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just_muse_me | 18.2.5. The Devil you don't...
Apr. 26th, 2009 01:42 pm![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
tacticalmind18.2.5. Better the Devil you know than the Devil you don't
Stupid.
I couldn’t believe how suffocatingly stupid I felt.
What sort of soldier is so totally naïve and oblivious as to not see that his wife was taking him for a ride? Literally, if we take into account that goddamn race. I should’ve seen the signs, I really should. There wasn’t any excuse for failing like I did. My unit was sent home and I was so excited to be seeing my wife again that I let myself slip. Being on leave seemed so appealing. Hell, Ellie and I hadn’t been married a month before I was shipped to Iraq. It was a strain, but we dealt with it. We both knew I could go at any time and when the phone call came, she promised she would wait for me.
And, like an idiot, I believed her.
I just didn’t realise that ‘waiting’ constituted letting another dude share our marital bed with her. Cheating on me was never part of the deal. What the hell sort of girl does that to a guy, let alone when he’s away risking his life for his country fighting in a war? Hell yeah, it hurt. And there I was thinking she had already hurt me to the ultimate telling me that if I turned myself over for the court-martial that the marriage was over. I wasn’t a coward, and I wasn’t going to let her make me one, either.
I should’ve damn well realised sooner something was wrong. She had been acting weird ever since she suggested we do that race. She would hardly ever let me touch my cell phone, feeding me some lines about not wanting me to get hurt or wanting me to relax. It was all a load crap. I let it happen, too. Failure like that is not easy to swallow. I thought I knew her. She was my wife, damnit! I thought we knew each other!
Played me like a damn idiot, she did, and because of that I nearly became a deserter. She wanted me to walk away from the service when she knew what it meant before we even decided to get married. It would’ve all be fine, too, if she hadn’t screwed me over. What made her think she had the right to interfere in my responsibilities and obligations like that? What gave her the right to shit all over the respect I had for my country? But to learn she was cheating on me the whole time I was gone, and with someone involved in the running of the race, too? It wasn’t difficult to connect the dots after that. She was using me, plain and simple. Using me to win.
Now, I would never hit a woman. Not for any reason. But I damn well wanted to shout, and shout a lot. I wanted to hit something. And I did. I hit the wall of the custody room and broke three fingers. It wasn’t going to matter, though. I had a long and stressful await ahead of me for the court-martial, on edge with the knowledge I could be executed for going AWOL from service in a war time. The throbbing in my fingers would be a good reminder of how stupid I was. And they were so swollen they needed to cut my wedding ring off…
Fitting, really.
Word Count | 558
Stupid.
I couldn’t believe how suffocatingly stupid I felt.
What sort of soldier is so totally naïve and oblivious as to not see that his wife was taking him for a ride? Literally, if we take into account that goddamn race. I should’ve seen the signs, I really should. There wasn’t any excuse for failing like I did. My unit was sent home and I was so excited to be seeing my wife again that I let myself slip. Being on leave seemed so appealing. Hell, Ellie and I hadn’t been married a month before I was shipped to Iraq. It was a strain, but we dealt with it. We both knew I could go at any time and when the phone call came, she promised she would wait for me.
And, like an idiot, I believed her.
I just didn’t realise that ‘waiting’ constituted letting another dude share our marital bed with her. Cheating on me was never part of the deal. What the hell sort of girl does that to a guy, let alone when he’s away risking his life for his country fighting in a war? Hell yeah, it hurt. And there I was thinking she had already hurt me to the ultimate telling me that if I turned myself over for the court-martial that the marriage was over. I wasn’t a coward, and I wasn’t going to let her make me one, either.
I should’ve damn well realised sooner something was wrong. She had been acting weird ever since she suggested we do that race. She would hardly ever let me touch my cell phone, feeding me some lines about not wanting me to get hurt or wanting me to relax. It was all a load crap. I let it happen, too. Failure like that is not easy to swallow. I thought I knew her. She was my wife, damnit! I thought we knew each other!
Played me like a damn idiot, she did, and because of that I nearly became a deserter. She wanted me to walk away from the service when she knew what it meant before we even decided to get married. It would’ve all be fine, too, if she hadn’t screwed me over. What made her think she had the right to interfere in my responsibilities and obligations like that? What gave her the right to shit all over the respect I had for my country? But to learn she was cheating on me the whole time I was gone, and with someone involved in the running of the race, too? It wasn’t difficult to connect the dots after that. She was using me, plain and simple. Using me to win.
Now, I would never hit a woman. Not for any reason. But I damn well wanted to shout, and shout a lot. I wanted to hit something. And I did. I hit the wall of the custody room and broke three fingers. It wasn’t going to matter, though. I had a long and stressful await ahead of me for the court-martial, on edge with the knowledge I could be executed for going AWOL from service in a war time. The throbbing in my fingers would be a good reminder of how stupid I was. And they were so swollen they needed to cut my wedding ring off…
Fitting, really.
Word Count | 558
