Wasteware 06

06: I’m Alive To Wear Them

Not long after lunch, Amaya found herself in a similar office having another meeting, this time with Commander Reeves. She sat in an armless gray chair opposite of him, giving her report. “Dr. Hollis agreed. He’ll have his committee selection to you by tomorrow morning.”

Commander Reeves was relaxed, leaning back in his leather office chair speaking with his daughter. “He didn’t give you any arguments?”

She shrugged. “He started to throw around some accusations about what the real reason for the offer was. He wasn’t wrong, but I didn’t let him know that. It actually went better than I had anticipated.”

“I heard he had a soft spot for women, I should have assigned you to deal with him years ago.”

“Is it that or because I have a relationship with people on his team?”

He chuckled, “Does it really matter? He said yes.”

She rolled her eyes at him, “No it doesn’t, but I’d like to think he agreed because it was a good idea.

“Speaking of your recent ideas,” her dad segued, “are you really having a date with Jace Anderson tonight?”

“Oh Gods, we’re really having this conversation.” Amaya tried to avoid looking at the pictures in his office, specifically the ones of them from her childhood. Fishing on the lake on vacation when she was 12, at the gun range when she shot her first handgun, at age 8. “Yes, I am having a date with Jace. Does that surprise you?”

“About the date? No. I knew you would start seeing someone eventually. It’s your choice I find surprising.”

“You know, most parents would be happy to find out their kid had a date with a Doctor,” she laughed. “Dad, look around, who did you think I was going to end up with?”

His response was deadpan. “Preston.”

“Preston!” She couldn’t help but laugh at her father throwing that name at her. “Did you forget that first Thanksgiving I was back? You very clearly blamed him for what happened to me in Afghanistan.”

“I still do.” Even though he was still leaning back in his chair casually, his shoulders had squared, and his face hardened just a bit. “You wear countless scars because he let a little crush on you get used against him. Then he couldn’t even be bothered to commit to you when you showed up at the Block.”

“Crush?” she asked, her laughter turned indignant, until a revelation dawned on her. “Fuck, I didn’t want to talk about Afghanistan when I came back, and you never pressed. So much time went by. I healed, sort of, and we never talked about it.”

Sean Reeves shook his head, his face full of remorse he was trying to hide from his daughter.

“El didn’t just have a little crush on me, dad. He loved me.” Numbness came over her. It was the detached, distant veil she wore to avoid showing emotions to her squad, to her father. “I loved him. We had been together for two years when all that shit went down.”

“Fuck,” she whispered, a little bit of shock and anger seeping through. “Yeah, I wear scars because he let something slip, but I’m alive to wear them because he loved me. That’s the part everyone forgets.”

“Shit, My,” he said, using his nickname for her. “I’m sorry if I made things hard for the two of you.”

She gave her father a soft laugh, “You didn’t make things easy, but that wasn’t our problem. He can’t stop blaming himself for what happened. I can’t stop hating myself knowing I would not have done the same for him. Parts of us will always be stuck in that desert.”

They sat in quiet silence for a few moments, letting the emotion pass through them unmentioned before Amaya asked another question of her father. “Wait, if you wanted me to end up with Preston why did you ride him so hard?”

“I never said I wanted you with him, just that I thought you’d end up with him. You two fit.”

Amaya had not been ready on any level to have this conversation with her father today, but here it was. Since they were being candid, she pressed him. “Let’s put Preston aside. What’s wrong with Jace?”

“You can’t just put Preston aside, My. But, when it comes to Jace, I don’t know him that well, but I don’t get the impression that he can handle when things get hard. You live, eat, and breathe in a hard man’s world. He might be intimidated by that at some point.” Arlis Reeves seemed genuinely concerned.

“Because I know how to use a gun? Because I know how to issue orders? Give the guy some credit, Dad.”

“It's not that. The way you were brought up, and trained, to handle crisis, it’s not something everyone can understand. We’ll just have to wait and see.”

Amaya got up and hugged her dad, “It’s just one date, Dad.”

Just one date. The words that were repeating in her head as Amaya stood in front of her wardrobe realizing she had very little outside of her uniform and gym clothes to wear. That mental loop was broken when her comm pad buzzed with a message from Preston.

Hope you are ready for the sequel

What?

A & El Adventures in the Desert: Part 2

Premiers tomorrow.

They got the door fixed?

Just got word.

We’ll finalize details in the AM brief

Fuck yeah!

Thought you’d like that.

Talk to you in the morning.

