"There's nothing wrong with you," he said, giving her arm a reassuring squeeze.
"Give me a chance. I'm sure you'll find something."
Thibault could hear the wound beneath the jest. "No," he said. "I don't think I will."
"You're sweet."
"I'm honest."
She smiled as she took a sip from her beer. "Most of the time."
"You don't think I'm honest?"
She shrugged. "Like I said. Most of the time."
"What's that supposed to mean?"
She put the bottle of beer on the table and gathered her thoughts. "I think you're a terrific guy. You're smart, you work hard, you're kind, and you're great with Ben. I know that, or at least I think I do, because that's what I see. But it's what you don't say that makes me wonder about you. I tell myself that I know you, and then when I think about it, I realize that I don't. What were you like in college? I don't know. What happened after that? I don't know. I know you went to Iraq and I know that you walked here from Colorado, but I don't know why. When I ask, you just say that 'Hampton seems like a nice place.' You're an intelligent college graduate, but you're content to work for minimum wage. When I ask why, you say that you like dogs." She ran a hand through her hair. "The thing is, I get the sense that you're telling me the truth. You're just not telling all of it. And the part you're leaving out is the part that would help me understand who you are."
Listening to her, Thibault tried not to think about everything else he hadn't told her. He knew he couldn't tell her everything; he would never tell her everything. There was no way she would understand, and yet… he wanted her to know who he really was. More than anything, he realized that he wanted her to accept him.
"I don't talk about Iraq because I don't like to remember my time there." he said
She shook her head. "You don't have to tell me if you'd rather not…
"I want to," he said, his voice quiet. "I know you read the papers, so you probably have this image in your mind of what it's like. But it's not like what you imagine, and there's not really any way I could make it real to you. It's something you had to have experienced yourself. I mean, most of the time it wasn't nearly as bad as you probably think it was. A lot of the time-most of the time-it was okay. Easier for me than for others, since I didn't have a wife or kids. I had friends, I had routines. Most of the time, I went through the motions. But some of the time, it was bad. Really bad. Bad enough to make me want to forget I'd ever been there at all."
She was quiet before drawing a long breath. "And you're here in Hampton because of what happened in Iraq?"
He picked at the label on his bottle of beer, slowing peeling away the corner and scratching the glass with his fingernail. "In a way," he said.
She sensed his hesitation and laid a hand on his forearm. Its warmth seemed to release something inside him.
"Victor was my best friend in Iraq," Thibault began. **He was with me through all three tours. Our unit suffered a lot of casualties, and by the end, I was ready to put my time there behind me. And I succeeded, for the most part, but for Victor, it wasn't so easy. He couldn't stop thinking about it. After we were out, we went our separate ways, trying to get on with life. He went home to California, I went back to Colorado, but we still needed each other, you know? Talked on the phone, sent e-mails in which both of us pre* tended we were doing just fine with the fact that while we'd spent the last four years trying every day to avoid being killed, people back home were acting as if the world was ending if they lost a parking spot or got the wrong latte at Starbucks. Anyway, we ended up reuniting for a fishing trip in Minnesota-"
He broke off, not wanting to remember what happened but knowing he had to. He took a long pull on his beer and set the bottle on the table.
"This was last fall, and I… I was just so happy to see him again. We didn't talk about our time in Iraq, but we didn't have to. Just spending a few days with someone else who knew what we'd been through was enough for the both of us. Victor, by then, was doing okay. Not great, but okay. He was married with a kid on the way, and I remember thinking that even though he was still having nightmares and the occasional flashback, he was going to be all right."
He looked at her with an emotion she couldn't name.
"On our last day, we went fishing early in the morning. It was just the two of us in this little rowboat, and when we rowed out, the lake was as still as glass, like we were the first people ever to disturb the water. I remember watching a hawk fly over the lake while its mirror image glided directly beneath it, thinking I'd never seen anything more beautiful." He shook his head at the memory. "We planned on finishing up before the lake got too crowded; then we were going to head into town later and have some beers and steaks. A little celebration to end our trip. But time just sort of got away from us and we ended up staying on the lake too long."
He started to knead his forehead, trying to keep his composure. "I'd seen the boat earlier. I don't know why I noticed that one among all the others. Maybe my time in Iraq had something to do with it, but I remembered thinking to myself to keep an eye out for them. It was strange, though. It wasn't as if they were doing anything different than any of the other boaters out there. Just some teenagers having fun: waterskiing, tubing. There were six of them on the boat-three boys and three girls-and you could tell they were out there for a last hurrah on the water while it was still warm enough to do so."
When he continued, his voice was hoarse. "I heard it coming," he said, "and I knew we were in trouble even before I saw it. There's a particular sound that an engine makes when it turns in your direction at full speed. It's like the noise begins to trail behind the engine by a millisecond that the brain can pick up only subconsciously, and I knew we were in trouble. I barely had time to turn my head before I saw the bow coming at us at thirty miles an hour." He pressed his fingertips together. "By then, Victor had realized what was happening, and I can still remember his expression-it was this horrible mixture of fear and surprise-the exact same thing I'd seen on faces of my friends in Iraq right before they died."
He exhaled slowly. "The boat sliced right through ours. It hit Victor head-on and killed him instantly. One minute we were talking about how happy he was that he'd married his wife, and in the next instant, my best friend-the best friend I'd ever had- was dead."
Elizabeth put her hand on his knee and squeezed it. Her face had grown pale. "I'm so sorry…"
He didn't seem to hear her.
"It's just not fair, you know? To live through three tours in Iraq, to survive some of the things we had… only to be killed on a fishing trip.? It didn't make sense. After that, I don't know, I was pretty messed up. Not physically. But mentally, it's like I went down a deep hole for a long time. I just gave up. I couldn't eat, I couldn't sleep more than a few hours a night, and there were times when I couldn't stop crying. Victor had confessed to me that he was haunted by visions of dead soldiers, and after his death, I became haunted, too. All of a sudden, the war was front and center again. Every time I tried to go to sleep, I'd see Victor or scenes from the firefights we'd lived through and I'd start shaking all over. The only thing that kept me from going completely crazy was Zeus."
He stopped to look at Elizabeth. Despite his memories, he was struck by the beauty of her face and the dark gold curtain of her hair.
Her face registered her compassion. "I don't know what to say.
"I don't either." He shrugged. "I still don't."
"You know it wasn't your fault, right?"
"Yeah," he muttered "But that's not where the story ends." He put his hand on hers, knowing he'd come too far with his story to stop.
"Victor liked to talk about destiny," he finally said. "He was a big believer in all sorts of things like that, and on our last day together, he said that I would know my destiny when I found it. I couldn't get that thought out of my mind even while I was struggling. I kept hearing him say it over and over, and little by little, I slowly came to the realization that while I wasn't sure where to find it, I knew I wouldn't find it in Colorado. Eventually, I packed my backpack and just started to walk. My mom thought I'd lost my mind. But with every step I took down the road, I began to feel like I was becoming whole again. Like the journey was what