A light spring rain dotted his hair and shoulders, the sky an inky black. He breathed in the cool, damp air, but it did nothing to soothe the edginess inside him. A couple blocks away, a car revved its engine before the sound faded and all turned silent again. When he’d lived in Houston, his night would be in full swing at 3:00 a.m. He’d take whatever party he’d started in the clubs back to the apartment his old man kept in the city, but rarely used. Outside, sirens would blare, alarms would sound. Inside, he’d do whatever it took to forget how much he hated his life. How much he hated himself. Three in the morning in Afghanistan meant being hyperalert to every sound, every slight movement, as adrenaline rushed through his body. The occasional shout or, on more than a few occasions, the pop, pop, pop of automatic gunfire, shattering the night. Or else it meant spending the night in the barracks, stuck in the halfway point between sleep and wakefulness.
