Chapter 15
1721words
I held Leo tightly, as if trying to embed him into my own body, feeling his hard tactical vest and that familiar, warm scent. A three-month long overseas mission sounded like an entire century, unbearably long.
"In three months, I'll be back," Leo kissed my forehead, his voice deep and firm, trying to soothe my anxiety, "Then, we can truly start planning our future. I promise, this will be the last time we're separated for so long."
"You say that every time," my voice carried a barely noticeable choke, as I buried my face in his chest, greedily breathing in his scent, "Leo, promise me you'll come back safely. No matter what happens with the mission, you must come back."
"I promise you, Dr. Stirling," he gently lifted my chin, forcing me to look at him, those deep blue eyes full of sincerity and deep affection, "I guarantee you, I will return to your side safe and sound."
Not far away, Mark and Eva were also saying their goodbyes. Without as much lingering tenderness, yet with the same heaviness and reluctance. Eva was adjusting Mark's collar, her eyes filled with worry.
"Take care of yourself, and also take care of that punk Leo," Mark ruffled Eva's hair, wearing his signature smile with a hint of mischief, "When I come back, we'll get married. I've already applied to the general, once this mission is over, I'm retiring."
Eva's eyes instantly turned red. She nodded firmly, a thousand words transforming into one forceful embrace. "I'll wait for you to come back, Mark. I'm not going anywhere, I'll be right here waiting for you."
“I love you.”
“I love you too.”
The boarding gate announcement mercilessly urged, tearing apart this brief moment of tenderness. Leo and Mark took one last deep look at their loved ones, their eyes mixing apology, affection, and the unique determination of soldiers, then resolutely turned away, merging with the crowd into the steel beast bound for the battlefield. Eva and I stood there, gazing long after the plane disappeared into the horizon, feeling as if a piece of our hearts had been carved out, leaving only a lingering, hollow echo.
We naively thought this was just another ordinary farewell, that happiness would arrive as promised once we endured these ninety days and nights.
---
Three months passed, and the promised return date quietly arrived, but in the airport's arrival hall, those two familiar figures never appeared.
I check my phone countless times every day, hoping that familiar number would suddenly light up, but the screen remains pitch black, just like my increasingly silent heart.
Eva was the same, she ran to almost every military liaison department she could reach, only to receive the same invariable reply: "The mission is still ongoing, please be patient."
Waiting became the only theme in our lives. Anxiety entwined our days and nights like vines, growing wildly in every sleepless dawn.
Time passed day by day, another month, then another. When autumn leaves had all fallen and the first snow silently descended upon New York, despair began to spread in our hearts like cancer cells.
That afternoon, I had just finished a ten-hour coronary bypass surgery. As I dragged my exhausted body out of the operating room, I saw two naval officers in uniform standing at my office door with serious expressions.
My heart sank suddenly, an ominous premonition instantly seized me, leaving my limbs cold.
"Dr. Stirling," the lead liaison officer spoke in a flat voice devoid of emotion, "I regret to inform you that Lieutenant 'Apollo', also known as Leo Kane, along with his 'Hardess' squad, lost contact with command during a mission in East Africa. They have been out of contact for over three months. According to military regulations, we... we have no choice but to classify them as 'Missing in Action, presumed dead' (M.I.A.)."
M.I.A.……presumed dead……
These cold words pierced through my heart like bullets with deadly precision. The world instantly went silent around me; I couldn't hear any sound, only seeing the officer's lips opening and closing.
I felt as if I had been pulled out of my body, floating in mid-air, coldly watching myself—pale-faced and about to collapse.
"These are his personal effects." Another officer handed over a square box.
I mechanically reached out my hand and opened the box. Inside lay a cold metal dog tag, engraved with "Leo Kane, USN".
The dog tag that I had rubbed between my fingertips countless times now felt like a branding iron, burning my fingertips with intense pain.
I clutched the dog tag tightly, its metal edges digging deep into my palm, but I couldn't feel any pain. All my senses were numb, leaving only an overwhelming, suffocating emptiness.
Almost at the same time, Eva, far away in Hadram, also received Mark's dog tag from another liaison officer.
