The Soldier Next Door

I have died a thousand tiny deaths in the last second. Now Ana is not an irresponsible person, nor is she crazy enough to do such a thing on her own. But do I even dare and say that she has not been herself lately? Do I even dare to think what Ray said is real? Do I even dare to think that she is somewhere out there alone, she is somewhere, she is in danger, she cannot be there out on her own. Ray must have it wrong!

“Sorry, but she… What?”

“Ana is not on the plane.”

“Who did she jump with?”

“I thought she jumped with you!”

“No! She did not jump! She did not jump with me!”

“Ethan, she is not on the plane!”

“Fuck, Ray! Where is she?”Text property © Nôvel(D)ra/ma.Org.

Every single drop of blood that flows to my brain leaves my face, and it feels as if I can crash to the floor. Everything is spinning out of control; tears are creeping to the corner of my eyes; I am terrified, I am not a man that gets terrified, but this shakes me to my core. I can’t get myself to move; why the fuck can’t I move? I need to find Ana; I need to move! I am going to…

“Ray, I need to go back; I need to go look for her. I don’t think she knows where camp is. Please tell me someone told her where camp is?”

“Ethan, why are you still standing here? Go! Now! Take Williams and Gibbs. Go find her!”

In less than a minute, we have geared up and ready to move out and track our way back to the beach. God, I just hoped she stayed where someone can find her. Fuck, I don’t even want to think that they have taken her.

This is not the first time that I am doing this; I have been on many rescue missions. Why is this one so hard? Why can’t I focus? I can’t think. I am thinking with my heart and not like a Marine. I am losing my grip; if I lose my grip, I lose a life.

She should have stayed at home, she should have never deployed, if something happens to her, then I shall die, it will be my fault. All of this would be my fault if I were not such a jerk towards her. She was only trying to fix our relationship, and I was just pushing her away. She jumped because she thought it is what I want, what I forced her to do.

I need to get to her; I need to say sorry. We must get to her; we are walking too slow; we need to move faster. But now it is raining, if we run, then we slip, slipping means slowing us doing, slowing down might be, do I even dare to say, the difference between life and death.

God, do I need to think about it? Do I even consider it? No! We will find her; she is on the beach, we will find her. She would have waited for us to come to get her; she knows that I will come to get her, she has to know that, she knows that I love her. I will find her.

We are moving as fast as we can through the dense forest to get back to the beach. It is not easy; it is wet, it is going slow, the ground is slippery. With every corner we take around a bush or a tree, I look for her, I check to see if she is not standing in an opening, I check the floor to she that she did not slip. I look for her, everywhere; I hope that wherever I look that I will find her.

But nothing, no Ana, not yet. We will find her; she is waiting for us. She knows that she has to wait, we will see, she is at the beach waiting for us. Though we are halfway now, we are still going to slow; we still have not seen her yet. The rain has stopped, we can still not run, it is too wet, I don’t want to fall, that extra minute it takes me to get up is that extra minute that she might not have. That is if they find her, not that they will, but if they find her before us. I need that extra minute; I need every second that I can spare.

We are almost there; we are two-thirds of the way, we are so close that I can smell the ocean. We just need to step into that clearing, and we will see her there, she will be there under the tree, sitting on a rock, she will be waiting for me. Maybe she will be hiding in the bushes; she will know that it might not be safe; she might be hiding in the bushes. She has been trained for this; she has done this before. Not jump on her own, but she has done this before.

Then we are finally stepping through the clearing.

…Ana POV…

I can’t believe I did this; I jumped on my own. If I was going to jump, why did I not just jump with Ethan? He is going to kill me when he hears I did this on my own. Wait until he finds me, then I am dead.

Yes, I don’t know where I am. I have no idea where I am, well I am on the beach, but I don’t know where I must go from here. I was supposed to go with Ethan, he would have taken me to camp. And if he did not, I could have asked MacKey, but no, I do things my way. I jump without fucking knowing where I am. That is the dumbest thing any one person can do. But yes, I do it. I jump on my own.

But Ethan will come to find me; I know he will come to look for me as soon as he hears that I am not on the plane. He will come to look for me immediately. He might be mad, but he loves me. I love him. I jumped. For him. Because I love him. He will come to find me.

But it is starting to rain now, I will sit on that rock, under that tree, and I will wait for Ethan to find me. I will sit and think about how I can say sorry to him for being so mean. I never wanted to call the wedding off. I was just scared. I did not think. I should have just given it a day, and then I would know that I made a mistake. I did give it a day, and I did make a mistake, but it was too late. Ethan did not want to be with me anymore. I was running from my own demons, but I was pushing Ethan away at the same time. I am selfish; he has gone through a lot more than any man should go. I had no right to sit and whine over my stupid problems.

When Ethan gets here, I will tell him how sorry I am, sorry that I broke the wedding off, sorry that I rejected him, and I am sorry for jumping off the plane by myself. He is probably feeling so guilty, but he must be even more worried that he knows that I am here. I am all alone waiting for him here by myself. On top of everything I have done to him, now I do this as well. I can only imagine that he must feel embarrassed to run after his ex-girlfriend, that does not want to jump off a plane.

I have hurt him once again. Why do I keep on hurting him? I know he says that he does not care about me anymore, but I do know that he still loves me. But that does not give me the right to treat him the way I do. I am going to tell him how sorry I am. I am going to ask him to give me one more chance. I will do whatever I can to make it up to him. I will prove to him that I am the woman that he fell in love with that day.

Then I hear a rustle behind me as someone steps out from the bushes.