I wasn’t sure if it felt surreal or stupidly ironic.
A soft knock at the door pulled me from my thoughts. I opened it to find David Bell leaning against the frame, a paper cup of coffee in each hand. His grin was the same as always—crooked, familiar, a little too knowing.
“Figured you’d be awake,” he said, handing me one of the cups. “Black, no sugar. Just like your soul.”
“Thanks for the diagnosis,” I muttered, taking a sip. The coffee was bitter and lukewarm, but it grounded me. David stepped inside without asking, his eyes sweeping the room with the practiced calm of someone who’d seen too many temporary quarters.
“You saw it, huh?” he said, nodding toward my phone.
“I did.”
“You going?”
I hesitated. “Does it even matter if I do?”
He exhaled, leaning against the wall. “You’re the only one they’re naming. You know that, right? I figure you’re going to be on CNN. They’re already teasing the segment.”
I didn’t respond. My mind was somewhere else. Back in that dusty garage, hands covered in oil as I rebuilt the engine of the Thunderbird with Richard long before his pride calcified into disappointment. I remembered how I’d beamed when I drove it back from my first base. How it felt like a piece of freedom I had earned on my own terms. Now it was gone, sold, like I was never coming back.
“Chloe.” David’s voice pulled me back. “You’ve been invisible to them for two decades. This is your moment to be seen. Don’t let them take that too.”
I looked at him, at the lines around his eyes and the scar on his jaw from a mission he never talked about. He’d been there in the worst of it—Kandahar, Baghdad, the endless nights of strategy and sorrow. He knew what it cost. He knew the weight of the silence I carried.
“I’m not doing it for them,” I said quietly. “I’m doing it because I earned it.”
David nodded slowly, a flicker of pride in his gaze. “Damn right you did.”
He left me with a pat on the shoulder and the echo of his boots fading down the hallway. I finished the coffee, pulled on my worn-out boots, and stepped outside. The air was brisk, autumn-sharp, and clean. A group of soldiers were going through morning drills in the training yard beyond the fence. Their movements were crisp, precise, a rhythm of discipline I knew better than my own heartbeat.
For the first time in days, I let myself smile. Not a grin, not even relief, just something quiet. A muscle memory of who I had always been beneath the pain.
