I sat in my parked pickup on Main Street, trying to put together a plan. For the hundredth time, checked my phone for messages and found nothing from her. My eyes darted up and down the street, waiting, shoulders tensed in a state of high alert.
Combat readiness.
This was supposed to be love, not war. It was a thin line between extreme emotions.
During the two weeks after the fire, I’d grown increasingly unhinged.
That’s what we called it on the battlefield. A secret code among brothers for those times when your brain explodes like a gate that won’t stay shut. When your intellect refuses to accept the f****d up reality all around it, buddies being targeted by missiles, land mines, or just plain gunned down like cannon fodder in a skirmish—and you became so mind blown over the facts, th
