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Dearest Amelia, I love you honey. Drill sergeant said cadets need to pair up with a vet. I got Natalia. She told me to call her Natty. Didn't like her name much. Said stick close to her. Said everything would be okay. Natty says I should man up, stop the whining. Word is the next drop ship is a total deathtrap. Patrols come back like you wouldn't imagine. But you won't hear a word of that from Natty. A marine makes their own luck is what she says. She sharpens her knife with a stone from her pocket. They don't even bother censoring the letters home. But I don't have the heart. That's how bad it is. We all take it different. Some fight it out of them like it were an evil spirit, some spit it out in curses, and others let their their bodies do the talking. I drew a picture of what our baby would be like on a digiscreen. Natalia says the tattoo she scored on my back of it with the laser turned low on the rifle was her best work, but I can't see it. When I ask the other cadets, they laugh at me, say I should get it seen to. Recently it's started to hurt, throb like. Now she's saying I should get it seen to. Natty writes to her lover every night, taps it out on the screen, glasses perched on her nose like a wise owl. I don't get this desire to write so much. Nothing happens here except for inspections. We take apart and assemble our laser weapons every day, parade, and do turns. Yesterday I think I lost a screw under my bunk. It's from my laser rifle. Sometimes, it works good, and other times it fires wonky now. Natalia says I am a disaster. You should really meet her. Man, the way she works out in the training quarters, sweating and all ... She is like a machine. What I'm trying to say is how much I miss you Amelia, like I miss feeling the plastic grass between my toes, like that cute oxytank you wear. I want to tell you something deep like. I want to tell you how the training room has a view of space outside, that the stars go on forever like you and I. Natty said that was so corny I should be thrown into the brig. Sometimes, Natty passes me a kettlebell when we work out together - girl's built - and I think back on that vidipic of my old man's grandpa working the Chevrolet Coupe in the wood. I don't know who the young dude in sweats is, but they have this intense look. I am not saying that being cooped up makes you think different. But I swear when I see her, I can the mossy damp of the woods, the lights of the cop's torch reflected in the faces of those two men. Was it a picture from a newspaper? What happened to them? Who took the photo? Dad hasn't said a word about it. One of the cadets pulled me to one side recently, his breath hot and hard in my face, emotional like. Do you want to know what the difference is between a cadet and a vet? Which one betrays the other first, I said fast. I laughed at him, my heart beating in my chest, and I said that Natty wasn't like that. I pushed him away. He said that's what everyone says. He had this pained look on his face like he didn't know whether to spit at me, or hold me and tell me everything was going to be okay. I walked away. I got pride. I've heard the talk. She wouldn't use my position to attract enemy fire, wouldn't push me into incoming fire, make me walk into an enemy position just to buy herself some time. Natty is real. God, the pain in my back hurts. Well, Natty told me we have to make it early tonight. There's a war going on and the drop ship waits for nobody. I need to see you again Amelia. We can walk on the plastic grass together you and I and share a toke of your cute oxytank. Our little forever together. love Chad 724 words |