Chapter 12

[May 11th, 2021]

It's deathly quiet. There's nothing, nothing but the crunch of gravel underneath our tires and our breathing. The road is rough. You'd expect them to upkeep the road much better than the regular roads, but they don't. We had some recruits from North Carolina and Georgia do their basic at Fort Jackson, and they were appalled by the road care here. I've been in South Carolina for all of my life, and of course, I've been to North Carolina, but I just thought that they had unusually good road care. I thought that the roads here were normal. After doing some digging earlier today, I found that South Carolina has the worst road care in the United States. Though I can't really call it digging. It was the first result when I searched. The amount of "digging" I did was the equivalent of taking a spoon and scratching the ground with it. "You're so unfair." I glance to my side to see that Jess is still pouting. "What do you mean?" "I wanted to drive..." I smile a little bit and park us outside of the bowling alley that's shown on the map. "I'll let you drive later, so don't worry." Brandon perks up after hearing this. "Not with me in here!" I chuckle and step out of the vehicle. "Seriously, why don't you guys trust me?" Brandon responds before I can speak. "I'm still traumatized from the golf course." Oh, yeah! I remember that. "You can't blame him. To be fair, you did end up tipping the golf cart over after taking too sharp of a turn." "That was 4 years ago!" Me and Brandon share a laugh as we enter while Jess glares at us and continues to pout. After a moment Jess speaks up. "What was up with you guys on the car ride?" "What do you mean?" "You guys have almost never been that quiet when we're all together." She's not wrong. Maybe the training actually did something. "For the past 9 months, we haven't been able to speak without permission. It's probably a force of habit." "Yeah." We make our way to our lane while we speak. We have lane 4. "Have we ever gone bowling together?" Jessica looks at Brandon and starts to say something but stops. Now that I think about it, no, we haven't. I hear Jessica finally respond. "Well, it doesn't matter because we are now!" Just as she finishes, we hear a voice yell to us. "Jeez, could you guys be any louder?" I look to our left and see Maple bowling with her family. "Oh, hey Maple." Jessica looks at me confused and then looks to the short woman with brown hair. She then looks back at me with an almost disappointed deadpan expression being worn on her face. "Oooh, so you've gone and gotten another girlfriend so soon." Why was that so monotone, is she mocking me? And besides, I'm not in a relationship with Maple. Maple looks at her with surprise. "What, no. Why would I do that?" I turn to Maple, begging for her to back me up in this situation, and she's staring at me, almost insulted. I messed up my wording. Oh, no. "Oh no, so terrible. Look at how hurt she is. Gentlemen don't talk down about women." "I'm not saying- I don't mean- I didn't mean-" I feel a hand on my shoulder. I look behind me to see a snickering Brandon shaking his head. "I-I'm not saying she's unattractive." Jessica keeps staring me dead in the eyes. I feel her stabbing me hundreds of times over with her glare. "So, you do find her attractive?" At this point, everyone except Jess is snickering and chuckling. Just what are you doing, Jess? I don't want her to think I dislike her! "W-What?" Everything begins to calm down, and Jessica walks over to Maple as she stops giggling at my misfortune. Maple turns red. I'm not sure if it's from laughter, from embarrassment, or if she just feels like nothing compared to Jess. Jess is quite tall for a woman. If I recall correctly, she is 5'7. Jessica kind of bends down and extends her hand to Maple. "My names Jessica, it's nice to meet you." I watch Maple smile and shake Jess's hand. "It's nice to meet you too," after a moment, I'm able to speak up from my embarrassment and shame. "So, do you want to join us, Maple?" "Sure, I don't see why not, my family is going to be leaving soon anyway." She walks over to our lane and bids her family farewell before sitting down in one of the seats. Before she does I look to her father. He's certainly what you'd expect of a service member. He's a tall and burly man with a high and tight haircut. He notices me looking at him. He just smiles and waves to me as they leave. A song plays over the speakers that are set up in the bowling alley. I hear Maple speak up from behind me. "Oh, I know this song!" I look at her, surprised, as she starts to lightly sing along with the song playing. I speak up. "Spirit in the Sky." I hear Brandon speak up too. "It's a song by Norman Greenbaum during the 60s." "Yep, I love classic rock, especially 60s and 70s era rock." I sit down and talk to her while the others take their turns bowling. "So you like classic rock?" I hear her respond chirpily. "Yep! I grew up on it." She reminds me of a kid. I don't hate it, it actually makes her stand out quite a bit though. I'm not sure whether or not to say that's a good thing or a bad thing, but I guess it makes her unique. "I also love 60s rock, I also listen to a little bit of country but not as much as classic rock." I hear Jessica call out to me. "Hey! It's your turn!" I smile and pick up a red ball. It's a little heavy, but I can deal with it. I do a light jog and roll the ball towards the pins. I strike the pin just right of the front pin and get a strike. "Good shit, Jackson!" I look back to Brandon and smile. He's seated right next to where I was seated. I walk over to him and sit down, right back where I was. "So what's next?" "Well, we go to OSUT in 4 weeks." Maple adds to his statement with a little bit more information. "We also get 5 days of leave after." That's right, we get 5 days off to do whatever we please. "Oh, it's my turn!" I watch as Brandon goes up to the lane and grabs a solid black ball. "What do you think OSUT will be like?" I look to my side and see Maple looking at me, curious as to what I thought. "Not, sure. Maybe it'll be field exercises and training? Maybe a classroom?" "I hope it's field training." I look at her curiously. "Why's that?" She smiles at me and answers happily. "Well, I've always loved the outdoors." "Really?" "Yep, since my father was in the military he was always taking me to hike with him while he was on leave." I remember hiking with Brandon when we were younger. I'd always be one of the, if not the, first invited to their trips and nights out. His father had sort of taken me as his own after they had found out about my situation at home. "So I take it that he was an outdoorsman?" "Not at first, no. He enlisted into the marine corps just before the Gulf War and had a combat deployment in Kuwait. He says that he saw some things that really opened his eyes and made him appreciate life, and what we have in the united states. He transferred to the army later." What is up with this recurring theme? Seeing some really scary things that open your eyes and make you see the world in a new light. At least that's what I'm hearing. Maybe it's just one of those things that tend to come up at these events. "Come to think of it, my father had said something similar." "Really? Is he a veteran?" "No, I don't think so." The rest of the day goes by quickly. Of course, it does. I constantly have that question lingering in the back of my mind. Even during the Warrior's Creed. "Jackson, you're going to see many things that will scare you. You'll see things that will make you question humanity and even yourself. Are you ready for that?", and to be honest, now that I think about it, I'm not sure if I am.