Johnson’s POV
Thursday. My sacred day off.
No barking recruits. No gunmetal sunrises slicing through a fog of sweat and discipline. No drills echoing through my bones like the ghost of war.
Just me, in shorts, slippers, and sweet domestic silence.
I was sprawled out on the living room floor, the tiles warm from the afternoon sun. My wife lay beside me, her head propped against a throw pillow, flipping through an old photo album with fingers that lingered like they were touching memories.
I was feeding her my worst dad jokes, the kind she always pretended to hate but laughed at anyway.
I pointed at a cracked, yellowed photo of me during boot camp, grinning like I hadn’t yet seen what war could do to a man.
“And here,” I said, puffing out my chest, “is proof that I had hair. Not a lo
