Vivian's List (Vol. 1) (20 page)

Vivian closed
my hand over the medallion and I noticed her fingers were cold despite the warmth of the day. “It means:
Oh Mary, conceived without sin, pray for us who have recourse to you
. It’s called the miraculous medal. Wear it,” she said, her voice catching slightly, as if she was about to cry. “To keep you safe. Mom gave it to me when I was baptized. She told me it was blessed by the Pope.”

To keep me safe.

We stared at each other as her words hung thick in the air between us.

Un
spoken things moved in her eyes, and my heart lodged itself in my throat.

“Don’t worry
, Viv. Nothing bad is gonna to happen to me in Iraq,” I said, as much to convince myself as her.

To ease her concerns,
I slipped the chain over my neck, then heard the metal clink against my other chain—my dog tag.

After a frozen moment, I lifted my
dog tag up and over my neck, then pressed it into Vivian’s palm. “Hold on to this for me.”

The army had encompassed so much of my life that in a way, I was also giving her a part of myself.

It wasn’t a letterman’s jacket, it wasn’t a class ring, or even an engagement ring, but it was promise that no matter what, I would come back to her.

That I
wanted
to come back to her.

“
Won’t you be needing this?” Her hair danced in the breeze as she dangled the silver tag from her fingers.

I found myself staring at the tag as it
reflected in the golden sunlight. “Don’t worry about it,” I assured her. “I’ll get another one reissued.”

When I’d first joined the army, I was issued two dog tags
.

One—the tag I had given
Viv—I wore around my neck on a chain, and the other I attached (via a small chain) to one of my boots so that in the event my body ever came apart during conflict, I could still be identified.

Rather gruesome but a reality that I
wasn’t compelled to share with Viv.

S
o I always wore my dog tags, and giving Vivian one of my tags was like giving her a piece of jewelry that was broken in two. She had one piece, and I the other, and I liked to think it would connect the two of us.

Vivian
slipped the chain over her neck. “I won’t take it off. I promise.”

“This way …” I cradled her face in my hands and kissed
the summer freckles on her face. “I’ll still be with you even when I’m gone.”

There was
so much more I wanted to say to Viv, but I couldn’t seem to find the words. In a way I hoped my dog tag spoke to her louder than my words ever could.

That night when we
kissed, we kissed deeper, and we kissed endlessly. And when we made love, we could not get close enough to each other. It was almost as if we wanted to crawl inside each other’s skin and stay there forever.

We made love until we physically ached. Vi
vian cried afterward, shivers racking her entire body. I kissed her hair, her shoulders, her face and her salty tears.

Sleep was a long time coming
, but I closed my eyes as I held on to her all night like I could somehow erase her pain, enveloping her in a fierce embrace, saturated in her tears, saturated in our sweat, listening to her quiet, aching sobs.

My heart was so full of love for her that I feared it would burst, and I wanted, more than anything, to hold on to her and never let her go.

The next day, when dawn bled across the sky, I boarded my plane back to Iraq. As I mounted the steps, I touched the silver medallion under my shirt.

My thoughts instantly went to
Viv and my heart cinched into a tight knot.

I
tightened my fingers around the metal chain, and I hoped and prayed that Mary would keep me safe … just long enough so that I could come back to the girl from my childhood who had captured my heart.

COMING SOON IN 2014

LIAM’S LIST

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