My Last Breath Was An Apology

I floated suspended in the damp, heavy air, looking down at my own body crumpled in the dirt. My chest ached with a phantom tightness, but more than anything, my heart swelled with a profound, suffocating guilt toward my mother.

Ive embarrassed her again, I thought. Just like always.

It all started with the eight-mile weighted ruck march.

My mother was the Company Commander of our grueling advanced training regiment. To dispel any whispers of nepotism, she insisted that Idespite my documented, severe asthmaparticipate in the field exercise.

I had a forty-pound tactical pack strapped to my shoulders. With every step I dragged forward, it felt like swallowing broken glass. I had to stop and gasp for air just to keep moving.

By the halfway point, the edges of my vision were blurring into dark vignettes. I couldn't hold on anymore. I reached into my cargo pocket for my rescue inhaler, just needing one quick burst of albuterol to open my screaming lungs.

But before my fingers could even close around the plastic casing, Squad Leader Kelsey snatched it from behind me. Without breaking stride, she chucked it over the edge of the ravine.

"Captain!" Kelsey yelled toward the front of the column, her voice dripping with sycophantic eagerness. "Gemma is trying to slack off again! Don't worry, ma'am, I won't let her drag the whole company down!"

Far up the trail, my mother paused. She glanced back over her shoulder, her face a mask of rigid, exhaustion-fueled irritation.

"The entire company is waiting on you, Gemma. Do you have absolutely no shame?" her voice cut through the humid air, sharp as a switchblade. "If you can't walk, crawl. If you can't crawl, roll. Do not humiliate me out here."

She turned back around. She didn't look at me again.

I bit the inside of my cheek hard enough to taste copper and kept pushing forward. My chest felt like it was caught in an industrial vice, tightening with every frantic, shallow breath. Black spots danced furiously in front of my eyes.

Finally, around mile five, the invisible vice snapped shut. My knees buckled, and I slammed heavily into the unforgiving earth.

I never got back up.

Several cadets marched past me as the column moved out.

"The Captain is brutal, man. Even to her own kid."

"You kidding? Especially to her own kid. Zero special treatment."

"I thought her daughter was slated for Public Affairs? Desk duty, taking photos. She shouldn't even be on a tactical ruck."

"You don't get it. The Captain forced her into it to prove a point. If she went easy on her kid, she'd lose the company's respect."

The hushed murmurs drifted into my ears.

I lay face down, my cheek pressed into the jagged gravel and wet soil. The massive rucksack was still crushing my spine, pinning me to the ground. My tactical uniform blended perfectly with the underbrush. They didn't even realize I was there.

They just stepped right over me.

I thought I heard the dull, sickening crunch of my own ribs giving way under a heavy combat boot.

As the last person passed, their sole caught the edge of my uniform sleeve, flipping my arm. It left my hand clawing at the dirta frozen testament to the fact that, even in my final moments, I had been desperately trying to stand back up.

Kelsey, sweeping the rear, slowed her pace as she approached.

She looked down at me, her eyes narrowing. She nudged my shoulder with the steel toe of her boot.

"Why are you hiding in the weeds? Trying to catch a break?" she sneered. "Get up. Now. Before I go tell your mother."

I didn't move.

She kicked me again, harder this time. My shoulder jerked.

When I still didn't respond, she grabbed me by the webbing of my tactical vest and dragged me roughly into the tall grass off the trail.

Seeing me flop into the weeds like a sack of wet sand, she let out a dry, contemptuous laugh.

"You're a hell of an actress, I'll give you that. Playing dead to get out of a hike. No wonder you wanted Public Affairs."

A few stragglers from the rear guard caught up. Seeing me sprawled in the brush, they slowed down, whispering among themselves.

Kelseys eyes darted around. She took a step back, pitching her voice loud enough to echo off the trees.

"Gemma!" she gasped in mock horror. "Are you seriously just going to lay there and wait for the Captain to come carry you?"

The group of cadets broke into muted laughter, the mockery thick in the air.

"Must be nice, being the Captain's kid."

"VIP treatment. When your legs get tired, mommy comes to the rescue."

