How She Came Home

Chapter Sixty

Somewhere in the infinite stretch of time between when Becca's world had fallen apart and when she gained awareness of her surroundings again, she had stopped crying, exhaustion making her body incapable of another heaving sob, another tear or hiccuping breath. 

Sitting on the floor at the base of the wall, she stared dead-eyed ahead, seeing nothing and feeling empty.

Mind was similarly spent and her voice was hollow as she explained in fits and starts, her voice cracking and words stuttering in between audible swallows, the story that Nun had told her over the phone. 

Her Commander at Fort Rozz, Eric Johnson, was the one who'd shown up at Nun's house in Midvale, just around lunchtime, with a public affairs representative too - knowledge of her engagement to Becca requiring certain precautions - to break the news to her mother. 

It had been an airstrike, they said, killing her in action in the Sangin Province while reporting on a recent skirmish with British troops. The airstrike killed eleven soldiers - two rifle squads, Freen and her photojournalist friend, Non, and the squad leader.

Becca couldn't even bring herself to remotely care about the other ten; she only cared about the one. 

The one that had shattered her heart to pieces and torn her world apart. 

She'd been dead for hours before Becca had even known, and she craved that ignorance bliss again, she wanted to bask in that happy glow of knowing her fiancée would be home in a few short days. 

Only, now she wouldn't be coming home at all. Just an empty box in an empty grave, based on Mind's next words to fall on Becca's deaf ears.

"They- they found them... the- the bodies. Or... what was left of them, at least. Not all- some weren't... identifiable. Too- too close to the blast, so... they were- hers was... there's nothing. Nothing left. They found her... her tags. They can't- that's all- all that was... left of her."

Stomach twisting with nausea, Becca curled in on herself as she let out a sharp breath, snatched from her lungs as her chest ached painfully. She couldn't make a noise, could barely breathe. 

Becca didn't even know what time it was, what day it was, the house dark and cold as she sat on the floor, only that her throat was dry and her eyes were sore and her stomach hurt.

And all of that paled in comparison to the way her heart felt like it was going to give out, the vivid image of Mind's halting explanation painted in her mind as clear as day, like one of the bad dreams she'd been plagued by for months. 

Only there was no waking up this time.

It was all she could think about, her mind feeling, the world shrinking and widening in a nauseating, turbulent manner that left Becca feeling like she was on a boat, pitching from side to side. 

Her mind was blurry at the edges and she could feel the sharp pain in her chest as her throat constricted, but couldn't make sense of much else. 

It was almost like she was catatonic, her body frozen while her mind played a film reel of horrors.

Even the sound of a phone ringing wasn't enough to break her out of her numb state of shock, Mind's broken, sobbing words incomprehensible to her as she broke the news to Nam in the briefest terms before dissolving into tears and hanging up. 

Becca just turned her head aside, resting her temple against the wall as she stared ahead with a vacant look on her face, her throat painfully tight as she blocked out Mind. She was too numb to cry again, too tired and broken to even make another sound.