Page 16 of Codename: Dustoff
I didn’t need to be convinced. She and I rode the same life bus. The only difference being I’d been riding it for a bit longer.
“Finn and Gemini seem like really nice people.” Her voice was getting heavy with sleep once again. “I wish I had friends like that. My Army friends—well—that’s not a bedtime story. Sometimes though, I wish I had someone to lean on like you do.”
“You can lean on me.”
As soon as the words were out of my mouth, I felt silly saying them. I’d only just met Amelia a week ago. She didn’t need a total stranger, but someone who had the intimacy of understanding her and the longevity of friendship that spanned over decades, like Finn and me.
“If you want, I can hang out here with you while you fall asleep, to keep the terrors away.”
In the dim moonlight I couldn’t quite make out her full features. I felt more than saw her coffee-colored eyes track down my face, shoulders, and chest and back up again. It was three full beats before she gave me the most subtle nod. It wasn’t anything more than standing guard against nightmares, but I felt as if I’d passed some kind of unnamed test.
I lay on my back, arm tucked behind my head. I told her about how we met Gemini last year. How Finn found her at the bottom of the ravine after she took a tumble in flipflops down the hill, and all about how she’d helped us save our restaurant.
“Gemini said that the first time she met you, she didn’t even realize you were an amputee. That you were so sweet and charming and acted so normal that it wasn’t until later that she even learned you were.”
“Gemini was also flat out drunk the first time I met her. So, take that with a grain of salt.” I laughed, remembering her sprawled across our pool table, sassing at Finn while he tried to wrap her sprained ankle.
“Can I ask what happened? To you, I mean.”
I don’t think anyone had ever asked that question of me. Even Gemini learned through Finn about my accident. I’d never told her about it from my experience.
“I honestly don’t remember much of the day. I know I’d been trying to release the airbrake on a stalled train so we could shift tracks. Somewhere further up the line something caused all the cars to shift and roll back. I got crushed between two train cars. The kinetic energy that built as the cars smashed against one another became so forceful by the time it reached where I stood that it tore my arm clear out of its socket. The last thing I remember before coming to in the hospital was looking down and seeing where my arm had been.”
“I’m so sorry you went through that alone.” Amelia reached out in the dark and squeezed my hand, her thumb caressing little circular patterns into my palm.
I got lost in contented quiet, the feel of Amelia’s warm body next to mine, and the soothing pattern of her soft breathing. Despite creating a pillow bridge separating the two of us—I didn’t want her to worry I’d try any funny stuff in the middle of the night—when I woke up in the morning, Amelia was curled around my leg like a howler monkey, her head on my chest, and arms holding me as if I were a living teddy bear.