deal with whatever hell he was in. She didn’t know if he would be willing, but she wanted to talk to him about it. Not for her story or for her job, but from one best friend to another.

Making up her mind, Kristina grabbed her key and coat, and headed out the door.

It wasn’t long before she was knocking on Danny’s door.

When she got no answer, she tried once more. A loud crash came from inside, followed by a curse.

The door yanked open. Danny stood in front of her, wasted. The smell of strong alcohol wafted from him. It was just a few hours since she had left him at his car. He must have came straight home and started drinking.

Kristina looked into his eyes and her heart broke. It was as if the man was lost. He was one of the strongest people she knew. Whatever this was, it had broken his spirit.

“Tina?” he said, as if just realizing she was there. “What are you doing here?”

“I wanted to talk to you about yesterday. But, um…” she let her sentence trail off. She was now unsure of herself, wondering if this was a good idea.

She didn’t want to see him like this. It reminded her too much of how her father would look and smell when he drank.

“I can come back,” she said, starting to back away.

Danny felt a sudden panic well up in his chest as he watched Tina walking back to her car.

Don’t let her go
, he said to himself.

“Kristina!” he called after her. He would have gone to her, but felt too unsteady on his feet.

Kristina stopped and turned around. “Yeah?”

“Um, you can come in. I uh, actually would, uh, like someone to talk to,” he said.

She seemed to think it over before walking back to him. She placed her hand flat on his chest.

“If I stay, no more alcohol, okay? It’s too hard.” She looked pleadingly into his eyes.

Even through the alcohol, he knew she meant because of her dad. He knew how much that had hurt her. His decision was made quickly when he saw the uncertainty in her eyes.

“It’s a deal,” he said, grabbing the door for balance and stepping back to let her inside.

He watched as she made her way to the kitchen and looked in the cabinets. He wished he didn’t have the haze of alcohol shrouding his mind. He wanted to see her as she really was. She was beautiful. He had always thought so. She was all grown up now, with a sophisticated grace that he found so sexy.

He watched her float around his kitchen as if she lived there. The smell of coffee was soon wafting from the small room.

Kristina brought him cup after cup of very strong coffee, until he at least had his balance back.

She sat quietly and watched him. When his cup ran low, she refilled it.

“Tina, if I drink any more I’m going to burst,” he said at last as she topped off his cup.

A small, pretty smile played at her lips. “I’m sorry. I used to do that to my farther too. Guess I do go a little overboard with the coffee.”

A comfortable silence settled over the room. His thoughts were on the beautiful woman before him.

She chewed at her bottom lip, fiddling with every piece of anything she could find.

He knew she was avoiding having to start a conversation.

Danny sat back in his chair and dove headfirst into Pandora’s Box

“What’s on your mind, Kristina? Only time you used to act like this is when you wanted to say something and you didn’t know how.”

She chewed her bottom lip, her eyes focusing on nothing.

“Tina, please, if you have something to say, just tell me,” he said, looking at her.

She took a breath, her eyes finally meeting his. She sat forward in her chair.

“I know that we’ve been apart for years, but there is no one else that I can say I’ve trusted as much as you.” She paused. “I hope you feel the same way about me.” She didn’t wait for him to answer, but continued. “It’s apparent that something is going on with you.”

He started to feel a little off-kilter.

“I don’t know what happened, but it’s taking its toll on you... I’m asking as your friend, Danny: what’s going on with you, that you seem to be falling apart?” she finished.

With every word she spoke, Danny felt as if wounds that had never really healed were being torn open yet again. He knew that the things that Tina had witnessed last night deserved an explanation, but he didn’t know if he could tell her.

He hadn’t uttered a word about his ordeal to anyone, not even the military shrink they had sent him to when he was called in. It was just too hard to talk about, but it was something he would never forget.

He looked at Kristina and saw the concern in her eyes. He saw that she cared about what was going on, and it was up to him to put her at ease.

“Tina… I’ve witnessed things, even had to do things in Afghanistan, that you wouldn’t dream of in your worst nightmares.” His voice caught at the last word. “It’s something that lives with me every day. It’s like I can’t get out of my head.”

His eyes were clouded. The images that haunted him flashed through his mind—the screams, the gunfire—he couldn’t stand the constant roar in his head. He looked at the bottle he had been drinking earlier. He wanted a drink. He wanted silence, something to keep his demons at bay once more.

“Danny, I know this is hard for you, and I don’t want to force you to do anything that you’re not able to do right now. I just want you to know I’m here for you. You do know that, right?”

Danny looked at his friend, his first love. The only person he had ever counted on. She was offering him something that no one else had: a chance to vent without judgment, a chance to unleash his pain without someone calling him crazy when he was done.

Maybe it’s what you need
, he said to himself.

Kristina got up from the table and grabbed the cup Danny had been drinking from.

“I had been overseas for about a year before it happened.”

She stopped midstride and looked at him.

