The notification lit up my phone screen at 0600 hours, the harsh glow cutting through the pre-dawn darkness of my barracks room. Outside, Germany was wrapped in that particular kind of December cold that seeps through walls and windows, the kind that makes you question every life decision that brought you to this exact moment. I’d been awake for an hour already—old habit from deployment—staring at the ceiling and mentally rehearsing conversations I’d been waiting three years to have.
My duffel bag sat packed in the corner, the same worn canvas that had traveled with me through two tours in places whose names I still couldn’t say without my jaw tightening. Inside were gifts I’d spent weeks choosing: a hand-embroidered scarf for Mom that I’d found at a Christmas market in Heidelberg, a vintage keychain shaped like Oregon for Kayla, and for Uncle Thomas, an antique music box that played something hauntingly familiar. My plane ticket was folded in my back pocket, creased from being checked and rechecked, as if the paper might dissolve if I didn’t keep proving it was real.
