Broken Soldier

“Will you please hold up!” I was panting so hard I thought my ribs were going to break from the pressure inside my chest. “I need to stop.”

I fell to the floor and just spread out everywhere not caring that I was a sweaty disgusting mess. My chest rising and falling was the only thing that told me I wasn’t dying just yet. I closed my eyes and tried to slow my heart rate down so that I wouldn’t go into cardiac arrest. A shadow fell across my eye lids and I groaned just waiting for it. Here comes the verbal beat down I was bound to get yet again.

“You would think after all these years of running with me you would be able to keep up and not stop every 5 minutes claiming you were gonna die.” I picked up a small twig next to me and chucked it at his broad chest. It bounced off with him just raising an eyebrow at me before he plopped down next to me and laid down as well. His breathing was labored as well but not as much as mine was.

“Not all of us fine running our favorite thing to do Jer.” I joked letting a smile grace my face as I started to relax a little bit. I looked over to him as he was looking at me laughing. I stared at how the sunlight seemed to light up his features and make me seem almost angelic. To think that 2 years ago he was down in the gutter with a drinking problem after he lost his legs. That Jeremy gave up on life and hope. This Jeremy was the face of no excuses. The first year after the accident was his family and I working with him to get him out of his depressive state of mind. He was always drinking, yelling, crying, fighting, throwing things, and even said some really brutal and mean things to us that he always would later apologize for. I used to just sit there with him as he drank and I read a book in silence. Trying to get him to stop was pointless because then he would just blow up on us. The best we could do was let him drink in moderation so he wouldn’t die of alcohol poisoning. Finally one day when I went to take a bottle of Jack away from him we got into a fight which ended really badly. We were at the top of his stairs as he was trying to go to bed with the bottle and I went to go snatch it from him which severely pissed him off. We started screaming at each other and a few unnecessary words were exchanged but it wasn’t until I went to reach for the bottle that it all happened.

“I said no!” I screamed at him trying to reach for the vile bottle that he held far above my head. Being as short as I was and him being as tall as was it didn’t go in my favor. “Jeremy Logan Reynolds give me that motherfucking bottle! You’ve had plenty today to knock you out to sleep!”

“Fuck you London! I don’t need you God damn help or anyone else’s! I deserve this drink! I’m the one that lost their fuckin’ legs!” He roared at me and I refrained from taking a step back in fear. Jeremy angry drunk was not something anyone would like to see. Not after everything he had been through even though he was already given the best of the best when it came to prosthetics. It was like he bottled it all up and on these rare moments he would just explode and anyone in his path was in some deep ass danger.

I growled under my breath and lunged for the bottle only to have him shove me back away from him. It was in that instance we both knew I was in trouble. I flung my arms out trying to grab at anything to hold me up and he reached out for me but in his drunken state his coordination was shit. I ended up falling down the flight of stair all the way to the bottle. I could feel myself rolling and could feel the bruising starting to form all over my body but it wasn’t until near the bottom when I landed on one of the stairs with my wrist angled just the right way beneath me. There was loud snap and a scream and then I was laying down at the foot of the stairs sobbing and cradling my arm to my chest. Any way I moved it caused a huge amount of pain to run through my body and I couldn’t stop the tears from pouring out of my eyes.

It maybe took 2 seconds after I hit the bottom for Jeremy to be right behind me trying to help me up. He must have been right behind me trying to grab at me as I fell. At least he wasn’t frozen at the top of the stairs not knowing what to do. He went to touch me and I ended up flinching away from him involuntarily but it was a natural reaction to when someone ends up hurting you. He was tearing up himself as he held his hand over me wanting to touch me. He was saying he was sorry over and over again and he just sat down next to me crying. My heart broke for him because I knew even drunk he hadn’t meant to push me down the stairs. I think in our anger we both forgot that the stairs were even there. His face was in his hands as I sat up slowly to make sure nothing else was broken. I scooted over to him and just leaned into his body putting my face on his chest while I held my wrist with my other hand. He froze at my gentle touch before wrapping his arm around me and pulling me in close. He keep apologizing over and over again and finally he said the words we were all dying to hear.

“London I promise I will never drink again. I am so sorry. I will understand if you want to never talk to me again-.”

