The Soldier Next Door

Forget what you think you know about love because it is not real. To love you need to take that risk, you need to make that choice to fall. If you do not fall in love and experience that love, then it is not worth taking that risk at all. Falling is easy but love is hard. If love is hard, how easy would it take someone for what they are? To me, near impossible, I want to fall in love but I cannot give someone who I truly am. I would rather deal with my broken bones than a broken heart,

So Ana loves taking charge, my successful attempts at ignoring her have blown up in my face, she has shown me that she is one over me, if I do not respond to her, she responds to me.

“Why have you been ignoring me, soldier?”

“I… I have been busy.”

“Busy slapping your brother against the head busy?”

“No busy with other things busy.”

“Like other things like ignoring me busy?”

“I… I did… I just.”

She looks at me, tapping her finger on her chin, patiently waiting for me to spit the crap out that is about to come out of my mouth.

“I… I was…”

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I wrap my hand around the nape of her neck and pull her closer to my lips.

“What are you doing soldier?”

“Avoiding your questions Miss Stubborn.”

My lips brush against hers, innocent and like a tease but it’s not innocence that I want, I want fire and passion. I want to lose myself in her and in this moment. She pulls away, leaving our lips just inches away from touching.”

“Soldier,” she whispers my name.

“Ana” I smile, prolonging each letter as if to savor them.

My heart flutters as she clasps her hands on either side of my face. Never before has any woman made me feel so good. I pull her body into mine and cover her mouth in a hungry kiss. As our lips crush together, it feels like I am walking on air, the way her lips fit perfectly with mine. Her mouth is so warm, the caress of her lips is soft, and she tastes better than I can remember. Desire and lust fill me, I open my mouth with a low moan.

“You are forgiven… for now,” she whispers in my ear.

“If it was not for your mom standing there I would have definitely dropped those pants this time.”

I am shocked to my senses. As I look at the entrance of the lounge, my mother, with the most sinister smile on her face, is standing and watching us.

“MOM! How long have you been standing there?”

“Oh me? I just got here. I wanted to come to check who is at the door.”

“It’s Ana, the girl that lives up the mountain.”

I know at this point that her curiosity has gotten the most of her, there is no way I can even try to tell her to leave us alone. Definitely not after our little display of affection, thank god Ana spoke when she did because my hands were very near to start and wonder.

“OH HI, Ana, I am Mary.”

“Hi Mary, it’s nice to meet you, soldier here talks a lot of you.”

“Soldier?” my mom asks slightly confused.

“Ana likes calling me soldier mom, I think it is because she has forgotten my name.”

“HAHAHA,” Ana burst out laughing. “I still know who you are Ethan Hunter.”

“Mmmm you going for the full name, normally I only get called Ethan when I messed something up.”

“Well don’t think that I have not forgotten you running out on me last night.”

My mom sits analyzing the conversation not knowing if she should stay or should she rather go but I am pretty sure she has a good idea what Ana is referring to. I watch her very carefully as she speaks.

“Sorry Ana, that was my fault, he had to come to help me with packing up his room. Seeing that he is staying, we had to pack up his old stuff.”

“I am sure he will make it up to me, won’t you soldier?”

“I… uhm… I… I..” I stuttering like an idiot.

My mother jumps in again and it seems that she has a sneakishly brilliant idea, I just know that I am not going to like it. You never let your mom and your girlfriend talk, there is just something that does not sit well putting them both together. Now if you want all your embarrassing secrets out, you ask my mom and of course old Maggie, and believe me, I prefer Maggie’s secrets and not my mom’s

“Ana,” my mom speaks as a wicked smile forms at the corner of her mouth. “Have you seen his photos from the core yet? I see he has been hiding them away from me in his room.”

“MOM! What are you scratching for in my stuff?”

“It was just standing there, I could not help myself.”

“Just standing there does not mean you must climb into it. I was still checking which photos you can take.”

“Well it is too late, I have already decided which ones I want to take.”

“Bet it is all the ones I did not want you to have. And I swear if any of them lands up with old Maggie!”

“Why Ethan, I would never do something to you like that to you or your brother?”

“Yes, mom I believe you just as much as I believe that Matt does not have another girlfriend.”

“Oh he does, I saw the two of them yesterday. Well, Maggie saw them, not me, but she told me.”

“Oh my god, what is wrong with this family. Never mind us but with Maggie?”

“Agh stop being so dramatic soldier, let me see those photos.” Ana excitedly says.

“Scoot up so I can sit next to you.” My mom comes to wiggle herself between us as she sits down.

I only but look at the two of them and their eager smiles on their faces. “I am going to regret this”

She starts flipping through the ones they took the day I left to join the core. That was an amazing day, well for me at least, my mom could not stop crying and dad, just could not stop cursing. It was by far the happiest day of my life.

“Ahhh soldier you look so cute,” Ana says as she takes the photo from my mom.

“That is when he still had hair.”

“Mom don’t you dare!”

“But son, all soldiers lose their hair.”

“Yes and not all soldiers like being seen without it!”

And like I can really stop her, she is already flashing the worst possible one she can find in front of Ana’s face where I believe, which other’s will argue, is the photo where I almost have no hair at all

“Sorry soldier but that is near damn ugly.”

“And there I thought you liked me for who I am and not my looks.”

“I am an all-looks kind of girl.”

I just look at her as I think to myself (Well honey wait until you see my leg then, your all look kind of girl ass is going to be out the door.)

“I think it makes you look like a real man.” My mom adds.

“Mom since when does a haircut make a man? I would like to believe I became a real man when I left for the core.”

“You are a real man my son, I just wish sometimes that you did not have to grow up so fast.”

She starts flipping through the photos again when all of a sudden Ana shouts.

“STOP! I want to see that one.”

Pointing to a photo my mom was just about to pass. A photo that the platoon leader took of me shirtless after a morning jog.

“Damn Mary, you surely know how to make your boys. Just look at those muscles. I am pretty sure you can melt butter on that chest.”

“Ana! You cannot say something like that to my old mother, you will give her a heart attack.”

“Believe me heart attack is what I felt the first time that I saw it.”

I almost near damn joke at my mother’s next words. “Ana I am sure your fingers can get lost in that curves.”

“Mother! It’s my stomach you are referring to! Can we please move on!”

Next, we just flip through a whole bunch of them showing me in uniform at base and on deployment. Most of the photos are of me and all my core buddies just messing around with a few serious ones. Until at last the torture is done or so I think…

“Wait!” she stops my mom again. “What is that one?”

(Fuck fuckedy fuck.)

Ana is pointing to a photo, one of the very last photos that my core buddies took of me. A photo where I am laying in bed where you can see my amputated leg wrapped up in bandage underneath the blankets.”

“Shit soldier. Did you get hurt down there?”

I look at my mother that is sitting next to her in absolute horror, the color has drained from my face as I look for the answer in my mother’s eyes. She has saved me up until so far, can she save me again. I close my eyes and take a deep breath.

“Just a few broken bones, nothing major serious.”

“Is that the leg you walk with so funny,” she asks. “Did those bones not healed back the way they should of?”

“You know our soldiers, I did not stay off the leg when I was supposed to.”

“At least you came back in one piece soldier that is all that matters.”

“I guess it is.”

“Well, that is enough of that then.” My mom says as she gets off the couch. “Can I get you, kids, something from the kitchen?”

“Just a coffee if you making mom. It feels I can do with something strong at the moment.”

“That would be nice, a coffee for me too Mary.”

Ana turns to me with that beautiful smile of hers. There is something on her mind, by the look in her deep brown eyes, it must be something important.

“Soldier, I never asked you why you got your bus ticket back home.”