Drawing Soldiers

Chapter Two

 Everyone was catching up, all sitting in what looked to be a family room, how I wished I had my pad and pencil. I would have loved to have something to look back on, to see their smiles more often even if only on paper, to see them more. A man wheeled in arguing about how they had forgotten his being new to the whole wheels thing and they shouldn't be shoving a disabled man who didn't even know why they were running in the first place. 

"I mean really, how do you expect me to come along like you ask when you all take turns to shove my crippled ass," and as if he had lost his train of thought his complaining stops when his eyes meet mine. "Fuck, hi, wow. I mean, Jesus." he looks around the room and then back at me as if making sure that I was really there. "que me lleve el diablo si estoy soñando por q de este no quiero despertar." let the devil have me if this is a dream because from this one I don't want to wake up.

 "Watch your mouth kid, and keep those eyes and hands away from my daughter." as if the words had slapped him in the face he looks up at my father now standing next to him and then at me.

 "No can do sir, all due respect but I think its physically and mentally impossible to not look at her." all this is said with him looking straight at me. his right hand reaches out towards me. "Jayden Rodriguez, at your service." but before mine can land on his Warren slaps it away and pulls me closer to him. 

"No touching." a girl to his other side starts laughing and slaps him on the chest before hugging his waist. 

"Amanda, is this how you let people treat your patients?" Amanda or who I'm assuming is Amanda stands from her seat next to warren and begins to push the wheel chair and its occupant out of the room. 

"I'm sorry mister Rodriguez, you most certainly are my priority." she pushes him towards the door and Jayden yells.

 "Hell yeah, please escort me to my room and I would love a bath if you could help with that." Amanda laughs and looks back at Warren.

"Of course." Warren moves to stand and Amanda runs pushing Jayden out and around the corner. Before Warren is even on his feet they are gone, away from eye sight but that does nothing if only motivates him to move faster. The remaining ones in the room begin to laugh at the interaction but my mind is set on the hunk of man on the wheelchair. no way, not going there.

 It is not what I want. its not the life I plan to live. it cant keep being me. I cant keep coming in second for nothing or no one. if I don't put myself first no one will and that's something I learned the hard way. I cant have some one else to cry about I cant invest my life into suffering or helping another overcome what ever it is they have been through there is already so much on my plate, so many. I cant lie to one more person. I cant hide from some one else.

 With the itch that can only be describe as need to release I excuse myself from the group and make my way towards my car in search of my tools. Thankfully I thought of bringing them. hopefully I make it back home as sane as I came if getting better isn't an option.

  This isn't just a trip for myself, when my mom heard he was back but didn't call or text her to let her know he was home it devastated her. Now there is no reason for him to have to call her, to have to notify her of anything after what she did. In reality the changes made in our family haven't really changed the way she feels every time his over seas but she made the decision, he is only respecting that, his heart was broken when he came home last time and found the envelope, I was the only one home waiting for him. I wanted to know when he'd be back safely but the rest of us, his other kids and his wife had cleared out there belongings and left no trace of themselves. Nothing but a single envelope and the wedding bad my mom had been gifted the day she had accepted him.

Now we know it was a lie, this was always him. She met him right after he came home from his first deployment and knew he was gonna be doing this for the rest of his life. He always said that if he died it would be serving his country and if he was forced out it would be because he had no legs to walk or hands to fight with.

Yet she took it for granted, she thought he would leave it all for her, then for us and when she finally came to her senses, not to long ago, she realized that she would never be his number one priority. His job would always come first and she did the only sane thing she thought possible, clean out his bank account, packed up his children and drove away. They all did. All except me, yet he keeps saying that the day she came back he would be waiting with open arms, but he would not go looking for some one who decided he wasn't worth their time.

If I had a choice, if I had a say, I'd tell him to not take her back. She walked out and didn't even have the respect to do it while he was home. She took the cowards way out, she couldn't tell him she was done. She left an envelope with divorce papers and disappeared. Divorce papers he has yet to sing and says he will only sing when she comes back with a man holding her hand and ready to marry her. In the meantime she was his wife, his women and his responsibility whether she wanted to see it that way or not she was his. And he was hers.