Heartbreak Warfare

by Heather M. Orgeron

“Stop assuming and start asking. I’m not rocking in the yard anymore.” He immediately pulls his arms away. “No, but you’re still freezing me out,” he snaps.

I can feel something coming. It’s either going to be another snap, or we’ll be able to tie it back together, but I know we’re down to our last thread. He’s losing his patience, and I came home without any. I’m the problem, and that’s the hardest part. Our marriage was completely different before I was deployed. Army spouses deserve fucking medals.

“It’s okay, Mommy,” Noah says, giving me a stoic face. “You just need a nap. Go to your closet.” Gavin’s eyes find mine, and in them I see murder.

“Excuse me,” I snap. “Can I ask what the hell you’re doing here?” The woman freezes before she turns in my direction. The instant I recognize her, all the blood drains from my face. In her eyes, I see her loss mixed with a hint of anger. Alicia Mullins looks me over before the loss wins out, and an uncontrollable sob escapes her. “I came to ask you what happened to my daughter, Katy.”

“What the hell did you survive all that shit for, if you were just going to come home and fucking kill yourself?” She pulls her knees to her chest, hugging them close. “At least if you’d died out there, it would’ve been with some dignity.”

“I love you, Katy,” she says as she pulls a clean towel off my shelf. “But it’s time to try and get back up, okay? Even if you only make it to your knees. And if you get knocked back down, I’ll be there.” “Promise?” I ask. “Promise.”

think of you often, daily actually, and I miss you too. More than it would be appropriate to say. So, I won’t. When it comes to you, my heart will always cross the line. Just know that I still mean every word I said to you on that plane. Nothing with regard to how I feel for you has changed.

Forever yours, Briggs

I feel like an outsider intruding on an intimate meeting between my own wife and another man.

It isn’t so cut and dry. I know that. But there’s no way I’m imagining the way he looks at her or the way she looks at him. It’s the way her eyes glisten at the sight of him. It’s the way she rushes to him, calling out his name with such emotion. It’s the relief I see in both their eyes that breaks my heart into a million shards of glass when she jumps right into his waiting arms.

There isn’t a single time in the last five months that I’ve put my hands on my wife and she hasn’t recoiled with fear or an excuse. Son of a bitch. He has my wife in his arms. A content smile—one that should belong to me—covers his face as he holds her close. He presses his lips to her ear and whispers softly, before his eyes...

only spent a minute on the other side of love before being tossed back into hell. With one look in Scottie’s direction, I know it was worth it, and I’d do it all over again.

I am two different women, living in two separate worlds, in love with two different soldiers. In the haze that’s now my life, clarity is all I prayed for.

As the doors close, I feel the injustice of what’s happening. All we want is the freedom to love each other without the price we’d have to pay, though hers comes at a far higher one.

Loving her is costing me my sanity, and I can’t deny that in a way I’m beginning to blame her for it.

Fighting to keep the curse inside, I snap my boots and begin to lift my hand as he takes a step into the elevator and turns his back on me, his brother in arms. It’s the ultimate sign of disrespect. In that moment, the darkest thought I’ve ever had as a soldier crosses my mind. I wish I’d never made it out of that Humvee.

Gavin turns his head as the doors open. “Stay the fuck away from my wife.” He steps off just before the door shuts, and my fist connects with it.

“Katy,” he says, gripping his hair as his eyes fill, “from the moment we met, you were mine. I’m not sharing a single piece of you with him—with anyone. I could handle anything you threw at me as long as that’s a fact, but it’s not anymore.”

The heart wants what the heart wants, and I want them both. I just have to teach mine better.

Loving Scottie is equally the easiest and the most difficult experience of my life. We are perfect for each other. We belong together, but it isn’t that simple—because every moment, every touch, every memory is stolen from the man she’s already promised herself to.

