by Dane Sawyer
Nobody’s watching but me. The bar’s TV flickers, sound off, the image shaky, grainy, like it’s showing images from another world. On the screen, a sea of white flags fly above an endless line of Taliban pickup trucks crawling into Kabul. The camera jerks sideways, catching the faces of boys with rifles, and bearded men with sunken eyes, all of them celebrating.
My stomach knots. The beer sweats in my palm, glass slick. Numbness creeps up my wrist, crawls into my chest. The flags blur, and all I see is an incoming tide of white against the screen. I turn and look away.
Then I see him. Steve. Slouched at the far end of the bar, eyes bleary, body thickened, face loose and worn. Something inside me tightens up, then releases. I drain my glass, buy two more, and slide into the seat beside him. Recognition comes slowly.
“Jack,” he says, almost under his breath. “Didn’t think I’d… see you again.” He blinks a few times. “And since when did you drink?”
“Since a lot of things,” I say, pushing a beer toward him. “How long has it been?”
***
I sat on a park bench, hands jammed into my pockets. Rust-colored leaves spiraled in the wind, scattering across cracked asphalt, like they’re rushing to get somewhere.
Izzy pulled up and sat in her car, visor down, carefully painting on a layer of dark red lipstick. Through the windshield, I watched her mouth form silent words, practicing something she might not be ready to say. Her dark curls fell forward, hiding her face until she snapped the visor closed and stepped out.
Cold air blew around us. We both smiled, polite, brief, like two actors playing a scene they don’t fully understand.
“Why am I here, Jack?” Her voice was calm, but her eyes searched mine for an answer, or maybe a way out.
“Steve’s in his car,” I said. “He wants to talk.”
Her shoulders tensed, then dropped. She gave a small, humorless laugh.
“Of course he does.”
Her gaze shifted past me, out toward the mountains, their tips dusted with early snow.
“How predictable of us all,” she said. “You, so ready to help. And me…” she stopped, pressing her lips together like she was holding back a scream. “I can never just trust my gut.”
I wanted to tell her that this was the right thing, that if they just sat down and talked, maybe they could fix it. But even as the thought formed, it felt flimsy, because I wasn’t sure who had convinced me it was right, or when I started believing it myself.
“If you don’t want to see him,” I said, “we’ll leave right now. Your call.”
She exhaled slowly, steadying herself.
“I’ll talk,” she said. “But I don’t know if it’ll help.”
***
The bartender swaps out our empties. We circle around safe topics, weather, parents, people we used to know. Each short answer feels like testing thin ice.
“Smoke break,” Steve says finally, like a reprieve. He stands, takes a few steps, then stops and looks back at me, motioning with his head for me to follow.
Outside, the cold air bites at my face. The patio’s lit by a single yellow bulb, the heater humming like it might die any second. Steve lights up, hands shaking just a little. He seems to look through me as he takes his first pull, at the window behind me, where the TV is still playing the news.
“That’s gotta mess with your head,” he says, exhaling smoke that dissolves into the dark. “Watching it all fall apart like that.” He shakes his head, glancing at me, then back at the screen. “Funny thing is, I was thinking about you when I saw the news. Then there you were.”
***
We escaped to the mountains after their talk, away from her and the questions she would never really answer, Steve chasing silence instead of clarity. For three days, we rose at dawn to fish, our lines cutting through the misty stillness. Conversation mostly dead by the end of sunrise. By noon, Steve would swallow a pill and vanish into his tent, a habit he’d held onto since the injury that turned him from an exciting baseball prospect into a bust overnight.
I filled the afternoons with dog-eared westerns and lakeside walks, reading about heroes who rode into the west with just a horse, a rifle, and the clothes on their backs. There was something appealing about that simplicity, that clarity of purpose.
The only time I allowed myself to remember I was a soldier, one scheduled to deploy soon, was when I pulled out the Army’s new Counterinsurgency Field Manual. Secure the population. Build trust. Win hearts and minds. Each step laid out in simple lists. There was a certain pride in knowing I’d be rebuilding a country, protecting people who couldn’t protect themselves. Maybe that’s what I’d be: one of those men riding into a broken place, making it right again.
Each evening, trout fed in flashes beneath the surface. Steve stayed inside his tent, and no amount of my excitement could draw him out.
On our last day, Keith rolled into camp in a lifted, glossy-black truck. A former teammate from their minor league days. Keith carried none of Steve’s silence because his throwing arm had never betrayed him. He wore his success and rising career like a favorite shirt, with unassuming comfort. Around the campfire, after a few beers, Keith’s stories spilled out: championship games they’d played together, dugout pranks, and coaches whose mythic tempers they’d both somehow survived. His laughter was loud, uncontained, and echoed through the dark like it didn’t matter who heard.
