Knowing that Aaron may have just taken off in Ellen's car while I walked his wife out of the hospital to take her to the nearest ATM so that she could cash out... This was pressure. From the hospital to the gas station was no more than five minutes but a lot happened really fast. I noticed that I lost my military ID, Calvin couldn't stop texting Beth, I was hungry as shit, my boss wasn't answering their phone, and worst of all Beth was going through all of the motions of a battered woman in record time. As soon as we get to the ATM, #dumbshit
"Maybe I should leave a little for him.. you know, just in case"
"Okaaaay but do you really want the same guy who showed up to a military hospital drunk, against his commander's and doctor's orders, spending money with your name on it?
"How about if I just give him some after I empty the account?
"...."
"Only like 50 bucks. Not a lot"
"And you're going to give it to him?"
And I think this is where my eyes went black. I did good. know I did. I did fucking amazing but it doesn't matter. Everyone has limits. I didn't know I reached it at that time, but she did. I was still thinking of a nice way to say shit...
"I think you're right, DY. The social workers were pretty clear about keeping my distance from him in the meantime and it wouldn't be right to ask you to do that. Not after all this". Then she got quiet. Went out, did her thing, cashed out all her stripper guap, then hopped back in the car. Then she showed me the fucking receipt too. I didn't ask her to do that. She stayed quiet. Again, I was tired... and it probably showed. I didn't think on any of this like I should've. If I had, it would've saved me a lot of headache in the future. Anyways, as soon as we pull off we both look at each other and realize that she needed to drop me off at my place. There was no way I was going to spend the night with her anywhere after today. We both knew that was just a magnificently stupid idea that would've ended in on the front page of something terrible AND IT DIDN'T HAPPEN! THANK GOD. I WAS GOING TO GET HOME ALIVE.
So we're back at my barracks parking lot a whole 8 hours after I first got that call from Aaron. I'm about to step out of the car and walk back up to my room... fuck it. May as well make sure she's on the same page as when she left the hospital still. I don't need a surprise at this stage of the game. But for whatever reason she gets out of the car too. As if she has something she wants to get off her chest.
...
Fuck that. I'm cutting you off and going first. If she was gonna hit me with some "I have AIDS too
" shit it was going to have to wait til Monday.
"So how are you feeling right now, Beth? You gonna make it tonight?"
"I'm not going to kill myself, if that's what you're asking haha"
Not funny, trick. "I know a lot happened today. Like I said from the start, I got your back. I'm not working from the most flexible position though..."
"I know how it is. I used to be military too."
What in the fuckkk??? No. Not now. You take this good blessing and get gone. I need sleep and omelets in the morning. I know you ain't got either. "So you know my hands are tied sorta. If it were up to me... well, I'd never let a guy talk to my sister like that so... yeah. Call me. I'm your friend in this shit, okay homie?"
And that did the trick. Whatever she had to say went back in the drawer after that. She came around and gave me a hug, I threw deuces, she got in the car and drove off. I went to my room and slept under the bed to be safe.
-----------------------------------------------------------------------------
Monday rolls around. What is my reward for tight rope walking the Golden Gate bridge between a Kaiju fight?
Not getting my ass-reamed for losing my military ID. I had a good reason for losing it sooo... yeah. We're not going to crucify you. GJ.
Next couple of days, Aaron somehow still thinks that I'm his best friend... This is when I realized that I was meant to fuck people over for a living. This guy still believes to this day that I'm on his team and I've written nearly a dozen sworn statements saying that he killed Kennedy. My command, illegally, instructs me to keep up the job I'm doing - as if they had anything to do with it. I already had the MPs on post on the guy's ass so hard that he couldn't grab an extra packet of ketchup without asking first. Ellen was straight up missing. No clue where she was at all. Calvin was simping on some new chick... nothing unusual there. It was quiet. I was still paranoid as shit, but I figured that nothing would happen anymore with the guys coming back from deployment and if it did it'd happen in the form of a phone call or plane crash.
Its actually... good for a while. Another two weeks pass. I hear from some grapevine suckers that the divorce is officially going through. Hadn't heard from Beth, but I was happy for her. Ellen was back, but she always looked like she was trying to run out the door before she even walked through it. I caught her in the parking lot for a minute once. She waved me over then immediately told me how much of a piece of shit "my boy, Aaron" was. What else could I do but nod and agree without looking like I knew a thing? I let her vent and dipped the fuck out. In my mind, you don't just bitch about people like that unless you've got some sort of investment in them. I was half-right this time.
I'm talking to my new leadership on the walk back to my barracks room and everything is cool. I'm about to get promoted, sent off to some classes/training events shit is good. We walk past this big formation and they give the winkwinknodnod of "Hey so uhh... maybe you should get your dress uniform together". But as soon as I believe in an end to this story, a fucking plane crash. I see Beth's car. And shit myself hamster style. She had
no reason to be on post anymore at all. All I could think about was getting my new boss the fuck away as quick as possible. (On top of the obvious reasons, my new boss was female so having a maybe/possible stripper-looking woman walk up now would be a bad look). There was no discreet or casual way to get out of this at all so I just bit the bullet. Part of it. Told my boss that the car that'd just pulled up was a 'friend' of mine and she took the hint. Walked up to the barracks ahead of me and I thought that was that. I'd be in the clear to talk about whatever was so important that Beth needed to see me in person about.
No. Hahahaha no no no. Not at all. As if anything would ever be that simple. There was someone else in the car. I just laughed out loud. She thought I was really happy to see her too. Beth didn't have 'friends'. This couldn't be anything good. Putin could've hopped out at this point and it would've made perfect sense to me. But no. My life isn't meant to make sense. I walked up to the car faster in a pathetic last ditch effort to prevent them from getting out of the car in front of this formation and in earshot of my new boss. Fail.
She gets out the car looking
gorgeous. Head to toe stunning. Everyone within 100 yards who had eyes stopped what they were doing. It was 5:10 PM and she had a spotlight on her. She looked amazing. An amazing, gorgeous stripper. It was the most obvious thing in the world. The deep stilettos, the deep cleavage, tattoos head to toe, huge shades, the overdone hair, make up like she was going somewhere, legs like they were still in the case. It was like seeing Kobe walking down the street in his warmups - even though she wasn't in full uniform, there was no doubt what team she was on. And then her friend stepped out. Except black so now all the brothers on the block were standing at attention too. So now there were two obvious strippers in front of me, a formation of about 600 behind me - all of them in my shit, and my boss leaning over the balcony of my barracks building about 50 feet away eating it up.
Both of them happy to see me for whatever reason, her friend sizes me up from shoe size, pocket size, bulge, shoulders, to hairline while Beth walks up and puts both of her arms around me.
"How ya been, DY? We never talk anymore"