Dear Soldier Boy (17 page)

Chapter Thirty-Nine

Vivian sat at the desk with her mouth open. Pain filled her eyes. It was real. Their relationship had been real. Their emails, their letters, his letters, they had all been real. He was real. Matthew had not been some figment of her imagination. She knew he wasn’t. He couldn’t have been fake. He was too real…too perfect. Matthew Jensen, her Soldier Boy, was real, and alive, and wanted nothing to do with her. The clarity of her tears crashed down in surges over her cheeks.

All this time, he knew who she worked for. Her company, the maker of faulty gear. Their slogan should be
make money at all costs
. The costs of so many injuries. So many deaths. So many lives that could have been saved. But money had been more important. Saving money over saving lives.

Vivian knew that when Tommy died. Her family knew that. Even though it was supposed to be kept out of the media, there was talk. Soldiers knew.

Matthew knew. He knew. He must hate her. This had to be the reason why she hadn’t heard from him. He was alive. He was able to contact her. The silence was louder than any explosion Vivian had ever experienced, any crash of shattered glass on her tile floor. Her heart crumbled into tiny fragments of little lost moments of love and adoration. He had adored her, he said it. He said he cherished her and he was gone. Gone. Gone from her life. Completely vanished…without a trace. All she had left were his letters and emails. His climbing gear. They were supposed to climb a mountain together. He was supposed to kiss her in front of the Lincoln Memorial. It was never going to happen. Of course it wasn’t going to happen, why would it? It was too perfect. Anything or anyone that seems too good to be true, is. Everyone knows that. Everyone. Including Vivian. She knew that. God, how she knew that. Why would he want to be with her? Why? He knew who she worked for. He knew it was by choice. It wasn’t a forced job. She wasn’t under contract and made to stay.

And yet, she did. She stayed. She even stayed after Tommy died. After Tommy was gone. After he had left this green earth, Vivian continued to work for a company that put soldiers at risk. She put soldiers at risk. This was why he wasn’t talking to her. It all made sense now.

How could he be alive and not talk to her? If he loved her, he would not be silent. The burden of truth was in front of her. Her closure.
Their closure
. It was over. Matthew was alive, but they wouldn’t be together. They couldn’t be. A relationship can’t survive if one person hates the other.

Everything was gone. Lost. Everything that she had. Everything. Matthew was her everything. Months of silence meant nothing. Nothing, when she had hope. There was always hope. There was always a chance that he was injured and would make contact when he could. But now, she knew the cause. He was alive and fine. He wanted nothing to do with her. He wanted her to have his death letter. A letter to know how royally she had messed up. How she could have had it all if she had chosen a different path in life. How could he possibly want to be with a person who worked for a company that scarred so many? He knew Tommy was possibly dead because of her. Not him. He made a mistake. People make mistakes. But she didn’t make a mistake working for  JCI Logistics. She knew they were cutting corners. She knew soldiers were at risk, and she still showed up, day in and day out.

Vivian crashed onto the floor and Duke licked her face. It was as if she had fallen into quicksand. Her body constricted into a tight ball. All of her oxygen escaped from her lungs. She couldn’t breathe and her fingers tingled. Dark spots flashed in front of her. Tears rolled down her cheeks. Everything she had thought would happen did. All her fears about losing the man who held her heart were true. And it wasn’t his death that caused his silence. It was her. Her choice. Her morality. Her mistakes. Her fault. This was all her fault. If only she had chosen to do something else with her life. Why hadn’t she been a teacher like her mom had always hoped? As a teacher, she would be responsible for cultivating and enriching lives, not destroying them. Not stripping people’s bodies of limbs and mobility.

Matthew was alive but didn’t want to be with her. He hated her. It was over. Why did he continue to write when he knew who she was? Why? Was it to torture her for being a part of a company that cut corners? Was it a morality issue? Was it to prove a point? To show her what she could have had?

All the blood drained from her face, everything went dark and silent.