Amaya was smiling as she put the comm pad down, turning her attention back to her wardrobe problem. She vaguely remembered that there might have been some old civilian clothes shoved in the hope chest in her closet. It was a gift her grandmother had sent for her birthday a few years before the bombs and was the one piece of non-military issue furniture she owned. Amaya dug around in her desk drawer for the key and unlocked the chest.

“Shit,” she whispered as she lifted the top. Laying right under the cedar wood was a navy blue 50’s-style swing dress that immediately attacked her with a wave of nostalgia.

When her mom was still alive she would always cook Thanksgiving dinner for Commander Reeves and anyone on the sec squad who didn’t, or couldn’t, make it home to family. Amaya didn’t have a lot of memories of her mom, but helping her cook on Thanksgiving, dressed up like 50’s housewives while the squad made a ruckus in front of the TV, were some of her best. That is how Amaya came to find herself in a dress and unbelievably uncomfortable sling-back heels, cooking dinner for her squad in her dad's quarters on her first Thanksgiving back.

Preston spent the day with her in the kitchen helping her cook. Or trying to, at least. Since he never learned his way around the kitchen, Amaya was also playing teacher. The company was more than worth the effort. That afternoon was the first time since she got assigned the Block where she felt happy. That feeling should have been a warning because that feeling never lasts long.

Dinner had just been set on the table. Amaya and Preston were next to each other ignoring the rest of the squad to continue their conversation about the latest Black Ops game they were obsessed with. Commander Reeves was at the head of the table to carve the turkey and had brought out an electric knife to do the job. He clicked the switch to turn it on and the sound of the electric buzzing threw Amaya right back into a windowless room in the desert.

She was in two realities at once. In one, she was restrained to a chair and couldn’t move. In the other, she was free to stand up, but her body only responded with uncontrollable shaking. Preston was at the same time restrained in a chair across the room from her yelling, “Don’t fucking touch her,” and sitting next to her whispering “You aren’t in danger anymore.” An electric saw was being held against her thigh by a masked Afghani and also cutting into a turkey carcass by her father.

Everyone was staring at her, just as paralyzed as she was at that moment. Everyone except for Preston. He had lived this with her. He knew what had triggered this flashback. Ignoring that the man was his commanding officer he turned towards the elder Reeves and yelled. “Turn the fucking knife off!”

The Commander didn’t respond fast enough. Preston pushed his voice out, trying to snap someone into action. “You are triggering her fucking flashback, turn off the knife!”

That set her father off. Maybe it had been Preston’s accusation or maybe it was just not being able to help his daughter. Whatever he was feeling caused him to rip the leg off the turkey and chuck it directly at Preston. “You did that to her!”

“Fuck, Dad!” Amaya yelled as the absurdity of a turkey leg hitting Preston in the face brought her fully back into the present moment. A moment in which everyone was still staring at her. Looks ranging from concern to pity lay on the faces around the table. Her own face flushed with embarrassment as feelings of shame and guilt for losing control welled up.

“Please walk me to my quarters,” she whispered to Preston, pushing those emotions down as she stood from the table. “I’m so sorry everyone. Try to enjoy the rest of dinner. I will see you all on Monday.”

“Amaya, sit back down,” her father commanded.

She pushed her chair in. “Dad, I love you, but this isn’t work, and I am not a soldier here. I’m leaving.”

The Commander was not used to having his orders disobeyed, especially from his daughter, in his own home. “Sit! We need…”

“No. We don’t need to do anything. I’ll talk to you later.”

She took Preston’s hand and held it all the way back to the door of her room. He helped her get through that night with cold beers, pumpkin pie, and running zombies maps with her until 03:00 when she passed out on the couch.

Amaya definitely wouldn’t be wearing that dress to her date, but she did manage to find some jeans underneath them and scoop neck green teeshirt. It would have to do. She put the dress back on top and realized there was a time when Preston wouldn’t have sent her a text message over the comm. He would have just showed up at her door to tell her the news and they would have spent the rest of the evening hanging out. She couldn’t remember the last time that happened and she missed it. She picked up her comm and shot him a quick message.

Meet at my place for breakfast tomorrow?

I can give you a haircut before briefing

don’t want you getting heatstroke with that mop on your head

Sure

See you at 0700

With that, she tried to put Preston out of her mind for the evening as she headed down the carpeted hall towards Jace’s room. Amaya felt an unfamiliar sense of nervousness, a slight twinge in her gut, fluttering in her chest, as she stood in front of the muddy blue door with 57 stenciled on it in black. She pressed the intercom button next to it and waited for Jace’s voice to come out of the speaker. Instead, she heard the click of the lock releasing as he opened the door.

“You didn’t even confirm who I was,” she chastised him.

