As You Are

  As You Are

  Claire Cain

  Contents

  Chapter 1

  Chapter 2

  Chapter 3

  Chapter 4

  Chapter 5

  Chapter 6

  Chapter 7

  Chapter 8

  Chapter 9

  Chapter 10

  Chapter 11

  Chapter 12

  Chapter 13

  Chapter 14

  Chapter 15

  Chapter 16

  Chapter 17

  Chapter 18

  Epilogue

  A Note from the Author

  Acknowledgments

  About the Author

  Sneak Peek: Don’t Stop Now

  Copyright 2019 Claire Cain

  * * *

  All rights reserved. No part of this book may be reproduced or transmitted in any form, including electronic or mechanical, without written permission from the publisher, except in the case of brief quotations embodied in critical articles or reviews.

  In accordance with the U.S. Copyright Act of 1976, the scanning, uploading, and electronic sharing of any part of this book without the permission of the author is unlawful piracy and theft of the author’s intellectual property. Thank you for your support of the author’s rights.

  This book is a work of fiction. While reference might be made to actual historical events or existing locations, the names, characters, places, and incidents are either the product of the author’s imagination or are used fictitiously, and any resemblance to actual persons, living or dead, business establishments, events, or locales is entirely coincidental. All opinions are those of the author and in no way represent any entity or person other than the author at the time of writing.

  * * *

  Book Cover Design and Photography by Rainbeau Decker.

  Formatting by Jeff Senter, Indie Formatting

  * * *

  ISBN-13: 978-1-7327718-3-3

  To Ma and Da, for always cheering me

  on and never letting me settle.

  Chapter One

  “Ladies and Gentleman, please remain calm. As you can tell, we’re experiencing some turbulence.”

  The speakers crackled like something out of a 1980s disaster film, and I made a point of staring straight ahead at the tray table latch, pushing a breath slowly out my nose. The plane rumbled and rattled around me, and I willed myself to calm down.

  I’d been on the flight for an hour now. I left DC after my first harrowing flight from Philadelphia, but it was a quick hop, more up and down than anything. That might sound easy, except the upping and downing was a prime feature of my overall dread of flying. And now here I was, halfway through what was quickly turning out to be the worst flight of my life.

  The plane took a huge dip, so much so my body strained against the seatbelt as gravity forced what was up to go down, and nearly everyone in the plane let out gasps and a few shrieks. Perfect. I was going to die at the ripe age of twenty-seven, having done almost nothing but read and write papers and have two crappy boyfriends.

  The plane shuddered and bumped along, and I pulled on my seatbelt one more time like it could have loosened in the thirty seconds since I’d last done it. I tried to return to my book. I gripped the small brick of bound pages and begged my mind to turn its attention to the green cover and the soldier piled high with the weights of the world and his vocation. I read the title: Grunt. The Curious Science of Humans at War by Mary Roach. This woman. What a brain.

  I was approximately twenty-eight pages in. I’d purchased about twenty books on a variety of military-themed subject matters to get started on my research and so I didn’t look like a total idiot when I started my new job. And now I was unable to even crack the book back to the page I’d dog-eared during boarding. (Some would say blasphemy, but I say, what else is the point of a paperback book? Should I baby and preserve it, or should I devour it? I say the latter.)

  I smoothed my hand over the cover and then gripped the book, wishing the familiarity of a book in hand, a daily ritual, an elemental thing, would sooth me.

  No dice.

  The plane dipped again and my body pressed back in the seat as I shut my eyes against the horrible gush of terror that burst in my belly. I breathed in through my nose and kept my eyes closed, repeating to myself what I was doing and why I was on this plane.

  I’m moving to a new job that matters. I’m moving so I can have time to write. I’m moving so I can help people. I’m more than halfway through this flight. I’m more likely to die in a car crash on the way to my new apartment than on this plane. Air travel is perfectly safe. Turbulence is perfectly norm—

  The plane dipped. No, it didn’t dip, it flat out dropped, and my belly, that one swimming with terror, dropped too, like we were on a roller coaster on the biggest thriller dip, except we weren’t on a track. We were thousands and thousands of feet in the air surrounded by some sham of a metal like aluminum and all that kept us there was, I suspected, the sheer will of God and the pilots, who were probably drunk or busy sexting their girlfriends.

  Ok, that was going a little far. But I hated flying, and my ability to assume every flight would end with my fiery death was a real skill. I’d coddled it and developed it into a full-grown boy of paranoia.

  But back to my imminent death.

  The plane finally caught the bottom of the air pocket, or whatever the hell it was that made turbulence happen, and leveled out. I kept my eyes closed tight, not daring to open them, my body still tense and fully expecting the horror show to continue any second. Eleven minutes of this crap I thought as I eyed my watch. Eleven minutes of straight up gut-wrenching awfulness in the skies. Twenty-nine minutes until touchdown, if my watch hasn’t betrayed me and the drunk pilots can still tell time.

  “Ma’am?”

  My body had overheated in my panic, and my glasses were smudged. My jeans felt too tight around my belly, and my V-neck shirt was damp under my arms and at my back. My hair felt too tight piled on top of my head in a bun.

