“If you need anything, you call me or one of the guys. We will always be there for you.”
Those words were all it took to send the young woman into total tears as she wrapped her arms tight around Nate and released the sadness of the moment. There wasn’t anything for me to do but watch the moment, and I felt helpless and needed something to do with myself so I grabbed her young son’s hand and brought him away so Nate and she could talk.
“Today’s a sad day, isn’t it?” I said as we walked into the hanger area so I could find him a snack.
He just nodded his head yes. I found some change in my pocket and got some animal crackers out of the vending machine as we sat down in some chairs near the window. We didn’t talk, but I felt him calming as he sat next to me. We watched the other planes from the airport as they took off and landed for at least thirty minutes. It was mesmerizing to watch them.
“Rudy, are you ready to go?” his mother said as she stood behind us.
Rudy stood up and reached his hand out to shake mine.
“Thanks for being my friend,” he said in his quiet sad voice.
“Thank you. I needed a friend today too,” I said as I shook his hand.
He ran off with his mother, and Nate came to sit next to me. I couldn’t help but want to hug him and just start crying again. I really couldn’t imagine that he did that as his job all the time. It was emotionally and physically much harder than anything I had imagined.
“Well, I guess it’s just the two of us,” Nate said as we sat there together.
“I guess it is.”
“Do you want to go home?”
It was funny, I had only lived with Nate for a few weeks, but his house did feel like home to me. I couldn’t imagine going home to any other place.
“What about Stephano?” I asked.
“I think we can handle him together.” Nate laughed. “I’ve actually had the word out at home about Stephano. I think he’s going to back off, but we could always remind his goons how tough you really are if they decide to show up.”
“So, he’s not going to come after me?”
Nate knew I would want to know for sure what was going on and if Stephano was going to stop hunting me. But certainty didn’t seem like something we got very much in our lives. I would settle for some sort of understanding that if we left him alone, he would leave us alone. Really, I didn’t care at all what happened to Stephano or his people. I just wanted them to leave me alone.
My ordeal with Stephano had been a lifetime ago. I would always have the mental scars from that ordeal, but I hoped to be in a much better place to deal with them. Since going to Syria, I hadn’t deal with any of the fear or nightmares like I had before I left.
I couldn’t explain it exactly, but I felt like I had overcome the feeling of helplessness that I had once felt. Perhaps the fear that had come after I left Stephano’s house was partly from not having confidence in myself and my own abilities. Or perhaps I needed more life experiences before I could feel like I was able to move on.
But I did feel ready to move on and I was going to keep getting better and better at taking on my life. I didn’t need Stephano found for my own mental health, but it would put my mind at ease. I needed him found so I could move on and stop thinking about him. I didn’t want to waste any more of my life thinking of him or having him use up my energy.
I liked Nate’s plan, but I was afraid of feeling afraid again. I didn’t want to go back to a place where I was always feeling like someone was out to get me. No matter how confident I was in my skills, there was always the possibility of getting surprised and not being prepared when one of Stephano’s goons showed up.
“Do you think he still wants me?”
“I think I made sure he knew you were in Damascus with me and that you had Special Forces training now. If he decides he wants to mess with you, it will be a whole different event than the first time.”
I certainly didn’t have Special Forces training, but I liked how Nate thought. I also would love to have some training at that level before I went out on another job—if I ever did something like that. I couldn’t wait to have Nate help me with all the things I needed to learn.
I imagined us staying up to all hours of the day again as he showed me more hand-to-hand combat moves and taught me how to shoot different weapons. Being over in Syria had shown me just how much I didn’t know, and what I would love to learn more of.
Backwoods training was something that really interested me now. I wanted to know how to start my own fires and find food. I basically wanted to learn anything and everything that would help ensure I would survive all situations that came my way. I even wanted to know what I should do if I was ever captured and how I could escape such a situation.
The future wasn’t very clear for me, but I felt like I had unlimited choices to make and could do almost anything that I wanted. If I wanted to train more and take on another assignment, I was sure I could convince Nate to agree. Although, it would take some long talks, because I saw how he didn’t like my idea of working with him in war zones. If I decided I wanted to go to college, I was sure Nate would be agreeable to that without issue.
There were endless possibilities and I felt so excited for my future. Only a few months before I hadn’t felt like I would ever have a future, and there I was planning multiple versions of it with an amazing man by my side. Life sure did have the ability to change in an instant.
“Let’s go home then,” I said to Nate as we intertwined are hands together and left the airport.
The drive from Washington D.C. to Atlanta seemed much more peaceful than it had been when we drove up to the city. We stopped and got snacks at gas stations, pulled over at rest stops, and talked for hours; we even took a little nap at one of the stops. Finally, we arrived back at Nate’s cabin.