No Place for Females

Chapter Ten

It was getting colder. The sun was setting. Although I had been walking for almost an hour, it seemed as if I hadn’t gotten any closer to the rock formation. Honestly, I would have thought I’d be there by now. The pain in my side was slowing me down.

Still, despite the hard walk through the scrub brush, my spirits were up. In less than five hours, I would be back on the base with Ben. Or so I hoped. I thought he must be out of his mind by now. He was such a worrywart, but it was sweet. I knew he worried because he loved me. I wondered if he knew how much I loved him.

As I walked, I tried to swallow those thoughts. The ache in my side had dulled. I had learned to move in a way that lessened the strain. Though I would have preferred to hold my rifle in my hands, I didn’t have the strength, so I had slung it over my back. In the last forty-eight hours I’d had very little food and even less water. I was running on fumes. It was only out of sheer force of will that I kept placing one foot in front of the other and moving towards the rock formation.

I should have told him that I loved him.

I allowed my mind to wander to all the food I would shove into my piehole when I reached the base. Right now, even an MRE sounded like a freaking five-course dinner. Ben liked MREs. He said they were delicious, once you dumped a bottle of Texas Pete into the mix. What did he know? Pizza night at the mess hall was his version of gourmet dining.

I should have told him that I loved him that night, a couple of weeks ago. I had fallen and cut my leg during our workout.

"You know, if you didn't insist on running behind the motor pool, this probably wouldn't have happened," he said with a smirk.

"No, it's fine." I dusted my hands on my shorts, even though my shorts were dirtier than my hands.

The lot behind the motor pool was empty and secluded. It was also dark and hard to see when something got in the way of a sprint.

"It's not fine," he said, moving closer to me. "It hurts me to see you hurt. We could just do our workout in the afternoon, like normal people. Who cares what people think?"

I sighed. "I care. I don't want people whispering behind my back. You know how Marines are. If a dude is hooking up with a girl, he’s a hero, but I’ll be labeled as another camp whore. I don't want people saying that about me."

"If anyone said that about you, I would knock their teeth down their throat."

"Yeah, I know. And that's why I don't want that to happen. So this is how it has to be. Besides, if anyone does catch us out here, it's a great excuse. And who knows how long this is going to last, anyway, so . . ." I trailed off, not wanting to finish the expression.

I was trying to play it sort of cool with Ben. He was like this rockstar Recon god, and I was just whatever. I hadn’t told him about the e-mail I’d received from an anonymous sender, informing me that I was a "dirty slut" who had better leave Ben alone. I had my suspicions about who had sent it, but I kept them to myself.

"What the hell is that supposed to mean?"

Even in the semi-darkness, I could see him arch his eyebrow. He looked serious. He was really sexy when he looked serious.

"I mean--things happen. You might get bored, and then I'd be left picking up the pieces. So I just think it’s best to exercise caution, you know."

I felt my palms getting sweaty. I wanted to end the conversation, maybe even to kiss him for the first time and not to talk about it anymore. I was already in love with him, and the thought of losing yet another person I loved, regardless of the reason, would suck. I wasn't afraid that Ben would leave. I was afraid that Ben would die. If I gave him my heart and something happened to him, I would completely lose it. We were in a war. People died all the time, sometimes for no reason at all. How could I imagine that I or anyone else would be spared?