Duke sat by Vivian’s side while she cried on the floor. Gallons of tears fell from her eyes. Finally, she pulled herself up and logged into Facebook. She had to see him. She had to know if it was true. The soldier in Starbucks, would she even recognize him? That was a year ago. She clicked on Steven’s profile and scanned through his pictures. The soldier in dress blues stared back her, like an attempt to tell her something. Vivian’s insides shattered. His crystal blue eyes, they were so pure. She would never forget those eyes. They were the same eyes in the Starbucks that day. There was no way she could forget them. Those beautiful, soulful eyes. Vivian would never have stuck her card in his pocket if it weren’t for his eyes. Her body slumped to the floor. Her chest shook as the wails of her cries fell from her mouth, her lungs, and her heart. Everything had been so right. He was her special soldier boy, and he was gone. He didn’t want to see her. He didn’t even want her to know he was alive. She was dead to him.

Chapter Forty

The numbers weren’t adding up. Vivian had run the report three times, and it didn’t make sense. Somewhere, there was a mistake, and she was determined to find it. They couldn’t afford any more errors.

“Knock knock. Come on, Vivian, when I hired you, one of the perks of working for a non-profit was the schedule. We don’t work past five, and we definitely don’t work past noon on Christmas Eve.” Katie shook her head and her strawberry waves fell over her shoulder.

Katie was obviously not really reprimanding Vivian, but it didn’t matter. She wanted to be able to end the day by finding the missing charge. “I know, I’m sorry. I just got stuck on this one form.”

“Let it go. It will still be ready for you on Monday. Go on, go home go enjoy your holiday.”

Vivian smiled. “Thanks.”

“You’re not still planning on going to the hospital are you?”

“Yes, of course I am. All the bags are in my trunk.” Vivian tapped her fingers on her desk.

Katie sighed. “Vivian, are you sure you want to do that? You do realize what you’re getting yourself into?”

“Yes, I know. I’m not afraid.”

“The soldiers are not going to look pretty. They’re injured. Some might not have arms. It will be gruesome, at best.”

Vivian logged out of her computer. “That’s why I’m going. I want to try and bring some form of cheer. It’s the least I can do and that is really an understatement.”

“What if he’s there?”

Vivian dropped her purse and knelt down to pick it up. “He won’t be. He’s fine. His brother told me in the letter, remember?”

“Okay, well have a Merry Christmas. I hope you’ll reconsider joining us for dinner?”

“Thanks, but I just really want to be alone.” Vivian swiped her hair off her neck.

“Suit yourself.”

The winter air hit Vivian’s cheeks like the harsh reality of her situation. It had been twenty-four days since she had received Matthew’s last letter. Twenty-four days. In that time, she had run over two hundred and forty miles. Her calves were like rocks. After she had hit rock bottom, she made a promise to herself to do better. To be better. She quit JCI Logistics and accepted the first non-profit position she could find. The money wasn’t as good, but it didn’t matter. She was working for a company she could respect, a decision she should have made when Tommy died. If only she would have made that decision a year ago, everything would have been different.

The seat was cold as she flipped the car on. Sounds of music crashed through her radio. Vivian reached for the button to turn it off, and
Never Let Me Go
came through her speakers. Her heart dropped. Pain. Tears. Anger at herself came rushing to the forefront of her mind. No. She wasn’t going to go there, not today. At least, not yet. She had a mission. Deliver the bags she had made, and then she could go home and cry. Again. How many days would she cry? Would it be for a whole year? Would it take a year to get him out of her system? Vivian shook her head. That was not a possibility. There was no way Matthew would ever be out of her system and her heart. It wasn’t going to happen.

With Duke at her side, Vivian had created fifty-seven care packages. She had placed presents in each one. Something for their skin, something to do, and something to eat. For some reason she wanted to make them a snowflake. Why? Why had she reverted back to the days of a child, when she would make snowflakes and hang them in her room? Was it because of Tommy? He always said her snowflakes were better than the real thing. That she should give up the idea of numbers and make snowflakes instead. This was always followed by a big guffaw, but he really did mean it, the part about Vivian making nice snowflakes. Snowflakes offered something. The idea of hope. Of renewal. The silence of them falling from the sky and covering the ground into a white display of magic.