He stared off into space, the memories fresh as if they had happened yesterday . “My unit was assigned to a low-traffic area. It was supposed to be an easy assignment, just watch the roads. Make sure no one snuck up on us, or came through unexpectedly.

“This particular night, I was on watch with a fellow soldier. All was as it should be, or so we thought. We had been there for about three hours when I heard rustling off to my left. I listened in, thinking it might have been a wild animal. When we heard the noise again, I told PFC Watson I would go check it out.”

Kristina had sat back down, but Danny didn’t notice. He was back to that night.

***

Danny held his rifle at the ready as he walked slowly towards where he’d heard the noise.

“ Who’s there?” he called out. “Come out now!”

He got no response. He crept closer to the trees. He was just about to enter the brush when he heard a sound he would never forget. He turned slowly. A weapon was aimed at his head. The young boy who held it was yelling at him in his native tongue.

He could see PFC Watson coming up behind the boy.

“
Da silahk janiban!
” Danny shouted. “Put the weapon down!”

The boy kept his weapon pointed at him; their eyes were locked . Danny repeated the demand once again, but the boy shouted back.

When a shot rang out, Danny thought he was hit. It didn’t make sense. He didn’t feel any pain.

His eyes went back to the boy, who had turned behind him. PFC Watson lay on the deck. Another boy stood behind him, this one older.

He shouted at the young boy, who trained his weapon back on Danny. Time slowed for Danny as everything happened at once.

He shouted over and over, “
Da silahk janiban, da silahk janiban
, put you weapon down!”

Danny knew it was no use. He saw the boy flip the safety off his rifle. Danny closed his eyes briefly before he pulled the trigger.

The boy fell. Danny’s rifle immediately moved to the other boy, and he fired once more.

Tears were in his eyes as he looked at the boys. Life so young, gone, and by his hand.

*****

“Why wouldn’t he put the weapon down?” he said to no one in general. “He would still be alive, the other one too, if they had just dropped their weapons.”

Kristina had moved from her chair, to sit on the floor in front of Danny. She had watched as different emotions had played across his face.

“I can’t get the images out of my head: all the shooting, the bombs, the killing. It’s with me every day, but killing those kids… it makes me sick. It doesn’t seem to matter to me that they were armed and had every intention of killing me. I killed two kids. I can’t handle that.”

The raw pain written on his face had Kristina reaching up to Danny and pulling him into a hug.

“It’s okay, Danny. You had no choice. They were gonna kill you.”

He looked her deeply in the eyes.

“Sometimes I wish they had.”

Chapter 5

"Love is shown in deeds, not words."

When Kristina left Danny’s apartment later that night, she could have cried. His story had been heart-wrenching, the pain inside him almost a living thing.

She hadn’t known what to say to him or how to make things better for him, even for just a little while. All she could do was offer him support, hug him when he needed to be hugged, hold him and tell him it would be okay, even if she didn’t know if she spoke the truth.

Back in her hotel room she dialed Janine’s number.

“Yeah?” she answered.

“I’m screwed,” Kristina told her friend.

“Whatcha mean?”

“I can’t use him for the story. Not now, I can’t.”

‘What’s wrong?” Janine asked. “Did he find out about the story and refuse?”

“No, it’s nothing like that. It’s just…” she searched for the words. “He’s dealing with some heavy-duty shit. He opened up to me tonight. He trusted me enough to tell me what happened to him overseas. I can’t betray his trust and use that against him.”

Janine was silent on the other end of the phone.

“So what are you gonna do? You know Cooley’s gonna be pissed,” Janine said. “Although I can’t find it in me to care.”

“Yeah, I know. He’s just gonna have to be happy with the two profiles, or a third if I can find one.”

“So it’s that heavy, huh?” Janine asked.

“Yeah, it’s that heavy. I have no idea how to help him either. I mean, I’m not a doctor or anything, but shit, I would like to take some of this off of him. He’s being crushed beneath the weight of it all,” Kristina said, thinking back to earlier this evening.

“All I can say is: be there for him. Let him know he can count on you. Beyond that I’m as lost as you are, sweetie.”

“Yeah, I had already planned on that. The man has a lot to deal with, and if he doesn’t it’s gonna eat him alive.”

“That’s some pretty messed up shit, Krissy. Let me know if I can help.”

“I will, thanks love. I’m going to shower and pass out. It’s been a long day.”

“I hear ya. Call me tomorrow.”

“I will.” Kristina disconnected the call.

She looked at her bed. She never made it to the shower. She was asleep in seconds.

***

Danny paced his living room. He wanted to scream. His head hurt from all the noise going on inside. His glance kept going to the Ketel One on the coffee table. His mouth watered. Shaking his head, he kept pacing.

“Breathe,” Kristina told him, “It will pass, Danny. Just breathe.”

He looked at Tina. She sat in the only seat in the living room other than the couch. They were in the middle of their routine. She would offer her support when he had a bad moment, like he was right now.

From talking to her this past week, he realized he was dealing with things in the wrong way. Admittedly, it was the only way he knew , but it wasn’t working. It was just making him an alcoholic.