Here With Me (The Archer Brothers 1)

“At the time, it didn’t really cross my mind. I was too excited to be back home.”

“Any strange looks from when you were on base?”

Now that I’m sitting here, and she’s brought up the idea that maybe the Navy is responsible, her question makes all the sense in

the world.

“That’s another thing,” I add, “that strikes me as odd. We were dropped off on an empty airfield with taxis waiting to take us back to base. No one was there to collect our weapons. We had a full arsenal, and we were in the middle of nowhere. I felt like we were in a ghost town.”

“In hindsight, you were the ghost,” she says quietly.

“Apparently so,” I answer quietly. It’s a hard pill to swallow knowing that your family and friends thought you died. They mourned you, they moved on the whole time you’re fighting to free children from sex trafficking.

“And when you saw Ryley?”

“I need a break,” I say quickly before standing. “I need…”

“It’s okay, Evan. The bathroom is right there.” She points to the door adjacent to her office. My strides are long, with my steps pounding into the carpet. I open the door and step into the bathroom. It’s small and confined, but perfect for a one-person office. I lean my head against the tiles and bask in their coolness. I didn’t feel flush out in the room, but I definitely do now. I want to understand how everything became so screwed up. Who dropped the ball and why? Why weren’t more units dispatched and why were we sent to an east coast territory? None of this is adding up or making sense. River was correct to have doubts. We should’ve expressed them before we left, but we didn’t. We accepted our orders, assumed our brothers on the other units were tied up and went to do our jobs.

This doctor shows me doubt, and I hate that. I’ve never questioned the Navy or my job. I’m proud of what I do, but now I’m second-guessing this mission and why it took so long with the extraction. We went for one package that we sealed and delivered. We should’ve been on that chopper heading back with it. Instead, we were picking up the pieces of destroyed lives and for what? That’s what I want to know. How could someone do this to us?

When I come out, the doc is watering her plants. She looks at me and smiles reassuringly as she puts down the pitcher and takes a seat.

“Are you ready to continue?”

I nod, even though I’m more eager to beat my feet back to the base and find out what the hell is going on. I need to find Raskin, too. I haven’t seen him since we returned and he has to know something’s up. Did he have a bunk ready? Was there any preparation? Come to think of it, I haven’t seen my CO all week either. River, McCoy, Raskin and I need to put our heads together and figure this shit out.

“Are we almost done?” I ask, looking at the clock before she can answer me. It seems that time has come to a complete standstill, the big hand barely ticking off the minutes. I’m emotionally drained. I have been all week, but today is really taking it all out of me.

“You were going to tell me what happened when you saw Ryley for the first time.”

“Right,” I mumble as I think back to where I left off. “Um… yeah so we took a cab. River and McCoy don’t live far from us so they got out first. When the driver pulled up, I peered out the window, looking at the two-story home that we bought together and thought, ‘wow, she’s done an amazing job,’ not that I didn’t think she would, because Ryley is beyond amazing. She makes it… or made it easy to be a SEAL. Her support has always been unwavering, very solid. Again, it didn’t escape my notice that, again, the banners were missing. No ‘Welcome Home’ sign and the lack of people confused me.

“Of course, I didn’t have my keys so I had to sit on the swing and wait. Funny thing is, now that I’m sitting here talking about it, it didn’t occur to me that River and McCoy were lacking the same fanfare. The only thing on my mind in that moment was seeing Ry and meeting my son. I knew the pictures I had been receiving didn’t do him justice, and I wanted to hold him.”

“I’m sorry, Evan, I don’t mean to interrupt, but did you say pictures?”

“Yeah, each time we’d meet at a rendezvous for supplies and to extract more children, we’d get care packages, letters and photos from home. McCoy and I are the only ones with kids and that had to be the worst thing, watching our children grow up in photos. But now that I’m saying it out loud, I know that those packages didn’t come from Ryley. None of it makes sense.”

The doc shakes her head slowly and scribbles across her notepad. “Evan, I hope that you see there is something very mysterious about your deployment.”

“I’m starting to, yes.”

“Please continue.” Her hand moves in a circular motion as she speaks.

“Ryley pulled up and got out of her car with a bag of groceries in her hand. I stood and watched her as she realized that someone was on the porch. She looked at me, her expression unreadable. The bag dropped, and my reflex was to catch it. I flew down the stairs, and she gasped, stopping me dead in my tracks. I smiled, and it felt like the first day I met her all over again… until it didn’t.

“‘Hey, Ry.’” My voice cracked, ya know because I hadn’t seen her in so long. “‘I’m home.”’ It was when I reached for her that I knew something was wrong. Her eyes filled instantly with tears, and I thought, why isn’t she jumping into my arms? Why isn’t she kissing me all over?”

“‘Who… what…?’” She started shaking her head, and I tried to step forward, but she held her hand up. “‘Don’t, please don’t'.’”

“‘I don’t understand, Ryley. I know I’ve been gone a long time, but I’m home now.’”

“‘No, you don’t understand. You’re dead to us… to me… who…? How are you here right now?’”

“Her words threw me back ten steps. I hadn’t a clue what she was talking about, and she kept repeating over and over again that I was dead and not supposed to be there. I stood in the yard, watching her fall apart but she wouldn’t let me help her. She wouldn’t let me touch her.

“It’s when she started wiping her eyes that I saw her ring. It wasn’t the one I had bought, the one that I had saved a year for. This one was different. I knew then that she had given herself to someone else.”