Page 12 of My Ex-Military Biker

"I don't know," I admit.

The words feel like failure, like I should have an answer.

"Okay," he says again.

"That's not an answer," I say.

"It is."

"How is 'I don't know' an answer?"

He pulls out a chair. Sits. Looks up at me still standing in the doorway.

"Someone I knew died doing what he was told," he says.

I could ask for more, but something in his tone tells me to wait.

"Sit down," he says. "Eat."

I sit. He pushes a plate toward me. We eat in silence for a while. The sandwich is plain but I'm hungrier than I realized. He finishes before I do, then just sits there, watching me eat.

After a few bites, I ask, "What do you mean, someone you knew died doing what he was told?"

He's quiet for a moment. Then: "Danny Reeves. Private First Class. Nineteen years old. He was in my unit, second deployment. Three months into our tour we were running convoy escort on a supply route we'd cleared a dozen times before. Command wanted it done fast, said the intel was good, said the route was secure."

He stops. I can tell he hasn't talked about this in a long time.

"It wasn't secure," I say quietly.

"No. IED took out the lead vehicle. Big one, professionally placed. Danny was in that vehicle. I got to him within two minutes, maybe less. Started working on him immediately."

He's looking at his hands on the table.

"I did everything right," he continues. "Everything by the book, everything I'd been trained to do. Stopped the arterial bleeding, managed his airway, kept him conscious, kept him stable. Medevac was coming. We just had to wait. Forty-seven minutes."

"He died anyway," I say. Not a question.

"Yeah. I had my hands inside his chest trying to compress his heart manually when it just... stopped. Nothing I did made any difference in the end. I executed the protocol perfectly and he died anyway."

I don't offer empty comfort. Don't tell him it wasn't his fault. Just listen, because that's what he did for me.

"But that's not the part that stays with me," he says. "The part that stays is that Danny didn't want to be in that vehicle. I heard him talking to his buddy the night before, said he had a bad feeling about the route. But when his CO told him to mount up, he mounted up. Because that's what you do. You follow orders. You do what you're told. And it got him killed."

"So, when you ask me what I want instead of telling me what I should do..." I'm working it through.

"Yeah. I can't save everyone. Can't fix everything. I couldn't fix Danny. But I can ask the question. Can give people the chance to actually choose for themselves instead of just following someone else's script and hoping it works out."

"Even strangers on the side of the road."

"Especially strangers on the side of the road who look like they just made the hardest choice of their life."

I reach across the table without thinking about it. Put my hand over his, and he doesn't pull away. We sit like that for a moment. Both of us carrying things we can't put down but can maybe share the weight of.

After a long moment, I squeeze his hand once and pull back.

I take another bite and wonder if I should fill the silence with something. Some explanation. Some version of my story that makes sense.

"What's your name?" I ask instead.