Vivian’s shoulders slumped. She didn’t want to go in, even though she had said to Katie that she was doing this. This one small deed. This fragment of something hopeful for those that had been hurt. She still didn’t want to do it. She was afraid. She had looked at images of soldiers online for the past twenty-four days. Part of it was to prepare her for this moment, and part of it was to see if she could find Matthew. Would she even recognize him? After seeing the Facebook photo of him in his dress uniform that day, her heart had sunk so deep. She had run longer than she had ever run before.

With her shoes firmly in place, she had run from her townhouse to Rock Creek Park. Through the trees, and all the leaves, and the cold December air, she ran. And she ran. The chill against her cheeks was abrasive, and though she had a headband on, her hair was matted down with sweat. Vivian’s strides were long and hard. She ran faster than she had ever thought was possible. After she had looped the park and made it through the thirteen miles of dirt trails and bike paths, she kept going. There was no turning back. Vivian ran through all the memories in her mind—all the letters, words, moments. She ran through Matthew. She had to release him. The image of him. The image of them. The image of what could have been. Even with the harsh rain that fell on her head, and little peaks of icicles that hung on the roofs of houses, she kept going. The cold couldn’t cool her heart. It was still warm and filled with him. Vivian kept running. She was wet and she wasn’t done. Vivian was determined to keep running until she had run out of thoughts. Thoughts of Matthew. Her love for Matthew and the thought of his love for her. The thought that they were ever going to be together. Together. It had all been a fallacy. A sweet, beautiful lie. She needed to get rid of it.

Her feet ached and Duke was not cheerfully running in front of her. He normally gave her an additional tug to encourage her to move faster. But not that day, no he was lagging slightly behind. He was tired. But Vivian wasn’t ready to give up. She kept going. She kept running. Harder and faster until she hit the steps of the Lincoln Memorial. And she fell. Not metaphorically, but really. Vivian hit the steps hard, and even though she was in deep physical pain, the tears from her eyes were only coming from her heart. She was broken. A small version of what she had been when the idea of them was a possibility. Now, she had nothing. She had hit the cement in life, and it stung.

Vivian turned off the car and got out. She was better than the woman sobbing on the steps in front of the Lincoln Memorial, covered in cuts and bruises. This was something that she had to do. Granted, her care packages couldn’t take away the pain or loss the soldiers were going through, but it was something.

The nurse met her at the door with a cart to place all the bags on.

“Have you been here before?” The nurse rubbed her arms and inspected Vivian’s face.

“No, this is my first visit.”

“Oh, boy.” The nurse shook her head. “Fifty-seven packages right?”

Vivian followed her into the hospital and placed the visitor tag on her wool coat. “That’s right.” Vivian patted down her hair. Even it was cold.

“Alright, well off you go.” The nurse nodded at her and Vivian knocked on the first door.

“May I come in?”

“Oh, a lady, yes come in.”

Vivian smiled as she pushed past the curtain. A young woman with blonde hair sat in a hospital bed in front of her. Her face was free of make-up and her eyes were red. Vivian wanted to leave. This woman was sad. Of course she was sad. Who wouldn’t be in a hospital bed? Unless you were about to leave, but this wasn’t the case for this woman, or most of the soldiers in this building.

“Hi, I’m Vivian.”

“I’m Paige. Like a piece of paper.” She let out a laugh. “I’m really just a number. Just another soldier, right? So why are you here? To counsel me about feeling better, to be motivated to change and get out of bed?”

Vivian glanced at the floor. Her lungs squeezed together knowing this woman in the hospital bed, who was filled with anger and hurt, was most likely there because of faulty equipment. It was obvious. Her right arm was wrapped in gauze and there wasn’t much to the formations underneath her blanket.