“At the risk of sounding like a ’roided meathead, I’m pretty careful about what I eat. It’s harder for me to build muscle in certain areas of my body, so since I was discharged, I’ve stuck to a diet of mostly lean meats and vegetables. I’ll splurge now and then, but not tonight.”

“Now I’m feeling guilty, but not so guilty I’m not enjoying the crap out of this lo mein.” Her gusty sigh of appreciation is followed by a moment of silence, for eating, most likely. I polish off the rest of my chicken and lean back to enjoy the cool spring air.

While she eats, I talk.

“When I was first in, the meals were terrible. We lived on a diet of caffeine, tobacco, and stimulants. The latter are banned, but we used them anyway and the officers turned the other cheek. They weren’t going to deny us Ephedra when they were asking us to carry out twenty-four-hour shifts at a time. The food we ate was basically a bunch of calories in a bag. There was mystery meat in chunks and we’d heat it up using this weird-ass chemical that would cause cold water to boil immediately. There was a ton of junk food—cake, snack foods, candy. The supply of MREs varied over the course of our time over there. Sometimes we had too many of them. Later, in the middle of the deployment, there’d be too few. All the good stuff, we’d save, and then distribute when we got low.”

“What’s the good stuff?” she asks, as if there couldn’t be anything good, which is probably a fair assumption after what I’ve shared.

I wonder how long she’ll let me stay out here. I should’ve brought a blanket and I could’ve bunked down, although my six-foot-plus frame would have a hard time being comfortable. “Instant coffee, cocoa powder, grape Kool-Aid. Skittles. Loved the Skittles. The Charm candies, though, we’d get rid of. They’ve been considered bad luck since they first appeared in World War II rations. If you’re caught carrying them or eating them out on patrol, you’re likely to get shot and killed, so most platoons will throw them out or give them to the Iraqi kids.”

“Is it true?” she asks tentatively. “Did anyone get hurt while they had Charms in their packs?”

“People got killed all the time. Sometimes with the Charms and sometimes without. It’s like the poo assumption, though, no one really wanted to test it out. Better to be superstitious and get rid of them.”

“Jake.” A ripple works its way down my back when she says my name. I haven’t heard it often. Or maybe I just haven’t heard it enough.

“Yes?”

“Can I ask a stupid question? I know it’s stupid and I shouldn’t ask, but I want to ask it anyway so please forgive me in advance.”

Her earnestness takes away the sting of anything she could ask. “Go ahead.”

“Did you lose someone you cared about?”

I look up at the sky and think of Staff Sergeant Matthew Dalton and Captain Brian McKenna. The stars wink back at me. Maybe those two are operating those stars. “You know, there were always people that you liked that you heard about dying. Guys you might have stayed with at a forward operating base or trained with out of Fort Benning, but my small unit came through the first deployment unscathed. The saddest part is that a couple of the losses happened after guys got out. That’s the thing that people don’t like to talk about. But so many casualties happen after the war, because you can’t let it go.”

“I’m not one of those people, you know,” she says. “I’ve never thought about it.”

“I didn’t think you had.”

“I just wanted you to know.” She clears her throat. “I’m sorry you lost your friends.”

“I know you are.” I could hear real regret.

“How’d you get over it?” There’s more to her question than how I got over the war. It’s a question of how I recovered from my injuries, how I managed not to let the anxiety overtake me, how I was able to move forward. It’s that question she wants answered for herself. I pick my words with care, remembering Isaiah’s words.

“I didn’t do anything special. I went to counseling because I had to go to counseling. That was part of my treatment to get my prosthetics. Unlike a lot of other guys, I had the means to get other care, but I was in Bethesda for a time and when you’re there, you learn quickly to be grateful for your circumstances because there are always people who have it worse than you.

“I had a very loving family and a good support network, and I knew that if I had died I would’ve been mad as hell if someone like me didn’t get off his ass and start living. So I focused on all the things I could be grateful for. I could kiss my mom and hug my sisters. I could shake my dad’s hand. None of those feelings happened overnight—I’m still a work in progress. I’m not always comfortable with my prosthetics. When I go out, a good part of me wants to shove my stump in other people’s faces, and another good part just wants to be ignored. Most the time I’m just grateful to be alive, functioning. But I have my moments.”

This is the most I’ve shared with anyone outside the confines of a hospital or therapy room, but I felt that not only did I need to share it with Natalie, she needed to hear it.

We are silent for a good long time. I don’t know if she’s eating or thinking or both. I’m just enjoying the company. Natalie doesn’t realize it yet and I’m not ready to share it with her, but we’re a match. I know it like I knew when those planes crashed into the World Trade Center that I had to go enlist. The war wasn’t what I thought it was about, though I’m not sorry I served. Just like I’m not sorry I met her. I’m not sorry she’s got a bad case of agoraphobia. I’m not sorry that I might have to have a hundred dinners with her on one side of the glass and me on the other.

I’m going to sit out here on her balcony until she’s ready to come out. For as long as it takes—deep down, I know she’s worth it.

CHAPTER SIXTEEN

NATALIE

The food he brought sticks in my throat as he talks. The things he says, the intimate, private thoughts that tumble from his lips are so moving, so real. I don’t know why this man has walked into my life, but I treasure him.

And he compels me to reach deep and tell him what I don’t enjoy admitting.

“I’m tired of being afraid. Tired of being tied up in knots over it and”—I take a deep breath and jump off the deep end—“I’m afraid I’m never going to get better. That this apartment will be the only thing I’ll ever know.”

“When you’re ready, it will happen,” he responds in his pragmatic way.

“How do you know?”

“Because you made it out before and you’ll do it again.”

He’s so confident that I start to believe. I exhale, closing my eyes. I imagine what it would be like to sit next to him and stare into his eyes as he says these tender, sweet things. My heart balloons until I fear my chest might explode with all the feeling. I lay my hands over my chest, not to keep the feeling inside but to hold it close. I don’t know what he feels toward me; but he’s here sitting on my balcony when he could be anywhere, with any woman.

“I’m so glad you’re here, Jake.”

“Me too.”

“Can I ask why me?”

I imagine that he shrugs, a lazy roll of his shoulders up and back, because he doesn’t seem to be overly perturbed about anything. “You laugh. You listen. Perfect people are boring, Natalie. You know what you’re getting with a perfect person every day, and you have to be perfect too. I know you think it’s strange that I want to spend time with you. It’s true that I don’t spend a lot of time just talking. That’s never been my style. But you’re different and I’d rather spend time with you, even separated by this glass door, than prowling a club. What about you? Should I feel insecure that you’re only talking to me because I’m the first male other than Oliver who will spend time with you?”