He stood holding open the door, his chestnut eyes looking down at her behind black lashes. “I wasn’t expecting anyone else.”

She tilted her head to the side slightly and gave him a disapproving glance. “That’s not…”

“Protocol?” he interrupted her. “Do you actually still follow that? No one gets in your quarters without sliding their card?”

“Yes, I do, and no, they don’t.”

He stepped aside, motioning her to come in. “Live on the wild side Amaya. Be an unlogged visitor.”

She looked at him quizzically and laughed, “Wait, you don’t think I have to actually slide my card for there to be a record of entry do you?”

“You don’t?”

“No,” she couldn’t help herself and was continuing to chuckle at his naiveté. “That just initiates the audio announcement to your internal comm. Every doorway and passageway in this place has RFID scanners.”

“Our ID cards are chipped?” Jace asked.

Amaya shook her head as she entered Jace’s quarters, an exact replica of hers in terms of layout and furniture, though the decor was considerably different. Where Amaya had gun cleaning equipment, Jace had plants. Where her TV and video game console sat, Jace had a shelf filled with books.

“Not the cards,” she answered him. “You remember getting allergy testing before you came to the block? The prick test on the back?”

He nodded cautiously.

“Nurse probably said something like ‘This one is going to hurt a little bit more than the rest,’ right before you had a stab near your shoulder blade?”

“That’s concerning,” he said.

“That’s when they dropped the chip in you. It's in a place that makes it almost impossible for you to remove on your own should you ever get the idea to do so.”

Jace pulled out her chair. She sat at his small round table where two self-heating meals of chicken and black beans were set out on real plates. A very fragrant pot of rose tea was stepping in the middle. He sat down across from her, “Did you just give me classified information Sergeant Reeves?”

“No,” she smiled at him. “That’s more of an open secret. Your contract indicates that your position and location will be monitored whenever you are within Project Element spaces. It also gives consent for necessary medical treatments.”

“Huh, so the ID cards are what?”

“Misdirection,” Amaya answered. “If you ever wondered about that part of your contract you’d assume it was the cards and think no more on it. In theory.”

“Wow, so the sec team knows you are here?”

“To be fair Jace, you did ask me out in front of Preston, so they won’t need to check the log to know I’m in your quarters.” Amaya shrugged at him sympathetically.

He was leaning back in his chair taking in the information Amaya had just dumped on him. Jace had also decided not to wear his regular slacks and dress shirt with a tie. He was much more casual this evening in a black button-up shirt he left unbuttoned. Under that was a dark gray tee shirt he wore with dark blue jeans.

“I’m sorry,” she said. “I know that was probably not the opening of the date conversation you were hoping for. You look nice, by the way.”

Jace flashed her a smile and his cheeks flushed just a bit. “Geez Amaya, that was supposed to be my line. In all these years I don’t think I’ve ever seen you out of uniform.”

“I don’t really own much outside of those, as I discovered today. Even before all this I never spent much time as a civilian. The tea smells great.”

He poured her a cup, “Like I said, nothing fancy.”

“It’s perfect Jace, it really is,” Amaya said, and the two of them dug in, falling into the easy conversation of two friends.

The minutes of course ticked on normally, but neither Jace nor Amaya had any sense of them passing. The night went on, meal long consumed, teapot empty and cold, when Amaya got up to leave. Not that she particularly wanted to end the evening. The conversation they had, delving into each other's pasts and views on the future had been engaging, but she had an early morning and a full day after that. She’d need to get a bit of rest to have her head in the game.

Jace stood up to let her out, grabbing her just before they got to the door and encircling her in his arms. Warmth and tenderness emanated from him, engulfing Amaya with a feeling of contentment. His warm breath swept against her cheek as he whispered, “Did tonight go well?”

Those four little words pulled at strings of apprehension within Amaya. What would come after her response would mark a point of no return in their relationship. Everything up until now could be framed as friendship. This would change that. That realization had come and gone. Amaya had accepted his offer tonight knowing that it would likely mean a new chapter and so she answered him honestly. “Remarkably well.”

Jace’s grasp on her let up ever so slightly, bodies separating by the most meager amount. He looked down at Amaya and pressed his lips to hers. Soft and warm, with the faint taste of roses. It was sweet, though it held nothing of urgency or need that Amaya had always associated with a lover's kiss. This was a kiss that promised more, but more at another time. A kiss just for the sake of kissing her.

“Goodnight Jace,” Amaya whispered as she untangled herself from his arms and opened the door.

The soft serene lines of his face were already starting to crease with worry as he watched her leave. “Hey Amaya, be safe tomorrow ok?”

“Always,” she replied with a wink and walked down the dull hallway back to her own room.