“Shut up. No matter how bad it gets I’m you best friend Jer Bear. I will never leave you. Besides I love you too much to do that.” I whispered to him. I looked up at him with my face still in his chest and he was already looking down at me with such a depressed and broken look in his eyes. He kissed me on my forehead and keep whispering to me he was going to change his ways no matter what it took. And he did change.

Which was why we were on this God Forsaken trail with me practically dying from all the running and him smiling that he beat me at our racing yet again. I would never win at this rate!

“What why are you looking at me like that?” he asked trying to look serious. “Is there something on my face?”

“No I was just thinking about how amazing my best friend is.” I said looking away trying to hide my small blush. It was awkward that he caught me staring but I couldn’t really lie to him since he always caught me in it.

“Oh really? Who is this ‘amazing’ best friend of yours?”

I smiled and sat up to look at him. He ended up on his back on the ground as well with his arms underneath his head. “Well he’s this guy I’ve known all my life basically. He’s funny, but not funnier than me.” He scoffed at this one and I chuckled. “He’s caring, and strong, just simply and utterly the best friend anyone could ask for.”

He smiled at me and it was his turn to throw something at me. “Aw that’s so sweet and almost disgustingly corny of you.”

“Did I fail to mention he’s also nice enough to let me win this race?” I said quickly jumping up.

His eyes snapped open and he looked at me. “Wait, what?”

“Bye Jeremy!” I said laughing as I quickly took off into a hard sprint giving it all I had. Even though he had prosthetics he still seemed to beat me when it came to running. So I had to play dirty on the disabled vet which hopefully would come in handy because I was already running out of breath. I didn’t bother looking behind me as I continued to run knowing that he was already catching up to me from all the noise his metal legs made. They gave him a variety of different legs to use for whatever different reasons. The ones he used for running were these crescent moon shaped ones at the bottom that gave him a bit of a bounce and spring to his step for running which was honestly and unfair advantage if you asked me.

I was approaching the end of the trail and I felt my hope leap up that I might actually win this time. Yet when I reached the end I felt a force tackle me from behind and pull me to the ground. I just laid there and cursed under my breath.

“You couldn’t let me win just this once could ya?” I asked the dirt and I felt his the deep rumble of his laugh through his chest on my back.

“Not a chance honey.” He stated simply and I picked my head up to turn it around and face him.

“Asshole.” I said rolling my eyes with a smile.

“Only for you.” He replied as he laughed even more.

I was about to say something else when there was the sound of a throat clearing and we both looked up. Me with a slight blush on my face. I was sure how wrong this looked but I honestly didn’t care.

“Hello Evelyn.” I said almost monotone like.

Evelyn, which stood for Extremely Vile Evil Lazy Yelling Nuisance. Evelyn was Jeremy’s girlfriend of 9 months and she was the devil in disguise. She had her blonde hair up in a mess bun and she was standing before us in a string bikini that had less material on it than a thong. How Jeremy likes her I will never know. She tipped her sunglasses down and looked at us while she blew a bubble. Evelyn decided she wanted to stay and tan in the huge bed of Jer’s Ford pickup instead of running, which honestly was fine with me.

“Jeremy are you done rolling in the dirt with your friends? We have a party to go to tonight remember?” Must be why she wanted to tan then. She needed to look more unnatural then she already did. She was the type of girl who tried to act country when the closest thing she knew to anything country was the songs they played on the radio.

“Oh yeah! I completely forgot about that.” He quickly got up and walked over to her giving her a quick peck on the mouth that made me want to throw up. Again, how did he pick her…over me! I knew I would never say anything though because I valued our friendship too much to mess it up. When he went to turn away she looked back at me with a smirk and with a turn that was meant to show me how ‘how awesome her body was’ she sauntered away making sure to try and bounce what no butt she had.

I could only take a deep breath to calm myself down before I pushed myself up rolling my eyes. Sadly I was going to the same party tonight and had to see them act all lovely dovey on each other the entire night. Thankfully I knew there was going to be free alcohol all night so I perked up a little. Jeremy thankfully kept to his words and never had a drop of anything since that night. Since then he hasn’t really needed my help or my advice.

Too bad he couldn’t see whore Barbie climbing in the truck after him was just using him.