The tires hummed along as I pushed the city issued Ram 1500 faster toward the destination. I once drove this same route many years ago when I was stationed at Fort Bragg, North Carolina. I was hoping I was ahead of the traffic jam that was sure to happen at the lunch hour in Atlanta. The light morning traffic had grown into a Saturday travelers trying to get to their destination faster than the car next to them. I was not scheduled to be in Charleston, South Carolina until tomorrow for my training. I wore many hats as a law enforcement officer. One of those hats was SWAT team leader. After my years in the military and multiple deployments, law enforcement seemed like the obvious choice for my next career move. I quickly rose through the ranks and was selected for the SWAT team. Kicking in doors safely and tactically had been drilled into me during basic training and again with the 82nd Airborne before we deployed back to Afghanistan. Doing it back in the states was easier than in the desert. People did not seem to just randomly blow up here like they did over there. Now the department saw fit to send me on a paid week vacation to Charleston for a SWAT conference. I was heading up early to meet with an old friend of mine from when I was much younger and much more innocent.

Samantha Worthy had been one of my closest friends growing up in Mississippi. When we were not in school we could be found running through the woods behind her house chasing our imaginations. As we became older and our bodies changed , we started noticing things about each other we hadn’t before. I recalled the day I noticed she was more than the skinny girl I spent days with chasing frogs and digging for worMrs.. It was the day of my first game of my high-school football career. I was walking down the 9th grade hallway my first period class. P classmates and friends wished me luck as they passed. I looked around the hall until I saw her. Sam was walking toward me with her game day shirt. She had a black 45 drawn on her cheeks and 45 on the back of her shirt.

“Like it?” she said giving me a hug in greeting.

“O yea!” I said and we turned to walk into class. I didn’t tell her that her brown eyes looked more golden today than I have ever seen or how when we hugged I noticed her perfume for the first time ever. I watched her walk to her aisle and take her seat in front of me. It was in that moment I feel in love. Nothing special just a single spark. She moved away after graduation to a town just outside of Charleston. I have only seen her a few times throughout the years. She studied business at the University of South Carolina home of the Gamecocks and started a clothing line in her parents spare room.

Sam worked her way from a small store in downtown Charleston to a multi-million dollar business. I had watched her grow from the shadows of our friendship. I would reach out and tell her about the positive press I read about on line. We would talk for a couple hours then settle back into or normal lives. When I was told about the training I reached out to see if Sam was going to be in town and if so I wanted to see her. She called me immediately after she read it and was excited with the idea. She only had one request. She wanted me up a day earlier so we could gave a full day to hang out and catch up with each other. I told her I would love that. Truth was I wanted to get far away from Mississippi right now and this ten hour drive was just the beginning of what I needed. I reached over and opened a monster energy drink, took a drink, and settled in for the last leg .

I watched as mountains and Forrest gave way to bayous and concrete. I checked the map on the screen and it said I was fifteen minutes away from my past. It was a little past five pm so I figured I would just go straight to Sam’s and check in to the hotel later tonight. I was able to convince my department that I needed the extra day for travel. The chief did not seem to care. He told me to use the time to clear my head. That statement made me laugh out loud. As a detective, my head was far from cleared even after I clocked out for the day. My main focus was violent crimes but here recently, I was assigned to the Marshall’s Task Force hunting human traffickers in the area. One lead led to another and those became hotel doors and houses on the border full of strangers. During the last raid, I took a bullet to the shoulder which put me back on the sideline. I had been riding a desk for the last six months while rehabilitating my body.

I twisted and turned through a maze of houses leading up to my destination. I quickly discovered Sam was doing a lot better off than I understood. When we were younger, we dreamed of living in houses that came with the huge pillars and massive yards that went on forever. These lacked the yards but still had the size we dreamed up. I parked the truck in front of the last house on the road. It was what I thought was called a Victorian style. It looked like it came straight from antebellum America. It the pale white paint broke up the green background of the yard. Water oak trees with Spanish moss littered her yard. I could see past the house into the back yard and saw a wetland paradise. As I stepped out of the truck, I drank it all in. It certainly was not what I expected when Sam told me she lived in a neighborhood.