We're Still Standing...Book 5

Life Without Her

Julian and Kaiden up top!

Julian POV 

I sat on my desk in my office, in the middle of a war zone, letter in my hand telling me she died while giving birth to our baby, leaving my three year old son and newborn baby girl without their mother. My best friend Erica and I had talked and she told me since I would probably never have kids with a woman since I'm gay that she would be willing to carry them so we  did the procedure of her getting pregnant twice because I couldn't bring myself to have sex with a woman no matter how beautiful she was. Being twenty-two, I'm not ashamed to admit at my age I'm a virgin, I'm waiting for my Mr. Right and I will wait for as long as it takes. I felt the tears and I clutched my chest feeling my heart breaking at the loss of one of the best people I had ever known. She was so selfless and kind, had a big heart and loved our children so much. 

"Woah, are you alright?" I heard someone ask at the door but I couldn't answer, too shocked to even form a word.  He came into my office and helped me sit in my chair. He went and got me a glass of water. 

"She, she's gone, Jacob." I said to my friend and fellow officer. We're Marines and have been in Afghanistan for the past five months, our fifth deployment together. 

"Who?" He asked looking into my eyes.

"Erica. She died giving birth to Gracie." 

"Oh my God I'm so sorry Julian, what can I do?" Jacob asked and at that moment, gunshots and screams filled the air, we grabbed our weapons and ran out of the office, finding chaos and bodies of our men injured on the ground.

We take cover behind a tank and start firing whenever we would see an enemy. I threw a grenade to get the ones closing in on us, killing them instantly and Jacob ran further away, not having any cover and I groaned, getting up and running after him. As I was running, I felt a sharp pain in my back and saw the ground so close to my face as I fell. I don't remember much after that. 

I woke up in a dark room seeing it's nightmare and groaned, feeling the pain in my back and right leg. 

"Good evening sir, how are you feeling?" A male doctor asked as he walked into the room. 

"Sore, very sore, what happened?" I asked and tried to sit up but a sharp pain shot through me, and I yelled out in pain. 

"You can't move sir, you were shot in the spine and it will take a long time to heal, if at all meaning you can't move, you can't walk and you unfortunately are given a medical discharge effective immediately. I have contacted the hospital back in your home town and once you are stable, you will be taken home. It's sad to see you go, your one of the best. I'll give you stronger pain meds since you are awake finally so get some rest. I'll be back to check on you later sir." After he left the room, I didn't know what the hell to think or what I'm going to do. It's just me, my parents died when I was a teenager, a drunk driver killed them one night coming home from dinner and I have no siblings and now Erica is gone, I'm alone, injured, maybe will never walk again and have babies to take care of. 

A few weeks later.

After I came home, I couldn't handle the gossip of the towns people, giving me looks of pity and making me feel worthless so I did some research and found a home out west, it was perfect for us, I had a construction crew do some changes to the house to help me be able to get around, especially up the stairs, in the bathroom and a ramp from the driveway to the porch. I hired some local kids I found online looking for some weekend work to help move my things in the house and set up the house. I must have had about twenty teens in my new home but I didn't care, they did a lot for me so I tipped them all well and one of the girls, Daisy left her phone number if I needed a babysitter or help with the kids while I took care of other things. They all looked alike as well, I'm going to guess and say they are siblings and if so, God bless their parents for having so many children but they were respectful and kind, that shows even with so many kids, they were raised right.