I drifted in the air above them, a silent spectator. I watched them circle my corpse like kids looking at roadkill.

Kelsey turned toward the high ground up ahead and cupped her hands around her mouth.

"Captain Rossi! Gemma stopped again! She's on the ground playing dead!"

Up on the ridge, my mother stopped. She turned around.

I watched her begin the march down the incline, her strides long and furious. And as she approached, a small, childish thought flickered in my ghostly mind.

If she realizes I'm dead... will it break her heart?

She reached me, stopping exactly three paces away.

"Gemma. How long do you plan on throwing this tantrum?"

She stared down at me. Her voice was absolute ice.

"Forty people in this company. They are all waiting on you. Are you really this selfish?"

Silence.

"You need to get it through your head that out here, you aren't my daughter. You are a recruit. Because of your pathetic display, you've killed the regiment's momentum. When we get back to base, you're running a hundred laps and standing at attention outside the barracks for two hours."

Kelseys lips curled into a faint, triumphant smirk. "Captain, do you think she's... actually hurt?"

"Hurt?" My mother paused. "I know my daughter. She's been pulling this exact stunt since she was a little girl. The second things don't go her way, she drops to the ground and makes a scene."

Her words drifted up to me, frigid and dismissive.

"She just wants to break me. She wants me to coddle her in front of the entire company, just to prove she's special to me."

I hovered beside my mother, my translucent hands reaching out, desperate to explain.

No, Mom. I wasn't trying to force your hand. I died.

She said she knew me. But the girl she knew was a memory from childhood.

She didn't know the woman I had become.

She didn't know how much I had learned to swallow the pain.

She didn't know that by mile three, my heart was already spasming in my chest.

She didn't know that my inhalermy only lifelinehad been ripped away and tossed into a ravine by the very girl she was trying to impress.

Mom, I didn't want to make you soft.

I wasn't trying to prove anything.

I just... I couldn't walk anymore.

I'm so sorry, Mom. I embarrassed you again.

When I still didn't move, my mother's annoyance flared into genuine rage.

She closed the distance in two quick strides, her eyes narrowing at the patch of flattened grass.

"Gemma."

No answer.

She raised her voice, a sharp, military bark.

"Gemma, drag your ass out of there right now."

The wind swept through the tall grass, revealing half of my mud-caked uniform.

My mother saw it. She parted the brush.

I was face down, my shoulders sunken into the earth. From her angle, it looked exactly like I was deliberately burying my face in the dirt, stubbornly refusing to look at her.

My mother inhaled sharply. The air around her turned venomous.

"Wow. You've really perfected the dead weight routine, haven't you? What, are you trying to force my hand like you did back then?"

A memory hit me with sudden, blinding clarity. I was twelve.

My parents had both been given orders for a dangerous overseas deployment. I had screamed, cried, and ultimately faked a severe asthma attack just to force my mother to stay behind.

She stayed. But my father went.

And a stray bullet in a desert thousands of miles away made sure he never came back.

After that day, my mother became a different person. Whenever my chest seized up, whenever I genuinely couldn't breathe, she looked at me with cold suspicion. She thought I was always lying.

Her voice trembled with barely contained fury. "You think you can play mind games with me?"

She crouched down, her hands violently twisting into the collar of my tactical shirt. She hauled my upper body out of the grass and slammed me back down against the wet earth, handling me with the rough, mechanical detachment of dealing with an enemy combatant.

She pressed her hand hard against the back of my neck, shoving my face into the damp, decaying leaves and mud.

"Great acting," she hissed.

Footsteps crunched on the gravel behind her.

Lieutenant Callahan, the platoon leader, jogged up. He stopped short, his eyes widening as he saw the Captain pinning her own daughter to the dirt. He opened his mouth, closed it, and finally spoke.

"Captain... should I radio for the medics?"

"Cancel that," my mother snapped, cutting him off.

"She has faked sickness since she was in middle school. She plays the victim to get pity. If I don't break her of this habit today, its going to ruin her."

Her grip on my collar tightened. My head lolled limply against her knuckles, swaying with the movement.

"I am going to ask you one last time, Gemma. Are you getting up?"

