12 Seconds (#1 in Military series)

Chapter 15

Chapter 15

They were due to fly out that evening at 19.00 which meant Julia rang her parents at 18.00.

They had been given the day off to say their goodbyes with their loved ones.

But since Julia’s loved ones lived too far away to visit them in day, thankfully or else they would have dragged her back home by now, she had to settle for a phone call.

Secretly, Julia was pleased. She felt that if she went home now she would be taking a step back rather than a step forward in her recovery.

Plus, she wouldn’t put it past her mother to lock Julia in her room until she missed her departure.

Julia did love her family, she just didn’t like them very much at the moment.

The phone gave a few rings before the receiver was picked up and her father’s voice echoed down the line.

Julia hadn’t realised how much she had missed him until she could hear him once again.

“Hello? Hello?” Her father was growing annoyed when she didn’t respond immediately.

Thinking it a hoax caller, she heard her father mumble something and begin to lower the phone.

“Wait, dad!” Julia panicked, “It’s me. Julia. Dad?”

There was a moment of silence where Julia’s eyes searched the cream coloured wall in front of her as if it held all the answers in the known universe.

Then his perplexed voice returned, “Julia?”

“Hey dad,” Julia sighed inwardly, thankful that he hadn’t put the phone down. She didn’t know how she would explain suddenly ringing him from Afghanistan.

“Hey sweetie, what’s the matter?”

Julia’s eyebrows furrowed in the middle, did something have to be wrong for her to call her parents?

She thought about it for a second and came up with the sobering answer of yes.

“I just wanted to hear your voice,” Julia spoke quietly, she never talked like this and her father knew it.

“Julia, what’s wrong?” His voice grew heavy with concern and she could hear her mother pottering about in the kitchen in the background as she heard saucepans clash against the oven.

“Nothing’s wrong dad,” Julia tried to put him at ease, “I just wanted to call and say that I passed.”

“Passed?”

“They’re shipping me out to Afghanistan,” Julia clarified, a knot forming in her throat when there was no response.

“Dad. Dad?” Julia could see him, stood in their hallway with the phone hanging limply by his side, “Dad!”

“W- When?” He stuttered, her mother’s voice growing insistent in the background as she wanted to know who was on the phone, “We’ll come down and see you. I’ll get your brother to-”

“We’re leaving in . . .” Julia had to check her watch, “Fifty minutes.”

“Tonight?” Her father shouted in surprise, “But that’s- that’s-”

“-It’s okay dad,” Julia tried to comfort him, as her own resolve began to crumble.

What had she been thinking!? Of course she wanted to see her family before she left; she wanted to wrap her arms around her father and feel his strength seep into her bones.