Cole: The Wounded Sons, Leah Sharelle [the reading list .TXT] 📗

My eyes were wide open now.

“He died because he was stupid.” I began quietly, my anger still very much with me. “He made idiotic decisions, took stupid risks, and forgot he was part of a Tier 1 team.”

“He got himself captured, and I was sent in to get him back. I went in without the others, ordered to.”

“Surely that isn’t standard procedure?” Oaklee enquired correctly. Maybe she knew someone in the military, or perhaps she was just astute. Whatever it was, her questions made me want to keep talking.

“No, it’s not. Not in this circumstance, but the major knew that the boys had to be pulled out. Low on ammo and desperately low on sleep, he made the call, and I stayed back with a US team while Team FIVE returned to the FOB and were ordered to board a plane for home.”

“And you weren’t tired?”

“I have a unique skill set,” I replied vaguely, not sure how much I wanted to get into what I did. I have a hard enough time dealing with my job description and role in the team; letting Oaklee know felt … dangerous. What if she heard me out then decided she wanted no part of my life? This tiny tempting slip of a woman interested me more than that. Her sweet smile, her honesty, and her sass were pulling me in faster than I thought possible. Back in the bar, she didn’t back down from me, and I found that I liked that about her too.

“Okay, moving forward,” Oaklee allowed, giving me a pass on explaining myself any further, “you found him?”

“Yep, found him in a pretty bad way, we got out, and I hiked us back to the HLZ, which took a while and …” my throat clogged, the words stuck. Saying them out loud hurt too much; I was still too raw. It had only been a week since Deke died on the floor of the chopper. I was still grappling with how to deal with it and compartmentalising his death for the rest of my life. I had not even talked to Dad about it yet, only with the team. We were all so mad still, pissed off at Deke for his actions, way too angry to put it behind us.

“Guilt is a brutal burden to have on your shoulders, isn’t it?” Oaklee murmured softly, the way she said it, telling me she had some experience herself.

“That it is,” I agreed, absently lacing our fingers, turning our hands enjoying seeing them joined.

“I understand some of what you are saying, Cole. I may not have the death of a mate playing through my mind, but I do have some experience of feeling guilty.”

“How?”

Oaklee leaned closer to me, this close with the light behind me, I could see the flecks of gold in her green orbs, mesmerising me.

“My parents had me when they were very young, teenagers actually. Mum was sixteen and Dad was only a year older. Their parents supported them, but they never got the hang of being young parents. I bounced back and forth between my dad’s parents from the age of twelve months. Sometimes I stayed with my grandparents for months at a time, then Mum would want me back, so they tried again to be a family. This happened for years, either Mum or Dad got in a mood to have me around, but having a kid always got in the way.”

“Finally, my grandfather had had enough and petitioned the court for custody of me, but by then, it was too late. Mum and Dad’s indecisiveness and lack of caring for their own child had done damage.” Oaklee sniffed, and my heart constricted as I waited for her to continue. If she tells me they hit her, I was going to go hunting. Plain and simple. What I wasn’t expecting, though, was what she said next.

“Their fights were always about me, the fact that they stayed together for years was surprising in itself, and I applaud them for that. They fought about money, about not being able to go out drinking with their mates. There were so many nights I would lie in bed and listen to them bitch and moan about keeping me, about what a mistake it was to have me.”

“Fucking cunts,” I growled low and dangerous. How could a parent ever think that about their own kid! My heart ached for that young girl; hearing such horrible shit about herself gave me a deeper appreciation for my own upbringing. The love and devotion from my parents that came so easily and completely, I couldn’t imagine the horror Oaklee went through on her own.

“What do you mean the damage had been done?” I almost didn’t want to know the answer, what if she said she tried to—NO! She can’t tell me that! Without thinking about it, I flipped her hand and looked for evidence if that was the case but stopped when Oaklee laughed softly.

“No, Cole, I didn’t do that.” Her reassurance was short-lived, however.

“At the age of thirteen, I developed the eating disorder bulimia that quickly turned into anorexia. From then and until I reached nearly twenty, I was plagued with the disease, spending so much time in and out of hospital and clinics, I was known as a high-risk patient. At my lowest, I weighed just thirty-six kilos, and by that point, I was fed intravenously and put in a secure wing of the hospital, so my every move was watched. I wasn’t even allowed to go to the toilet alone.” Oaklee told the story of her disease as if it had been nothing more than a cold, her nonchalant shrugs as she spoke broke me and made me so fucking proud of her all at the same time.

I wasn’t familiar with eating disorders; of course, I knew what anorexia nervosa was, but I have never known anyone close to me go through it. My mind rattled with questions, demanding