  “Ma’am.”

  I took a deep breath and talked myself down. It’s fine. Turbulence is normal. Plane travel is perfectly normal and safe. You’re more likely to die—

  “Ma’am?” The insistent voice came from right next to me and cut through my thoughts, and I realized this person was talking to me. I opened my eyes hopefully, like this stranger had the ability to control whether we’d hit another air pocket or a flock of birds and go plummeting to our deaths.

  “Uh, yes?” My voice was rough and I wasn’t sure whether I’d made any noises. I wasn’t a screamer, so probably not, but my vocal chords felt surprised by my effort to speak.

  “You… ok?” The voice spoke again, tentatively. It was deep, and a little gravelly, like it hadn’t been used lately. I took another breath and breathed it out and summoned a polite smile as I turned to look at him.

  “Yes, I’m ok.” I smiled and took in the stranger, my seat companion in 11B to my A.

  Oh.

  Bright brown eyes in their own shade of milk chocolate looked back at me, hovering over a dark brown beard tinged with deep red. His lips pulled into a closed-mouth, slight smile. I felt the familiar discomfort with my peer whizz through my already agitated belly as I registered this partner-in-row-eleven was just a few years older than me. Max ten. Yep, a peer.

  “Good. Good.” He nodded his head a little, but his brow furrowed.

  “Are you?” I asked, taking in his large build, his big arms, and his… oh. His hand. That I was holding. In a death grip. I released it as I said, “Oh my goodness, I’m so sorry. I don’t even remember grabbing your hand. I’m so sorry!” I brought my hands to my face to press them over my mouth and shook my head at myself. If I hadn’t already been red-faced
from bracing against my impending doom, I might have blushed in awkwardness.

  The man chuckled quietly. “Don’t worry about it. This is pretty bad turbulence.”

  I pulled my hand away and adjusted my glasses that had slid down my nose. “It is, isn’t it? I definitely hate flying, but this seems particularly—” And again. The plane dropped and then rumbled, and I rammed my back against the seat, taking short, shallow breaths. I felt a hand cover my right hand, the one currently death-gripping the arm rest between the seats.

  “What’s your name ma’am?” I heard that rough voice say. Sometime later I knew I’d spend time thinking about why this man was calling me ma’am when he was definitely close to my age. He couldn’t be younger than me, could he? Had the turbulence of flight 707 prematurely aged me that significantly? But in the moment, I answered.

  “Elizabeth.”

  “Good. Nice to meet you, Elizabeth.” His voice was steady despite the plane’s cruel jolting.

  I couldn’t respond. I had to stay braced against the seat with my eyes closed or I’d end up… I didn’t know. The plane would crash, or at the very least, my body would disintegrate from terror. So I focused on bracing myself, every muscle in my body tense, barely hearing his voice.

  “I’m Jake. We’re going to be fine.” His voice was still calm, but it had an edge of command in it, like his decision that we’d be fine mattered in the context of Delta flight 707. Strangely, I believed him. I let my eyes slowly open, one at a time, and tried to relax my shoulders.

  “I’m so sorry you’re next to me. I hate flying.” My voice was shaky, my skin no doubt even more pale than usual.

  “Where are you going?”

  “Nashville. I’m moving there. I’ve never been there before, but I’m moving, so I’m flying, or at least I’m hoping we’ll keep flying and not end up crashing before I ever do actually end up there.” I babbled this nonsense and he stayed focused on me, his serious but patient face watching me, still covering my right hand with his left on the arm rest.

  “That sounds exciting,” he offered, and if I’d been in my right mind, I might have laughed at how serious and unexcited his voice was. He was focused.

  “Yep.” I said it in a gulp as I breathed through another series of rumbles. I kept focused on the tray table, kept focused on breathing normal breaths instead of shallow ones, and slowly let myself release the tension as the plane stayed steady.

  “Should be the end of the turbulence folks, sorry about that. Pretty rough air there, but we should have a smooth flight now—’bout twenty-five minutes to Nashville.” The captain’s voice spoke life back into my brain, and I looked over at my apparently fearless seat companion.

  “Again, so sorry,” I said as I lifted my hand, and he quickly pulled his away. He was watching me, maybe waiting for me to freak out again or maybe curious about what kind of crazy person I was. I pushed my glasses back up the bridge of my nose and pulled my seatbelt tight, tighter.

  “You going to make it?” he asked, just the smallest corner of his mouth turning up. His brown eyes studied me, and my addled brain took that moment to think he has great eyebrows like that was pertinent to the situation. Like eyebrows had bearing on me surviving this flight. Ugh.

  “Yes,” I said and then turned away because I realized we were locked in some pretty intense eye contact considering I had no clue who this person was other than he’d been willing to hold my hand so I hadn’t evaporated into the abyss of fear a few minutes ago. “Where are you coming from?”

  “DC area. Heading home now,” he said. He leaned back in his seat but kept looking at me. I half expected him to shove in his ear buds and tune me out.

