Crimson [840658]

Chapter 7

Chapter 7

After an amazing meal and a lot of laughter Nathan and I caught a separate taxi back afterwards because he insisted on dropping me back. I mean I was quite happy getting one on my own but when he offered who was I to say no?

As we got nearer to my apartment I got slightly sadder, I wouldn’t really call it upset, that the night was coming to an end. I’d had such a good time and I didn’t know when I would get the opportunity to do something like that again. “Thanks for tonight, I’ve had an amazing time. You killed it on stage and I love a free meal” I giggled, the boys had paid for everyone’s meal so I didn’t have to worry about fishing my purse out. “Thanks, and I’m glad you had fun, I know I did” he winked just as the taxi driver pulled up outside the familiar building I called home. I opened the door and slid out not sure if Nathan was following as I could only hear the roar on the taxi engine behind me.

When I got to the door I turned after fishing out my keys and saw Nathan slightly closer than I was expecting him to be. “I’ll see you soon yes?” he asked and I nodded, “great I’ll text you later, night” he pulled me into a hug, our bodies collided together as we embraced and as he pulled back he place one short and sweet kiss on my cheek, I blushed that annoying shade of crimson again and turned to unlock my door, waving one last time before he vanished from my sight. Holy crap what was he doing to me? I felt all shaky and my heart was beating fast, kind of like when I was in the last few miles of a run.

I noticed a letter on the floor and picked it up, it was kind of unusual since the postman had already been this morning and I never got any this late. It was probably some daft thing. I put it on the kitchen table and scurried to the toilet since I was bursting to go, whenever I had a fair amount to drink I always ended up going to the loo a lot more often.

Once I’d done what I needed to do and changed into an oversized pale green tee and baggy navy sweats I switched the kettle on and sat down at the table picking the letter up again. I opened it carefully not wanting to rip whatever it was and trying to avoid a paper cut. Once I’d got the two white sheets of paper out I unfolded it and began to read.

Miss Spencer,

We are to give you a weeks’ notice before your deployment to Iraq. An uprising conflict between the people and government, means we are needed to step in to try and resume normality between the two. The battalion you are in lead by Sargent Bremen will be the first sent out, followed by another two local forces.

At this current moment in time we are unable to give you any details on the length of your tour in Iraq, but it will comply with the regulations you are aware of. However you will be given chances to contact loved ones back home with letters, and the odd occasion may allow a phone call or video chat, but we are unable to say whether the latter will be definite.

Please meet next Monday (15th) at your barrack station no later than 8am. We will be travelling from there to the airfield, the location is not to be supplied for safety reasons. If you have any questions you wish to be answered before your deployment please call the following number. Be aware that your safety is our priority and we wouldn’t deploy you if we didn’t think you were ready. You are trained well and we are happy to have you on the team.

Please see enclosed list of the items you will be needing to take with you, and the banned objects you will not be able to take.

Thank you for your cooperation, we wish you luck with your tour.

HQ

Thank goodness I was sitting down, because if not I think I would have stumbled a bit. I couldn’t get my head round it, I had one week before everything I trained for would have to come into play. I knew that I was well trained and it would all come down to what I had learnt, but at that moment, reading that letter I didn’t feel at all ready. I felt like a small child being told they were being sent away to some unknown place and no-one knowing the outcome from it.

The first thing I did was pull out my phone, I cursed it for being on silent once I realized I had various missed calls and messages from Sandy, Codie and Daniel. All of a sudden I wasn’t in a fairy-tale being swept off my feet by Nathan, I was in a nightmare surrounded by war and conflict.

The first person I called was Sandy, she answered straight away and I told her to come over before we could even discuss anything, she agreed and hung up getting ready to come over. I called Daniel next as I knew he would be with Codie and more likely to pick up his phone, when he did I told him the same thing and waited for their arrival.

Within ten minutes the three of them were here, all sat on my sofa in silence. I’m not sure any of us knew what to feel let alone say. We had been trained to fight, defend, kill, survive and help not just ourselves but other people too, but now we had the letter and all those things would become a reality soon, it felt like fiction. Like something I had read in a book. There was no way I felt ready, let alone confident, and I knew the others felt exactly the same way. After this week everything would be different. We would no longer be training everyday it would be the real thing. We would no longer be able to nip out for a coffee or to watch a film. We would not just be friends we would be comrades fighting for our country. We could get injured, fighting for our and each other’s lives. I would no longer to be able to just text Nathan, I wouldn’t be able to see him. Our contact, if it even happened, would be once every couple of weeks. It scared me being so close to someone knowing that soon there would be a huge distance between us. Whether I would ever see him again. Heck we could get injured or even our lives could be taken from us. We wouldn’t just be four best friend in the army in London, we would be four comrades living every moment we had because we didn’t know what the next hour, minute, second held for us. And that was a scary thought.

A/N – Short but sweet, hope you like it. Comment, fan, vote and I’ll see you next Wanted Wednesday! Have a good one S x