Chapter 14

[November 11th, 2021]

My 5-Day leave is officially over, and I have orders to go to a duty station in Texas. Anyway, I'll be getting on my flight at 14:00. That means that I was supposed to be up at 12:00. I've gotten less than 4 hours of sleep and have to get ready right now because as of this time, it is 12:57, and I still haven't gotten out of bed. Brandon is supposed to be driving us both over to the airport. Since I've gotten such little sleep, I'm somewhat agitated. I let out a sigh as I flip over on my side. I need to get up. I sit up in the dark and flip on my light. A warm hue fills the area as the lamp illuminates the room. I get up and get into the shower. As I wash I wonder when Brandon is going to be here. As if he had heard me thinking, I hear my front door open and a voice erupts throughout my small apartment. "Jackson, you there?!" He walks into my room and hears the shower running. "Does the running water answer your question? This is my apartment anyways, where else would I be, Disneyland?" "Oh, I'll be waiting outside in the car." "Alright, I'll be out soon." "You've got 10 minutes." "Like hell I only have 10 minutes!" He laughs as he leaves. I finish up in the shower and get my uniform on. When I walk outside I see Brandon sitting in his car, waiting on me. I put my cover over my head and walk to his car and, get in and close the door. "Greenville, flight AA6554 right?" "Yep, that's it." We drive to Greenville and on the drive there we strike up a small conversation. "Hey, you think that the army has any good looking women?" "Is that really what you're thinking about right now?" "You have your priorities and I have mine." Is that deja vu? "I'm not focused on women, I'm more focused on fixing my life as of now." "But don't women have to do with that?" I look at him, genuinely curious as to what he means. "What are you talking about?" "Well, let's go over everything that's happened to you." I tilt my head a little bit as he starts. "You failed to get into college-" I didn't fail. "You got dumped by your girlfriend-" No, we're still friends. You should know that because all of us went out less than 3 days ago. "You also failed to get a job." I won't fault him for that. "And then you weren't paying attention and got hit by a car." He's right about that one too. "And since you got dumped you should go and look for another girlfriend, I'm sure the army is the perfect place!" "No, the army is literally the worst place." He takes a moment to look at me. For some odd reason, he looks confused as to why it's not a good idea to try and get a girlfriend in the army. "Look at the road dumbass!" He quickly jerks his head back to the road and continues to drive. "It's a bad idea to get into relationships in the armed forces, and especially with our MOS, because if one of the partners dies or gets injured it will affect the other's mental health and well-being drastically. Besides, what's up with you and constantly bugging me about getting another girlfriend?! You wouldn't stop during OSUT either!" "Just wanting to look after you." "What are you, my big brother?" "No, you don't even have a brother." We keep going back and forth like this about different things until we get to the airport. We step out of the car and walk into the doors of the airport. "What time is it?" I look at my watch and respond. "14:23." "Well, we've got some time to kill, don't we?" I look at him after he says that and snarkily respond. "Well, no shit Sherlock." He smiles as we continue walking. "Should we stop and maybe get something to eat?" It doesn't sound like a bad idea. I'm certainly hungry. "Aw, fuck it, we've got time." He snaps his head toward me. He stares at me with shock in his eyes. "Hey, what did you say?" "I said 'fuck it, we've got time.'" He stops walking and just looks at me. "What?" "I've never heard you say 'fuck', I'm just shocked." "Why is that such a shock?" "You used to be very adamant on not saying heavy curses." Now that I think about it, he's right. I was always the one that'd at least try to substitute it with something else. "I guess you're right." We keep walking for a moment before Brandon speaks up. "So, where are we going to eat?" I'm not sure. There's nowhere here that I know about. There's a fancy looking restaurant, a small cafe, a small Chinese restaurant, and that's about it. The decision would be a lot easier if there was a large company that had set up a shop here, but there's nothing. Well, I'm agitated, hungry, tired, anything will do. "You choose." I see him think about where to go. It becomes increasingly apparent that he has no clue either. "What about that Chinese restaurant." "That works." We make our way to the restaurant through the waves of people, and as soon as we open the doors and enter the restaurant, the sweet aroma of chicken and sweet & sour sauces fills the air. We walk to the line that has formed and fall in. They have some pretty basic dishes here, nothing that special. Just some fried rice, honey chicken, ramen, that kind of stuff. I hear Brandon start talking. "What are you going to get?" "Probably some ramen and some honey chicken." "I'm probably going to get the udon bowl." After Brandon's desperate attempt at small talk fails, we just sit in silence as we admire the line in front of us. In the line are service members that are sprinkled in at different parts of it. There are some that I recognize from basic, and some that I don't. The line moves quickly and we order our food. Brandon pays for it, much to my protest, and we sit down. Soon enough we're going to board our plane and be flown off to Texas