What Deceit Looks Like | ✓

20: maddox

 I sit up with a start, breathing heavily as I try to remember that the dream wasn't real. Wiping my face, I take a deep breath, trying to stop the hammering of my heart in my chest. "It was just a dream," I whisper to myself.

They come when I least expect them to.

"Maddox? Are you okay?" Cassidy asks sleepily, and I realize I've woken her up.

"Go back to bed, I'm sorry I woke you." I slip out of the sheets, and hold my breath until I reach the safety of the bathroom. "You look like a wreck," I murmur to myself after seeing my reflection in the mirror. A pure disaster.

I turn the faucet to run cold water and splash it on my face like it can wash away the memories that plague my sleep. They don't come often, but enough I can't forget.

I can't forget the way she turned and walked away from me at the airport for the last time. I can't forget that she didn't get to call. I can't forget that her engagement ring is still sitting in a box in my nightstand. The letter she had told Nick to give me if something happened is with it. Or the gold star lapel that was given to me after they declared Paige dead.

She's dead.

Gone.

Deceased.

Not coming back.

I splash my face again, letting the water drip off into the sink. I let out a shaky breath before grabbing the hand towel and rubbing my face dry. I don't leave until my breathing and heart rate are somewhat back to normal.

Cassidy is sitting up in the bed, patiently waiting for me to come back and it's hard not to smile when I see her. There's enough light from the moon outside coming in through the open blinds, that it makes her eyes appear luminescent.

I sit on the bed, and pull her close to me. "I'm sorry for waking you up."

She rests her head on my chest, "It's no biggie. I just wanted to make sure you were okay." Cassidy hesitates before continuing, "You were calling out for her again." She says it so softly I almost missed it, but I'm not surprised.

I run my hand through her hair, "I'm sorry," I apologize again.

"You don't have to apologize."

I sit there for a moment, holding Cassidy to me before the words start pouring out of me, "Paige was Charlie's little sister. She was a freshman when I was a sophomore, and after Charlie introduced us, we were inseparable. We instantly clicked. My junior year, I found out Paige had enlisted in the Marines f0r six years the summer after she graduated high school. She only told me because she was being deployed. It happened so fast, and before I knew it she was gone."

I pause to catch my breath because talking about Paige is hard. Harder than it should be, but it doesn't get any easier as more time passes.

"We wrote letters for six months and she called whenever she could, but service over there was spotty. She came back a few weeks before summer ended; she was the same person, but there were differences. Paige was always on alert, she could never sit with her back to a door. I tried to understand and give her space. She introduced Charlie to her now-husband, Nick, who served in Paige's unit too. She wanted to make Charlie as happy as we were together."

I smile at the memory of Paige bringing Nick to a study night and Charlie was so mad at her for setting them up that she ignored Nick the entire night. She didn't want to admit that Paige had actually done a good job of setting them up.

"I thought we were in the clear, and we moved from Boston to New York after Paige graduated. I got a job working for the family company, Paige applied to be an assistant professor at NYU. She was a painter. I proposed after four years of being together, and a year before our wedding was scheduled, Paige got the call that she had to go back." I close my eyes remembering the little cafe we were at and the shock that was on her face. "One tour is expected, but two is rare. She'd served her time, it was her last year as an active member."