Sometimes, for just a half a second, when Keith joked, Steve’s laugh came fast and unguarded. But then it was gone. Steve would go back to smiling at all the right moments, but the expressions never rose past his mouth. Behind his eyes lingered something dimmer, like he was watching from far away, from another life, where stadium lights still burned above him and the future hadn’t already slipped away.
I wanted to say something, to pull him out of whatever dark place he’d retreated to. I wondered how Izzy would handle this. She’d probably smile at him, not allowing the pity, just warm, and somehow bring out the version of Steve that still believed in things. She had this gift for finding the best parts of people. But here I was, trying to fix what she’d broken, when she was probably the only one who could reach him.
***
I keep my eyes on Steve’s bright cigarette ember.
From outside, Steve studies the news for a long moment, then nods toward the window as he looks back at me.
“Tell me something, Jack. Over there…was it all just bullshit, or what?”
His words land like small arms fire, kicking up dust around me. Part of me wants to answer, to tell him everything, the danger, the frustrations, the small victories, the never-ending missions, the locals who I never understood, who I never would, the nights staring at blue, snowcapped mountains that looked almost like home but weren’t.
Instead, I keep my voice level. “It wasn’t bullshit, at least not for me. There was a need,” I say, spinning my beer slowly in my hands, studying the green Sierra Nevada label.
Steve laughs once, bitter and sharp. He shakes his head, teeth red, catching the glow of the heater. “You know, all you had to do was nothing. Just sit it out. But you,” his cigarette stabs the air with each word, “you always had to get involved. Always had to mess with things.”
***
Weeks after the camping trip, back on base during my final train-up before deployment, Steve texted: “Izzy’s gone. At her parents. Not answering.” Then: “Could you talk to her? She’ll listen to you.”
I said yes, wanting to help.
Izzy and I spoke only on weekends initially. Then weekdays, too. At first, she only told me about staying with her parents in Colorado, then the stories came, about Steve’s sudden coldness after the wedding, his long silences while he disappeared into some new “business idea” he was researching. I relayed pieces of this back to Steve, trying to walk carefully along an invisible tightrope stretched between both their pain and frustrations.
Then came the harder things: arguments about money, her tuition account emptied, TVs bought with her credit cards for rental schemes that never materialized.
Helping at first felt simple, pass along a message here, calm things down there. But before I knew it, I was the one in the middle of everything. But even when I didn’t feel like any progress was being made, Izzy always seemed to lighten up after we’d talked for a while. And when the calls ended, all the field exercises and briefings felt more doable somehow.
One night, she finally said, “I’ve moved on. Found work in Hawaii. New job, new life. Tell him I’m done.”
When I passed the message along to Steve, softened and paraphrased, his only response was a long sigh, followed by silence. I told myself that was better than anger.
***
“That’s not fair,” I say as Steve taps his cigarette to his lips a few times, watching me.
He takes a fast drag, almost frantic, and I see the tip of his cigarette flaring bright red.
“You know I wasn’t messing with things,” I say. “I was always trying to help.” I try to find the words, to explain how it wasn’t about me, how I’d been pulled into it all, with Izzy, with him, with the war, but the words taste somehow wrong in my mouth.
Steve points his cigarette at me, gray ash falling to the ground. “Yeah, well, look how that turned out.” I think I see bitter memories flash across his face. “All you had to do was nothing.”
“It’s not that simple,” I say, staring back at him until he rolls his eyes and looks away.
***
I had one last block of leave before we deployed, and my flight home included a Denver stopover. I hesitated, but still texted Izzy. “If you’re around, I’d love to check in.” My phone buzzed almost immediately: “Of course we are meeting up.”
She met me at the airport, pink lip gloss, dark circles under her eyes, but smiling despite it all. Over plates of lukewarm diner food, she talked about her plans for Hawaii, fresh starts, finishing school someday.
On the drive back, I reminded her I was going away soon. “I’m so sorry,” she whispered, hand tensing on the wheel. “I never even asked how you were doing.” Her airport hug lingered, but kind of in the way I’d wanted it to.
Days later, Keith messaged: “Steve’s telling people you’re seeing Izzy behind his back.”
***
Steve tosses his cigarette to the ground, grinds it under his heel. His gaze moves to me, angry but also exhausted.
“You ever wonder what happened to her?” He lets the question hang, waiting. I say nothing, wondering how far he wants to take this.
He holds his gaze as I stay quiet. “Were you just never going to ask?”
***
I called him.
“I’m not trying to do anything with Izzy,” I said. “We met once, but…”
“I know, man,” Steve said, voice flat. “Thanks for everything. Don’t worry.”
But hours later, a drunken text: “You’re full of shit, thanks for sleeping with my wife.” I typed out responses, deleted them all, said nothing.