She let go. My forehead hit the ground with a sickening, hollow thud.

She stood up, towering over me, her chest heaving.

"Fine. You want to stay down?"

She raised her leg. The reinforced toe of her combat boot drove hard into my thigh.

"Get up."

Another kick. This one to my ribs.

"Keep faking. Go ahead."

A third kick. To my shoulder.

Callahan couldn't take it anymore. He lunged forward.

"Captain, that's enough!"

My mother shoved him back. She leaned down, grabbed me by both shoulders, and hauled my limp body up.

She raised her hand and slapped me across the face.

Smack.

The sound was sharp and terrible in the mountain wind. My head snapped violently to the side.

"Are you awake now?"

Another slap.

"Stop faking."

A third.

"Don't you ever lie to me again."

Callahan grabbed her arm, physically pulling her away.

"Captain! Stop! Something is wrong! Look at her face"

My mother wrenched her arm out of his grip, but her gaze finally locked onto my face.

She stared at me for three agonizing seconds.

"Unbelievable," she whispered, her voice laced with disgust. "You actually put on corpse makeup to trick me? I knew I shouldn't have let you anywhere near this regiment. You are a complete embarrassment."

She released me, letting me drop like a stone back into the weeds.

"If she wants to lay there, let her lay there. We'll see how long her little protest lasts."

She turned and walked away. After a few paces, she stopped and threw a look over her shoulder at the Lieutenant.

"Pass the word down. Double-time the pace. Anyone who falls behind stays behind."

Callahan opened his mouth to argue, but she was already marching back to the front. He cast one last, tortured look at the brush before jogging after her.

I hovered right where I fell. I looked down at my own body.

The left side of my face was severely swollen. The blood trickling from the corner of my mouth had already dried into a dark crust. My uniform was painted with the muddy imprints of combat boots, and my shoulder rested at a grotesque, unnatural angle where it had been crushed.

I was dead. I wasn't supposed to feel physical pain anymore.

But for some reason, my soul felt like it was being torn apart.

Callahan had only taken a few steps toward the column when his boot kicked something hard in the grass.

He paused, looking down.

It was an Albuterol inhaler.

He recognized it instantly as the one I carried everywhere. A deep crease formed between his brows. He picked it up and immediately shouted for Kelsey.

Kelsey, who had seamlessly blended back into the middle of the formation, jogged over at the sound of her name.

"Lieutenant? What is it?"

Callahan stepped into her space, holding the plastic inhaler right in front of her eyes.

"This is Gemma's inhaler. Why is it in the dirt miles from where she collapsed? I recall Gemma mentioning before we shipped out that you took her spare. Is that true?"

Kelseys eyes flickered with panic. She took a half-step back.

"Sir? I don't know what you're implying."

"I'm asking if you threw her asthma medication into the woods. Do you realize that kind of hazing can be fatal?"

Kelseys voice dropped an octave, trembling. "No, sir. I didn't. Why would I touch her meds? She's probably just making things up to get me in trouble."

She gathered her confidence, her voice growing louder, as if volume could make the lie real. "Besides, she was faking the whole time anyway! The Captain said it herselfshe's been faking sick since she was a kid. What does this have to do with me?"

Several cadets nearby slowed down, rubbernecking at the confrontation.

"Looks like the Squad Leader is getting chewed out. You never see Callahan that mad."

"I heard he said she tossed Gemma's inhaler."

"Wait, that inhaler? I think I actually saw her"

Before the cadet could finish the sentence, my mother's voice cut through the trees like a whip.

"Why is there a bottleneck here? Keep moving!"

Callahan and Kelsey turned simultaneously. My mother marched toward them, her expression entirely unreadable, her eyes dead and cold.

Callahan immediately stepped to her, holding out the plastic device.

"Captain, please look at this. Isn't this Gemma's rescue inhaler?"

My mother gave it a fleeting, disinterested glance.

"Captain..." Kelsey's voice wavered, immediately injecting tears into her tone. "I swear I didn't touch it. I saw the bottle earlier and just asked her what it was..."

"Enough."

My mother cut off Kelsey's frantic defense. She glanced at the worn label on the canister.

