![]() Sand and grit have rubbed between the pleasantries in Carey’s e-mails since I stopped answering him weeks ago. ![]() Comrades betrayed by the women they left behind. They are two Marines, two men who’ve fought for a freedom I no longer feel. Since the scandal six months ago-that scandal we don’t speak of-my father says Carey’s name with reverence. ![]() I’m barely holding it together, and he doesn’t bother to hide his disappointment at my reaction to his words. Hairline retreating from the neat rows of lines crossing his forehead. Wintergreen eyes narrowed under sparse blond eyebrows. He doesn’t care what this news does to me. My stomach twists and sweat slides down my sides. Late February morning sun slips through the window blinds and swaths his perma-sunburned face in blades of light and dark. ![]() I want to throw up, but my father blocks escape to the bathroom, his shoulders spanning the doorway. I deflate, clamping my fingers around the Nikon to hide how they tremble. My father’s news drops like a bomb, blasting the air from my lungs, and everything in me shrieks, Not Carey. His tongue weighs each word to cause the most pain. ![]()
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