Tough Day for the Army Read Online Free Page A

He is no lion. He is a peacock.”
    Nelson felt her sigh ripple through his body. “No, not really.”
    â€œThen why?”
    â€œSorrow doesn’t exist in Lance’s world, so I figure maybe it’s worth me trying to live there.”
    â€œI would use my rage to destroy your sorrow,” Nelson said. He was starting to feel the hard concrete of the balcony on his back. “It could not withstand my fury. I would batter it into submission.”
    â€œThat doesn’t sound like a good plan.”
    â€œWhy not?”
    â€œDon’t anger and sadness seem related? Like after you’re angry, don’t you feel sad?”
    Nelson pondered this. He thought about waking up one morning not long before he left home for good, one of the nights he gave as good as he got from his pops. He had a knot above his brow, tender to the touch. He kept kneading it all day, reminding himself it was there. For two days, his father wore a shirt crusted with his own blood thanks to a blow to the nose from Nelson, like some kind of martyr, until Nelson sneaked into the old man’s room at night, grabbed it off the floor, and threw it in the laundry.
    â€œIt’s the smile, isn’t it?” Nelson said. “What is up with that? It seems to mean something.”
    â€œThat’s Lance knowing that he belongs to the only true and living church on the face of the whole Earth. He is one of the Chosen, and that joy can barely be contained, and so he smiles,” Chelsea said.
    â€œAnd you believe that?” Nelson felt another sigh, this one longer. It was the sorrow. It waved through him. It felt far more potent than rage.
    â€œI do not, but I would like to, so I’m going to try. They say it comes to you if you let it in.”
    â€œAre we breaking up?” Nelson said.
    Chelsea laughed into his chest. Is there anything better than a beautiful girl laughing into your chest? Nelson could not think of anything better. “We were never together,” she replied.
    â€œAu contraire,” Nelson said. He raised his arms, wrapped them fully around Chelsea Stubbins’s body and squeezed her to him. “Do you feel how strong I am?”
    â€œI do.”
    Nelson held Chelsea Stubbins until his arms grew tired, his grip slackened. His whole body was tired. It had been quite a journey.
    â€œI’m leaving soon,” Chelsea Stubbins said. “Lance ate a brownie.”
    â€œIt’s not going to work out, you know,” Nelson said.
    Chelsea Stubbins raised her head from Nelson’s chest. He felt her chin press at his sternum and knew that if he opened his eyes, there she’d be, but he did not.
    â€œYou’re probably right,” she said. “I’ve got my doubts, but it’s the plan for now.”
    â€œI have nothing,” Nelson replied. “I have nothing but a phone that is trying to kill me.”
    â€œLife is a disease that only death can cure.”
    â€œWho said that?” Nelson asked.
    â€œI’m pretty sure I did.”
    â€œYou’re not the first.”
    â€œNor the last.”
    â€œI can make you laugh,” Nelson said. “Lance may be filled with joy, but he is without mirth.”
    This time Chelsea Stubbins nodded into Nelson’s chest, her chin digging hard. “He’s going to be pissed if he figures out you dosed him.”
    â€œI could never be afraid of Lance Riggins.”
    â€œI’ll tell him it was food poisoning. We had fish tacos before we came.”
    â€œWhat kind of asshole orders fish tacos in Provo, Utah?”
    Chelsea Stubbins laughed again.
    â€œYou see? See?” Nelson said. He tried to keep the pleading out of his voice. He’d removed that tone a long time ago, when his pops had told him that whiners got no place in the world. “And he has terrible taste in music, I bet.”
    â€œNickelback rules.”
    Nelson felt some small measure of the rage return.