Page 11 of Just George

“I—yes. Of course. Everyone can use more friends.”

“Then there you go,” I concluded, like it was a done deal.

“Your thought process is a bit difficult to pin down, or follow. Do you do it on purpose?”

I grunted. “It’s how my brain works.”

“Explain.”

“Well, I figure I’ll know Hannah for the rest of my life. That’s just how it’s gonna be. I can tell. And I suspect she’ll always know you. So if you think about it like a Venn diagram, chances are we’ll know each other as long as we both know her.”

“Which would make us friends,” he concluded with a smile.

“Yeah.”

He cleared his throat. “Perhaps you might like to tell me something about yourself.”

“You already know about me and my penchant for violence.”

“Oh, for the love of––”

“Okay, something else,” I said, talking over him. “Lemme—oh, I know. This’ll be right up your alley.”

“Right up my––”

“On my last psych eval, the guy writing it up said I was hypervigilant, a narcissist, and that I could easily become a danger to myself and others if I wasn’t supervised.”

Nothing.

Turning, I saw that he was standing there with his mouth open.

“What?”

“As God is my witness, I have no idea what to say.”

“You have no thoughts on that?” I goaded him.

“I… what did your commanding officer have to say about that?”

“She said that being hypervigilant was not necessarily a bad thing if it kept our unit from being attacked and killed,” I explained. “She also said that if we weren’t all narcissists, then we would think that anyone could do what we do, which ain’t necessarily so.”

“Certainly.”

“And she went on to state that the only danger I could put myself in was not following orders when I’m specifically told to prioritize myself above others.”

It took a minute before I realized he’d gone quiet again, and I turned to look at him.

“You didn’t understand what she meant by that, did you?” He sighed, and his gaze, as he looked at me, was kind.

“Not so much, no.”

“That’s because in all areas of your life you put others before yourself.”

“Because that’s the job.”

“But sometimes you need to think about yourself first.”

“I don’t see when that would be applicable.”