When I told Izzy she lost it. “I’m free to see whoever I want, whenever I want.” She hung up. I told myself I wished they’d leave me out of it. Steve sent more messages, accusations then explanations. The next night he texted to let me know that Izzy was just using me to get his attention. Nothing made sense anymore.
One night, Izzy texted that she’d called him, told him off, and “cleared it up for us.”
“Nothing to clear up, nothing is going on.” I texted her back.
***
“I thought you’d at least let us know you were alive out there.” His voice is quieter now, more wounded than angry. His eyes move down to his pocket, and he struggles to get his wallet out. “But you disappeared, man. I didn’t even know when you were back.” He looks back up at me.
He pulls out something from his wallet, but doesn’t show me, just turns it over in his fingers. “You know what the fucked up part is? She kept asking about you. Even after everything fell apart. ‘Have you heard from Jack? Is he okay over there?’ Like I knew.”
His laugh is bitter. “Meanwhile, I’m sitting there with my life in pieces, and that’s what she’s asking.”
The paper bends in his grip. “Guess I thought maybe we…maybe one of us meant more to you than that.”
***
We were at Fort Dix, in New Jersey, waiting out the last few weeks before getting on the plane overseas. The commander chose a few soldiers and gave us a one-night pass to New York for the next weekend. When I told Izzy about my pass, she texted me back almost immediately: “Crazy coincidence. I have a long layover in NYC that day.”
The commander’s only stipulation was that we had to visit the 9/11 memorial, to remind us of why we were going. It had helped him get his head right before he deployed for the first time, he’d told us. I suggested to Izzy that we could meet there, at the memorial, if she really had a layover.
The memorial felt like a different world. The city noise faded as I stepped into the plaza, where the towers had once stood. Cold stone and falling water filled the space with a steady hiss, like breath held and released. Names were etched along the edges of the pools, row after row, impossible to take in all at once. I checked my phone, then ran my fingers over a name, not because I knew them but because it felt wrong to just stand there and look.
I thought about how their deaths had set so many things in motion. Wars, speeches, orders handed down until they reached me. The terrorists who did this probably thought they were freedom fighters, that killing innocents would somehow advance their cause. Same with the Taliban, always finding reasons why their violence was necessary, why other people had to pay the price for their vision of the world.
And now here I was, days from boarding a plane, knowing I too could end up a name engraved on cold stone. But if sacrificing myself to end this cycle of violence wasn’t the right thing to do, then I didn’t know what was right anymore.
My phone buzzed in my pocket. It was Izzy, but when I went to answer, an older woman in a gray coat stopped me. She glanced at my uniform. “Thank you for your service,” she said softly.
I nodded, unsure what to do with my hands. I put my phone away. “Thank you,” I said back, though it didn’t feel like the right response.
I turned to check my phone again, and then I saw her. Izzy stood at the edge of the crowd, scanning faces until her eyes found mine. For a moment, everything stilled. The memorial, the city, the war waiting across the ocean, it all faded to the edges.
She grabbed me, pulling me in close for a hug. She took my arm, and we slipped away without a word, and I raised my hand for a taxi.
We ended up in my cramped hotel room after a short stop at a diner. We talked about nothing that mattered. When Steve’s name slipped into conversation, I flinched. She noticed and changed the subject. She moved closer, telling me how stupid she’d felt last time, when she left me at the airport, how she’d talked only about herself.
“We’ve wanted this for a while, haven’t we?” she whispered at a break in the conversation, scooting closer to me.
“I never thought we’d…” I stopped myself, knowing anything that followed could be a lie.
She reached into the mini-fridge and pulled out a small bottle. I wondered when she’d started drinking. She laughed as she unscrewed the top and took a sip, her eyes fixed on mine. She offered me a taste, but I said no. We talked more, and all I could think about was the shape of her lips, and how we’d gotten here.
“With all the rumors about us,” she said, fingers tracing my collar, “it’s like we’ve already paid the price, like we’ve earned a pass.”
***
Steve flips the picture over and shows me. It’s an older photo, cracked and faded. Izzy is standing on a peak in Hawaii, smiling, her dark hair dyed purple.
“Doesn’t matter now,” Steve continues, putting the picture back into his wallet, pulling out another cigarette but not lighting it. “She’s not the same girl anyway. Partying in Hawaii, wrong crowd, drugs, jail…” His voice trails off. “Heard about it years later.” He pauses, like he might say more, but the words die out.
I nod, unsure what else to say. I look at him, this man whose life I’d helped break apart without him knowing. But maybe that’s not true. Maybe he hates me. Maybe he hates himself. Maybe I hate myself too. And maybe we’re both still tangled somewhere in the memory of Izzy’s curly, dark hair.
