Lethal Weapons

My name is Riley Portia Worthington. I am sixteen years old and am an only child.  The last time I checked I lived in America and in the state of North Carolina. I live with four guys and five girls all around my age. I do not know where my family is. I do not know if I ever will, but today is a new day.

 Every morning I tell myself this before I sit up to say a prayer to God.

 “Dear heavenly Father,” I begin my prayer, “I thank You and praise You for allowing me to wake up to another day. Though I don’t know what will happen today, I pray that You will keep all of us safe. Keep Your loving arms around us as we will walk in the valley of the shadow of death. But if today is the day that I will be brought home to the pearly white gates, I will honor Your timing. In Jesus name I pray, Amen.”

 Again, I am the first to wake up today. The day has not changed from darkness to dawn. Getting up from my sleeping bag, I go to the suitcase holding all of the girls clothes that we have agreed to have as a ‘Community Closet’. I pull a long sleeved black thermal over my tank-top and then chose a pair of random jeans. Once I have put them on I realize they are a little long, but once I have my boots on it won't matter since I tuck the ends in anyway.

 The RV that we so proudly found a few months ago gives all of us a nice place to stay in. All of us fit in it very well, and even though there is only one bed and pull out bed, there is plenty of floor space. We take turns every week for who gets to sleep where, and this week the boys get the beds while the ladies get the floor. (At least the floor is carpeted!) I sleepily, lazily and very quietly walk into the small airplane sized bathroom. I close the door behind me and then look in the mirror.

 I have grayish blue eyes and my hair is a dirty blond; it sometimes looks gold in the correct sunlight. My sorry excuse of a body is very slender and I am only five foot two and a half inches. The half means a lot to me, since it gives me an opportunity to say, when talking of my height, that I am indeed not five two- I am five two and a half! Half smiling, I grab the toothbrush that I scavenged out of the abandoned truck stop on I 41.

 Some people would think I'm crazy, and maybe I am. But the only thing that keeps me sane is to remind myself who I am, what I am, and my situation. I don't know if it’s the best thing to dote on my situation, but man, it surely does help keep me on track. What I mean by that is why I do what I do, to help remind me that what I do is for a good reason. It is not revenge, though people who call it revenge can call it what they want, but it isn't. It is more along the lines of getting back what we earned at the beginning of our country when the British finally went away.

 Freedom. Oh boy does that word sound good. If only it were a reality than a dream. I dream often times about my younger childhood. Back when I was innocent and didn’t know war. I used to think that when this all started I was a grown woman, that I wasn’t a child anymore. But I am. I am still a child. Even when I am twenty I'll probably still be a child. I don’t know the age where you really become an adult. Could it be when you get a job? Get married? Raise a family?

 Well, I won't know any of those things for a long time. Probably won't ever know those things. I used to get angry when I thought about that. I am a typical teenager who falls in love, draws hearts around a crush's name, (well maybe not to that extreme), dreams of having a life with one man just like any other girl. But there is no need to get angry about that. For me, if this is what God has put me before to do, then I will do it willingly. Again, it goes right back to my situation. Fighting behind enemy lines for America's freedom.

 Once my teeth are brushed and my face is scrubbed with dish soap, I grab my long hair and hold it in a pony tail with a rubber band. Now I never thought that I would be able to brush my teeth again let alone have the time for it, but when you find an RV that can hook up to running water for a sink and shower, you can find the time. And when I found that unopened pack of toothbrushes, it was almost like that moment when you were young and you finally get that little, teeny tiny shiny ball in a cheesy handheld maze into the small hole at the end. That moment of YES! I can finally go on living a full life!!

 I walk out of the RV and close the door slowly behind me so that it doesn’t smash back. The woods that our new home resides in are so thick that the enemy doesn’t care about searching through, which makes it a good cover for our big white buddy. We tried to cover it with mud and tree limbs and the like, but it just didn’t work out when a bad storm would come and rinse all the mud off or a big gust of wind would come and blow all the décor off. Finally we got the idea to spray paint it. But that idea only works well when you have a full can of paint.

 The woods are quiet today. Almost too quiet, I shamefully think in a cliché way. Usually the woods only quiet down when someone is around, like when I wake up early and am the first one out. I am not used to this… something is up. I keep walking to my favorite spot that overlooks a huge lake that is sometimes taken over by the enemy. The clearing comes in view when all of a sudden I hear a click. I turn around quickly, knowing I heard a stick break.

 “Phil,” I breathe in, “you scared the heck out of me. What are you doing up so early?”

 Phil steps closer to me, his eyes dark and heavy. “I couldn’t sleep. I think I may have gotten two or three hours of sleep at the most.”

 “Aw, I'm sorry. Do you wanna come sit with me? Watch the sunrise over the lake? It's really pretty.” I say motioning to the rock that is just big enough for two, maybe three if you squeeze.

 “Sure.”

 Phil and I walk over to the rock that I usually sit at alone to spend time in prayer or deep thought. But I don’t mind sharing. It will be good to talk to Phil. He doesn’t talk much, or at least he doesn’t anymore. It's complicated, I know, not knowing where your family is or having to erase the memory that won't go away of watching your family be taken from you.

 “The sun will be up soon. It's already turned the sky to blue. It won't be long now.” I say watching the view. In the corner of my eye, I see Phil watching me. I turn my gaze to him, wondering what's on his mind.

 “You ever think about what life would be like if this all never happened?” He asks. Definitely not what I was expecting him to say. To my dismay, I like this topic better than what I thought he was going to talk about.

 “All the time; but it is usually muddled in when I don’t need to be thinking about it. Like when I'm up here alone or all of us are eating or just hanging out at camp, I never really think about it. It usually comes into my mind when we're in town or I'm standing over one of the enemy’s dead body, seeing the person dead. Was it me that killed him? Or was it one of someone else’s bullets? That is when I think about what I would be doing had this not all happened.”

 Phil studies my face. He takes in what I said and then looks down to his hands as he tears away at a sticks bark. “I actually don't think about it.”

 I wait for him to go on, but when he twirls the stick around for the sixth time without saying anything else, I get the hint he isn't going to say anything. “Why's that?”

 “I don’t know. It bothers me, you know? It bothers me that sometimes I like the way we live. It really bothers me Riley. I try not to like it, so I try to think about what would happen if the enemy never came, but I can't think of what life would be like. Riley I'm going crazy! I'm starting to not remember life as we knew it. I- Riley, I am freaking out. I couldn’t sleep well last night because I was too busy thinking about why I can't use my imagination of some corny life of me and a girl going to college together and I take her on dates to the movies or just something!”

 I stare in shock as I see Phil, one of the oldest guys and the most conservative of the guy group, start to freak out in front of me. He buries his face in his hands and he begins to breathe heavily.

 “Phil… Phil look up at me.” I say in a demanding tone. Phil then quickly moves and puts his arms around me, his face hiding in my shoulder, and his sobs threatening the silence of the woods. Still in awe, I put my arms around him and hold him. Usually it is the girl wanting comfort, but I understand. All of this is hard for everyone. I just never guessed by the way Phil hides his emotions that it was this hard for him.

  If this was me, I would want someone to just listen to me and be there for me. If this was me with any other guy, I would be very weirded out, but Phil and I share something that I and another guy don't. With Phil's arms around me, it reminds me of a memory I wish I could forget. A memory Phil knows and understands my pain.

 The memory brings it all back. Everything, it brings it from the beginning. Back when it all started. Before it started. That’s where the memory takes me. A few days before it all happened, before the enemy came. When I was innocent from war. When I wasn’t behind enemy lines.