Ashes in the Darkness

Personal

  TW: Brief discussions of Sexual Assault           

Days would turn to weeks as I continued to train, Soap wasn't a good teacher at all when it came to teaching the TAC-50. All he wanted to do was shoot it, but I didn't have a clue on how to be a good spotter. Eventually I ended up hitting the target, to the approval of both Soap and the range manager. I worked with others on hand-to-hand combat, Fontoura and Jackson, then there was a wonderful woman named Jill who I had met at the rec center. When I would work on close quarters combat I often worked with delta or echo team, good guys who didn't bully me but were hard on me in the ways that I needed them to be.

I didn't see Ghost often after the night in the smoking pit, he would occasionally be at the shooting range while Soap and I worked with the sniper rifle. Offering advice when it was needed. He would leave me alone though, letting the sniper instructor do his job. Eventually I felt like I was getting ahold of the basic routine the boys here went through. I took to first aid classes, remembering the use of a tourniquet and simple CPR, I did bullet retrievals with live fire simulations.

The gym became my safe haven in the chaos. I finally found the courage to ask Fontoura to drive me to the base store to buy earphones and some toiletries. I used what little cash I still had, but figured I needed to go to the bank on base and set up an account if I could. I hated that others had to drive me around, it made me feel like a child again. My mother would have had a fit if she saw me being driven around like a trophy.

Abby Hendricks was nothing short of a badass, even though she gave up her life as a physical therapist to have children and move to be with my father, she took her time with me as her daughter. She always made sure I learned to shoot and hunt and ride four wheelers with my brothers, but there were times, especially during the holidays, that she would buy me a new dress and teach me to do my makeup. I enjoyed those moments of silence in my room before guests would arrive, admiring the blush pink color above my eyelids.

As I got older, I began to feel the call for the military. My mother wasn't fond of her little girl becoming a soldier, despite my father's excitement. She begged me not to become a Marine though, already knowing the struggle that my father went through. I compensated by joining the Air Force instead, I already knew exactly what I wanted to do once I got there, helicopter piloting was my first choice. I never forgot those nights I got to dress up with my mother though, often taking leave to go home and play dress up again, even if only for a night. She always said I had my father's good looks and his work ethic, but I had her fire. Although recently that fire had been dowsed by the sewage water of another.

Lying in bed, I pushed my hand onto my hips and thought about the fight I had won against Soap. I had used those hips to essentially rip his elbow out of the socket. I had done that; my body had done that. I was in control at that moment. Placing my hand on my stomach I felt the skin under my shirt, it was MY skin. My hand drifted down further to my hips again, they were strong and wide, something I once loved about myself, the curves. For three years I had not been able to look my hips without feeling any form of disgust, "I love those hips," he had said to me before bending me over the hood of a military truck.

I twitched my hand back from the tissue, as if it were not my hips at all. I had gotten over the nausea that rolled over me as the memories would flood back into my mind when I tried to face the trauma. I needed to feel the way I felt after winning that fight again, I needed to face those feelings to get over them. I let my hand wonder again, feeling the skin just above my pelvic bone. My mind instantly went to Ghost, he would tap me right there when he was telling me that he was ready to breach the door. It was not a sexual touch, even in the slightest, it was communication between teammates. But if my own hand in that spot made me feel so disgusted, why wouldn't his hand touching me there make me feel gross?