***
When she pulled at my shirt, her laugh was rough, smoky, like the scratch of an old vinyl record. I didn’t stop her. Why would I? We’d already been tried, judged, and damned for this. That part was done. Her fingertips traced slow circles across my chest, each loop daring me to say something, anything. And I just sat there thinking: is this really how I wanna ship off to war? Tangled up in someone else’s mess before I’d even seen a single bullet?
I’d been pulled into something that wasn’t really my fight, asked to step in, asked to fix what I hadn’t broken. Just like the war. Someone else’s plan, someone else’s reasons, but somehow it became mine to take part in, to fix. The gravity of it pulled me under, locked me into an orbit I never chose and couldn’t escape.
So for one hot, messy second, I stopped fighting. Stopped swimming against the tide. Let myself get carried into whatever messed-up, beautiful moment she was building between us. Because if everything else was gonna pull me down, maybe this was the one time I’d let it.
She pressed herself against me, skin to hot skin, and bit my shoulder, hard enough to leave a mark. Her laugh was bitter, edged with anger or resentment, maybe both. Her bare skin lit something reckless in me, and I closed my eyes, straining against the weight of all we were about to do.
I reached for the bottle, swallowing down the burn, and she teased me softly, darkly, for the face I made. We moved like actors in a play someone had written for us, everything inevitable.
Afterwards, she slept beside me, her dark curls sprawled across my chest. The city beyond the thin curtains grew quiet. I lay awake, staring up at the cracked ceiling.
In the morning, she rushed to catch her flight. We kissed quickly, the gesture stripped of any lie we might’ve told ourselves, that we’d done nothing or that we’d done everything. On the bus ride back to base, I leaned my head against the window and closed my eyes. But I couldn’t sleep, thinking only of her dark curls, the warmth of her skin, and the lingering scent that clung to my clothes. I carried it all with me, heavier now, knowing I’d feel the weight of it for a long time.
***
“You’re right. Doesn’t matter,” I finally agree, after processing what Steve has just told me about Izzy; the jail time, the partying.
“You know what’s funny?” he asks me, his voice softening. “I don’t even remember what we were fighting about anymore, me and her. Just that it felt like the most important thing in the world back then.”
***
I went to Afghanistan expecting danger. What I wasn’t ready for was how quickly I’d adapt to it, how the rhythm of it would become almost comfortable. Some days were pure adrenaline: firefights, sprinting between buildings, watching explosions bloom in slow motion, the dust clouds hanging thick before settling to reveal the aftermath. Other days I handed out school supplies, sipped tea with gray-bearded elders, followed the steps laid out in that manual. Secure the population. Build trust. Win hearts and minds. I was good at it too. Patient, respectful, the kind of soldier who could win over a village with a hundred handshakes.
But the locals’ trust drifted like the smoke from their cooking fires, warm and thick one moment, gone the next. We’d hand out books to a line of smiling school kids, then take potshots from the same village on our way out. But that just proved the work mattered, that it was working.
I learned things about myself. How to keep eating during mortar attacks. How to silence the part of my brain that wanted to stay on red alert every second.
But when the shooting started, when rounds snapped past my head and I was firing back, everything went sharp and clear. I started looking forward to those moments, even though I knew people were getting torn apart in those dust clouds, knowing I could slide into oblivion in one of them myself at any moment. Everything else fell away.
On my first long mission, we got into a firefight that seemed to last all day. After the dustoff, after helping carry the stretchers to load up the wounded, I lay back and stared up at the cold night sky, feeling so numb, almost hoping the shooting would start again. So I reached for Izzy in my mind, pulling her close, replaying every detail of that night together. The way her skin smelled in that hotel room, and how her dark curls spilled across my chest. Anything to keep something alive in me.
On the last day of that mission, as we were almost back to base, an RPG landed behind me, close enough that my ears rang for days afterward. Back inside the wire that night, still mud-caked and sweaty, I checked Facebook. Izzy had sent message after message. Hawaii, trouble finding part-time work, questions about Steve and his distance. I clicked through her photos: sunsets, a blurry cocktail, a group shot with people I didn’t know. They seemed like postcards from a stranger living on another planet.
Every time I started to type a reply, I stopped. Her problems with finding part-time work, and Steve’s distance, it all felt trivial compared to where I was, and what I was doing. Her world and mine didn’t connect anymore.
I told myself to stop thinking about her. Stop thinking about Steve. And I never wrote to either of them again.
***
I look at him now, this man who once considered me a friend, and see only the weight of years, the accumulation of unseen fractures.
I raise my beer in a half-toast. “Yeah, doesn’t matter anymore,” I say again one last time.
For a moment, I think he’ll refuse. But he taps the neck of his bottle against mine. They clink a hollow sound. The beer tastes flat, but sweet on my tongue. Inside, the bartender flips the channel, erasing Kabul and the white flags with the mindless rhythm of baseball players throwing a white ball, sprinting toward nowhere.
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