12 Seconds (#1 in Military series)

Chapter 6

Chapter 6

It was nearly five in the evening when she finally made it home.

The idea of facing her family that had kept it secret from was more than she could bear; they were her family.

They were meant to love her for whom she was and from the letters she had read, it was obvious that she had loved being a marine.

And they kept that from her.

It didn’t take long for her mother to descend upon her as she soon as she shut the front door.

“Julia!” Her mother screeched, “I’ve been worried sick! Where have you-” Katherine stopped breathing when she saw the tin in Julia’s hands, “Julia, where did you get that?”

“Shouldn’t the question be,” Julia frowned as she stared from the tin to her mother, “Why have I only just been given it? After two years!” Julia burst out, unable to control herself.

“Julia,” her father stepped forward, hand out in a peaceful manner, “Maybe we should talk,”

“Yeah, maybe!” Julia couldn’t quite breathe right as she walked away from her mother, “Where should we start? Maybe you should tell me why you thought you could keep this from me!? Why you made me believe like I’d done nothing with my life! Were you ashamed!?”

“No!” Her father shouted, “Nothing made me prouder than seeing you serving your country but . . . but nothing broke my heart more than when a soldier came knocking on our door to inform us that you’d been blown up!”

“The dreams,” Julia whispered, “They were real,” She looked across the room at where Thomas was sat at the table like a statue, his head bowed.

“I thought you had died,” Her mother turned and tried to touch Julia but Julia just stepped away, unable to think that she could trust them again, “When that soldier knocked on the door, my heart just dropped, but when he said that you were alive . . . it was the best feeling in the world,”

Julia couldn’t look her mother in the face as she relived the agony of thinking her daughter had been killed.

“Then we got to the hospital and the doctor told us that you’d suffered and aneurysm and when you woke up thinking you were eighteen again, before all of this stupid military stuff happened, it was a blessing,”

Julia bristled at her calling the military stupid.

“I could have my little girl back again,” Katherine cried, her husband quickly wrapping his arms around her shoulders.

“That doesn’t make it right,” Julia snapped through her teeth, “I’ve never been interested in the things you like, I know you wanted me to but I just can’t,”

Katherine let out another sob.

“And Mark?” Julia asked, her mother stopped crying and started to hyperventilate as she heard the name.

In fact, her entire family became sober and quiet at the name.

“Who is he? Really?” Julia asked, “Who is he!?” She screamed when nobody replied.

“He was in your unit,” Rhys stepped forward.

“Rhys!” Katherine hissed.

“She needs to know, mother,” Rhys turned back to Julia, “Mark was in your unit and he was your boyfriend- Well, fiancé, actually,”

“I was engaged?” Julia frowned, staring down at her ring finger but it wasn’t there.

“There wasn’t a ring when we-” Her father started to defend himself when her mother interrupted him.

“I threw it away,” Katherine hissed, “He’d gotten you into all of this! It was his idea that you signed up with him!”

“Katherine!” Her father shouted and everyone looked at her with disgust; no one knew she had done it.

“What!?” Katherine wiped her nose with the back of her hand, “I wasn’t about to let her throw her life away on a man that would be dead by the end of the year! He left her anyway, didn’t he? After the accident?”

Julia’s throat started to close up but as much as she hated it; this Mark man had abandoned her.

The only time she had seen him was in the park yesterday; she didn’t remember him ever coming to visit her in hospital.

Julia didn’t know what hurt the worst; the fact that her family had betrayed her or the fact that a man she never knew had betrayed her.

Surely, she couldn’t feel heartbroken by a man she didn’t even remember but somehow, she did.

“I’m going to bed,” Julia whispered as everyone looked at her with pity once again.

“I’ll make you a cup of hot chocolate and-”

“-No, mother,” Julia snapped, “I don’t want to see any of you again tonight. I just- I need to be alone,”

“You go to bed, sweetie,” her father wished her goodnight, “I’ll make sure nobody disturbs you,”

Julia didn’t say thank you because none of them deserved to be thanked for what they had done to her.

Even Thomas had moved away rather than just tell her the truth.

* * *

The next morning Julia awoke to the smell of bacon and she closed her eyes in annoyance already.

Her father only got up early to cook bacon if he wanted to talk to her and she knew that it was going to be about her mother and that she only did what she thought was best.

But what was best about lying to Julia about who she really was?

Julia didn’t want to face any of her family for a while so quietly getting out of bed she went to the bathroom and brushed her teeth before getting dressed in her ripped skinny jeans, combat boots and a grey zip-up hoodie.

Grabbing the dog tags off her bedside table, she slipped them on over her head before climbing out of her window.

It was a small drop onto the porch directly below her window before a ten foot drop onto the front lawn.

Landing on her feet, she rolled onto her side before checking the coast was clear and disappearing out the front gate.

Julia didn’t know where she was going but as she walked down the street, head buried inside her hoodie, she could feel the dog tags warming up against her skin until she hardly recognised they were there at all.

But it felt right for them to be hung around her neck.