Total pages in book: 138
Estimated words: 128260 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 641(@200wpm)___ 513(@250wpm)___ 428(@300wpm)
Estimated words: 128260 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 641(@200wpm)___ 513(@250wpm)___ 428(@300wpm)
He picked up his beer, sat back, and kicked his feet up on the coffee table again as I stared at him, not knowing what to say. Well, damn. “Thanks, Dylan,” was what I finally came up with.
“Did I tell you I was making a career change too? Motivational speaking. Don’t all line up at once, people.”
I laughed. “You should. That was inspirational. I mean it.”
Dylan grinned but then went serious as he raised his beer to me. “I meant every word of it, bro.”
“I know you did, man, I know.” I held up my bottle in cheers to him. In cheers to good friends who have your back.
CHAPTER 16
Grace
Eight months later, April
I sat in the semidarkness, staring at the horizon, hearing the bird conversations begin all around me. Moments later, I watched in awe as the first slip of yellow glow rose in the distance. It was like those birds sensed the glory of the sunrise even before it appeared and were singing its welcoming praises. I sat there until the full, round sun had fully emerged from beyond the horizon. I thought of Carson, as I always did when I watched the sun rise. As I’d promised I would. I wondered where he was and if he was happy. But I didn’t let myself wonder any more than that, still couldn’t let myself wonder any more than that.
I continued on my run along the C&O Canal with the other early-morning joggers, and when I was done, I drove home and took a quick shower. I was desperate for coffee. I guess I’d never really be a morning person. But I made it a priority to set my alarm to run outdoors rather than on the treadmill, so that I could watch the sun rise as often as I could. I’d missed too many of them already.
I’d be graduating law school at the beginning of the summer and the next two months were going to be jam-packed with studying and test taking. Plus, I’d been applying for jobs in DC, hoping to get a position in the prosecutor’s office. I was filled with excitement to see where life would take me now that I was headed in a direction I had chosen for no other purpose than I wanted it and it felt right. And that felt like a pretty good plan.
_________
Carson
“Get your dicks out of the dirt, shitbags!” Instructor Wegman yelled. Holy mother of Christ, every muscle in my body was screaming out in pain. We had been at this for almost five hours straight now, our punishment for failing a knife inspection during our first week of SEAL Training. We had been about to do an ocean swim, and the instructors came around to inspect our gear, an inflatable vest, CO2 cartridge and KA-BAR knife. When Instructor Flynn had rubbed my knife on his arm hair, he had looked up at me and yelled, “FAIL!” Fuck me. By the end of inspection, seven other men and I were told to join the instructors at the Grinder—our workout area—at ten p.m.
I was already worn completely out from a day of brutal workouts that started at five a.m. We had begun with a Grinder PT, a four-mile timed run in our boots and pants, in the soft sand, which we were expected to do in thirty-two minutes or less, we ran sand dunes, and then we did a two-thousand-meter swim, and that was only before lunch.
But there wasn’t a choice. All eight of us had lined up shoulder to shoulder as the instructors stood before us, looking at us disgustedly. “If you can’t even be trusted to take care of a piece of equipment, how the fuck are we supposed to trust you with our lives in the field, shitbags?” We stood silently as the instructors berated us, telling us what fuckups we were. That was okay. Because it meant at least a small break.
But then the beating had started. They had told us to run to the surf, get wet, and run back in two minutes. When we got back, Instructor Wegman had looked at his timer and shook his head. “Two minutes, ten seconds, shitbags. For every second you’re late past two minutes, you do that number of eight-count body-builders.” And so we had done our ten body-builders and then ran back to the surf again to try to do it in less than two minutes. The second time, it had been two minutes and twelve seconds. So we did twelve eight-count body-builders. Each time, we took longer and longer, our bodies physically unable to pick up speed in our exhaustion. This had been going on for five hours. We were now doing sixty eight-count body builders, barely able to move, limping back from the water each time, wanting to crawl.