We are perfect, and we are impossible. I can’t ask her to leave them, and I won’t. If it had been just Gavin, maybe. No, definitely. I’d drop to my hands and knees, and I’d beg. But, Noah needs his mother, so I simply nod my head in understanding. But I don’t—I don’t understand at all. Love is supposed to be enough. It’s not supposed to rip you to fucking shreds.

need you to break my heart,” she declares, wringing her hands nervously. “Give me a reason to hate you, because wanting you this way is…it’s ruining me. It’s ruining my life.”

“Tell me about them. Tell me about all of the women you’ve been with since Germany.”

“No.” I shake my head. “Hell no.”

“Oh, please, Briggs. How long did you wait? A few days?” She laughs sarcastically. “I bet you...

“Are we playing the guessing game? Do I get to ask how many times you’ve fucked your husband?”

“Sure,” she says with a shrug. “We’ll trade. You go first.”

“Don’t do this, Scottie. You don’t really want to hear about that.”

“Humor me, Briggs.” Her eyes plead with mine. “I need to hear this.”

“Fine. You want th...

“Complete ho...

“You really want to know that there have been so many that I’ve lost count? How they’re all blondes with blue eyes? But the blue, it’s never right, and their smiles—all wrong.”

“You want me to tell you all about how I have to drink myself stupid, till their faces blur enough that I can pretend…” I pause, running a hand down my face. “So that I can pretend they’re you? You want to know how fucking miserable I am? How when I slide between their legs, I close my eyes, and it’s your face I see? How I’m always careful not to kiss them because their lips are all wrong. How every time I finish I want to fucking kill myself because I can’t stand the pain of wanting the one woman I can never have.”

“Is that enough?” Her eyes snap to mine. “Hate me yet?”

“Come on, Scottie. Let’s not kid ourselves. I’m still the same prick you hated when we met. Nothing’s changed. I think we’ve romanticized this situation long enough, don’t you?”

“You’re a housewife,” I say snidely. “Someone else’s wife and I’m a career soldier. This isn’t exactly ideal.”

“At the end of the day, this was nothing but a big mistake. And we never would have happened if—”

For the moment, we’re right back there in the place we created, where we are perfect. Where our souls line up without any visible smudges on the seams. In a place where there is still so much love, so much that I can’t stop the tear that slides out before batting it away with the back of my hand.

Three. Two. One.

“But tell me something. The truth. It doesn’t matter that I chose you, does it? It doesn’t matter that I love you more, or that I want this marriage to work. You don’t even believe me.”

“Jesus. Go get your break, Gavin.”

“Just in case you’re wondering, I still love you,”

Covering my nose and my mouth with the collar of my T-shirt, I muffle my sobs with the fabric as I stare at the etched letters. Soldier Daughter Friend “Menace, prankster, hussy,” I say, adding to the list. “They sainted you, but I guess I’ll play along.”

“I need your help,” I plead with her. “I know I shouldn’t expect it after what happened, but I need you to help me a little. I don’t know what to tell your mo—,” I choke as I try to speak and let out a guttural cry. “I d-don’t know what to tell your m-mother. Help me out with that, okay?”

“I’m pretty sure you’re still having to bargain your way into heaven. But if they’re keeping you at the door, babe, just know it’s because you’re their favorite. Because I promise you, you were mine. I’ll be back.”

“By the way, if you’re watching the shitshow that is my love life from above, I could use a little direction on that, too. At the very least, could you ghost kick Gavin in the ass?”

After a few seconds of rolling around, Noah looks up to me with the most beautiful smile I’ve ever seen. “You’re better.” Instant tears spring to my eyes. “You think so?” “The medicine is working, Mommy. What is it?” I look down at my son and tell him the truth. “You.”

“You. Stupid. Son. Of. A. Bitch!” My grin may have gotten a little wider.

I‘ve already lost him in life. I can’t lose him to death. But it feels like he’s already thrown himself on the grenade.

Swallowing, I tilt my head to get a good look at the helmet, but I already know what I’m going to see. Purple flames. “Oh, my God,” I cry out, my heart plummeting. He was there, on my worst day. Noah’s party. He was there, looking through my bay window. He was there, yards away. Eyes flooding, I search through my windshield to see him staring right at me before he jerks his head away.