  “DC is a great city. I like it,” I said, trying not to roll my eyes at how incapable I was of small talk. “What were you doing there?” Before the words were out of my mouth, I thought it was too personal of a question. But that was something people asked a fellow passenger, right?

  He shifted in his seat, and that serious, bearded face frowned a little. “Funeral.” Just the one word, but it was enough.

  “I’m so sorry,” I said and watched a pained look cross his face.

  “It was my father’s. We weren’t close.” He said the words slowly, his voice still graveled, and I felt a pang of guilt for making him speak.

  “I’m sorry. Losing a parent seems like a very difficult thing.” I felt the impulse to pat his hand, or something, to show him my regret for his loss. We’d already crossed the physical boundary of handholding thanks to my complete inability to maintain sanity in the face of a turbulent flight, but I didn’t want to seem aggressive, so I looked him in the eye, hoping to convey my sorrow for his loss, even if a distant one, with my eyes and face. He nodded.

  “Your wife? Kids? Were they with you?” I asked, for some reason compelled not to leave our conversation there.

  He shook his head. “No wife or kids. Not in the cards for me.” His eyes flickered to mine, then back to looking ahead of him, past the curtain into first class and past the nose of the plane. Based on his intensity, he could see beyond the horizon.

  “Oh, ok.” I had no idea what else to say. I’d assumed he would have a family the way I assumed most people in their thirties did. That wasn’t the case, but I’d realized that outside of New York, people usually did get married and start their families younger. The fact that he said it “wasn’t in the cards” was so peculiar, I desperately wanted to ask him why he said that. But the situation didn’t allow for that. It wouldn’t help his grief to have me prying into why he thought he’d be a perpetual bachelor.

  I turned my book over in my hands, then over again. I fanned the pages and pictured my heart, which was still beating quickly, and imagined it slowing down. Sometimes I felt like if I thought hard enough about something, I could will it into submission. I could make myself calm down.

  “And you? Is your husband moving with you?” His question startled me.

  “My husband? Oh, no. No husband. No boyfriend. Just me. Not even a cat, though I should probably get one to satisfy the stereotype. Hopefully someday I’ll have a… well. Yeah. So. Nope. Just me.” I caught myself before I launched into telling this unsuspecting stranger about my very real desire to have a husband and children. That desire felt all the more real in the wake of my near-death experience there on flight 707.

  Then, we sat there. We just sat and didn’t speak anymore, which I felt like might be his natural state of being. I couldn’t read him without turning to look at him and that would have been too obvious since we were smashed together in our seats, so I took out my book and read the same few paragraphs over and over again until we landed, layering a prayer for survival in my mind over the words of the book.

  I hadn’t seen Alex much since I’d arrived two weeks ago other than our initial download during my move in about her engagement and my leaving New York, so she insisted I be her date to a work family party for her new fiancé, Luke.

  It was supposedly a barbeque, even though it was late January and freezing outside. I had nothing better to do and wanted to see my friend, plus she suggested I might be able to talk to the battalion commander and command sergeant major, the men in charge, and get their support for my project. That seemed like a good way to multitask on a Saturday afternoon, and since I was more than ready to make progress on my project, there I was.

  I pulled up to a nice house on Fort Campbell Army base, which sat right on the state line of Kentucky and Tennessee. The base was an hour’s drive from the Nashville airport and slightly less from Alex’s downtown Nashville apartment—happily for me, since I lived in Clarksville, the town right outside the base, it was a quick five-minute drive from my apartment to gate three. Since I was working with the education center and had funding for my research project and approval from the base commander to conduct research there, I’d been given access, which made getting on and off base a smooth process.

  Alex saw me and waved as I stepped out of my car. I gave her a hu
g, and my mind eased a little bit at being able to hug her and touch her—a beloved friend and something familiar in an unfamiliar place.

  “I’m so glad you came. We don’t have to stay long, but I think you’ll like meeting some of the people in the battalion.”

  “Remind me. Brigade is the biggest, then a bunch of battalions are in a brigade, and then several companies are in a battalion, right?” I was still learning the structure of military units on an Army post. I was quick to memorize ranks and other facts in general, but I wanted to make sure I had a handle on all of it as I began speaking with the leadership and soldiers. The idea of sounding like an ignorant civilian made me cringe.

  “You don’t need reminding, my little overachiever. But yes, you’re right. Our battalion is the 1-401, the Rambler Battalion, and has five companies. Alpha, bravo, charlie, delta, and echo. Those are the NATO phonetic alphabet for the letters, and those are nicknames for the companies themselves, and then they all have their own little mascot.” She patted my shoulder as we walked. She’d learned so much over the last eight months since she entered this world by way of dating her childhood best friend-turned-boyfriend-turned fiancé, Luke, one of the officers in the battalion.

  “Got it. I’m good.” I was nervous but felt foolish telling her that. This group of people, or at least several of the wives, had become her group of friends. Luke and Alex were engaged, and it was a matter of time until they were married because their togetherness had been barreling down the path of inevitability since they were five or something crazy. I’d been rooting for them since I met Alex our freshman year of college, a solid decade ago now.