When the words "presumed dead" were uttered by the other person, this woman who had never retreated in the face of gunfire and bullets felt, for the first time, as if the world was crumbling around her.
She didn't cry, didn't even make a sound, just clutched the cold dog tag as she slowly sank to the ground, like a shell whose soul had been extracted.
---
The world didn't stop turning because of our grief. But for Eva and me, our world had already died.
I locked myself in my apartment, refusing to see anyone. I read Leo's letters over and over again, the ones he left before departing—those words that once brought me infinite sweetness and comfort now felt like knives, slowly slicing my heart.
His laughter, his embraces, his whispers in my ear—all those beautiful memories had transformed into the cruelest torture. I hugged his pillow, which still carried his faint scent, but that scent was fading day by day, just like the traces he left in my life, gradually becoming blurred.
I was in unbearable pain, wishing countless times that all of this was just a nightmare, that if I woke up, Leo would push open the door as usual with that carefree smile and say to me: "Hey, I'm back."
But dawn arrived time after time, bringing only deeper despair.
Time rolled forward in a cruel and numbing way. A year passed.
I wasn't broken. I threw myself into work in an almost self-destructive manner, the scalpel becoming my only spiritual anchor.
I became calmer, more precise, and more detached than before, becoming the most formidable thoracic surgeon at the Elders Hospital.
Everyone said Dr. Stirling was a miracle, but only I knew that my heart had plunged into the abyss along with that crashed plane. I was merely a survivor living on memories and momentum.
Eva chose to stay in Hadram. She didn't return to New York, nor did she accept the military's compensation arrangements. She continued to work in that land of sweeping yellow sand, guarding the place where Mark had once fought.
She felt that as long as she stayed here, she could feel Mark's presence. In her own way, she was guarding their position for him.
We were all, in our own ways, commemorating those two men who had been erased from official records, living on stubbornly and painfully.
---
On the first anniversary of Leo's disappearance, I made a decision. I joined Doctors Without Borders and came to Egypt.
I remember Leo once said that he had always been fascinated by this ancient and mysterious land, dreaming that one day he could bring me to see the pyramids and the endless desert with his own eyes.
I thought, since he couldn't fulfill his wish, I would see this world for him.
Deep in the vast and desolate Sinai Desert, the signal at the temporary camp was extremely poor. As night fell, I walked alone to the top of a sand dune, with a brilliant and silent river of stars above my head.
I took out that expensive satellite phone and dialed the number that had long been etched into my blood and bones. I knew the call would never connect; this was just a ritual to commemorate him.
"Hey, Leo," my voice sounded somewhat hoarse in the silent night breeze, with a hint of self-mockery in my smile, "I'm in Egypt now, at the place you always wanted to visit.
The stars here are bright, and the desert is... magnificent. But the sandstorms are too strong; I guess you definitely wouldn't like it. It's been a year, you jerk, you promised you'd come back, but there hasn't been a word from you. I miss you... very, very much."
I muttered to the busy tone on the other end of the phone, rambling about everything that had happened over the past year, until my voice was choked with emotion at the end. Just as I was about to hang up, a jarring electrical noise suddenly came through the receiver.
I paused for a moment, thinking it was signal interference. Then, an extremely faint voice, fragmented by static, miraculously pierced through the boundless silence and entered my ears.
"……Chloe……is that you……Chloe……"
My entire body trembled, and the satellite phone nearly slipped from my hand onto the sandy ground. I thought I was hearing things. Over the past year, I had heard this voice countless times in my dreams and hallucinations.
I shakily brought the phone back to my ear, holding my breath. "……Leo?"
"It's me……Chloe……I'm right here……" that voice continued, still intermittent, yet undeniably real.
I suddenly raised my head, looking around the vast desert like a madman. At that moment, I saw a blurry dark figure in the distance, facing the wind and sand, trudging one foot after another, slowly walking towards me. That silhouette went from blurry to clear, stumbling yet determined. Although he was covered in dust, dressed in tatters, and looked emaciated, that familiar outline, that aura that couldn't be erased even across life and death, struck like lightning, splitting open my dark world that had been shrouded in sorrow for an entire year.
It was Leo. He had traversed through wind and sand, traversed through death, walking towards me step by step.