And then, just as Callahan opened his mouth to press the issue, my mother snatched the inhaler from his hand and chucked it blindly into the thick, impenetrable brush.

"Move out. We're burning daylight."

Callahan stood frozen in the mud, his brow furrowed so deeply it looked painful. He tried one last time.

"Ma'am, I am not comfortable leaving Gemma out here. If she really is having a medical emergency"

"I said she is faking," my mother exploded, her voice echoing violently through the woods. Whatever nerve Callahan had struck, it triggered a raw, defensive fury. "You just saw her! She'd rather play dead in the mud than keep up with this unit. This isn't just a discipline issue anymore, Lieutenant. It's a character defect."

She pointed a finger hard at Callahan's chest. "The minute this exercise is over, I am filing the paperwork for her immediate discharge. I will not have a manipulative coward in my regiment. And as a Platoon Leader, your focus should be on the unit, not letting yourself get manipulated by one malingerer."

She leaned in. "Not another word. One more word and you'll be running those hundred laps with her."

Callahans jaw clenched so tight the muscle leaped in his cheek. But he didn't say another word.

A cold breeze swept over the trail, rustling the dead leaves.

The blood seeping from underneath my body had already soaked deep into the earth, coagulating into a dark, sticky mass.

I floated in the air, watching my mother's rigid back as she marched away.

Callahan had been so close. He had almost uncovered the truth.

Just one step away.

But my mother chose to believe Kelsey over me.

With her own hands, she had taken the very last shred of hope for me, and she had buried it.

It was pitch black by the time the company returned to base camp.

A sudden, freezing drizzle began to fall. The few floodlights around the staging area cut through the rain, casting everything in a sickly, jaundiced yellow.

My mother stood at the front of the formation with her clipboard, conducting roll call.

She barked out the names, one by one. Each was met with a crisp "Here, ma'am."

Until she reached the third name from the bottom. She paused.

"Gemma Rossi."

Silence.

She called it again, sharper this time.

"Gemma Rossi."

Only the sound of rain hitting the muddy tarmac answered her.

My mother slowly raised her head, her eyes scanning the exhausted, rain-slicked faces of the cadets.

"Where is she?"

When no one spoke, she folded the roster, shoved it into her rain jacket, and let out a short, hollow breath.

"Fine. She wants to play hide and seek."

She squared her shoulders, addressing the entire company. Her voice carried over the storm.

"Listen up. As of tonight, Cadet Rossi is dismissed from this program. Anyone who shrinks from duty, who abandons their unit in the field, has no place in my command. I am filing the discharge papers tonight. Let her be a lesson to the rest of you. Dismissed."

The formation broke in utter silence.

In the front row, Kelsey kept her head bowed, but the very corner of her mouth twitched.

My mother turned on her heel and marched to the command tent. Callahan hesitated for a agonizing second before jogging after her.

"Captain, it's pouring out there. She's alone in the woods"

"She knows how to hide," my mother snapped, not even looking at him. "You really think she's just sitting out there letting herself get rained on?"

Callahan went quiet. His fists clenched at his sides, his knuckles stark white against the gloom.

The rain was coming down in sheets now.

Callahan stood in the doorway of the command tent, watching the deluge outside, then turned back to my mother.

She was sitting behind a folding tactical desk, illuminated by a harsh LED lantern, furiously filling out the discharge forms. The scratch of her pen against the paper was loud and rhythmic.

Callahan stepped forward.

"Captain. Requesting permission to take a search detail out for her."

She didn't look up from the paperwork. "Denied."

"Ma'am, the temperature is dropping. If she's actually hurt"

She slammed the pen down and finally looked at him. Her eyes were hard.

"Did she cast some sort of spell on you, Lieutenant?"

Callahan blinked, caught off guard.

"She has been doing this exact routine since she was a child," my mother said, her voice dripping with fatigue. "The second she doesn't get her way, she hides. She forces the whole family to panic and search for her. And when she's finally found, she turns on the tears and plays the victim."

She leaned back in her chair, a look of profound disgust crossing her features. "I am not falling for it again."

Callahans voice dropped, turning dark and heavy.

"Captain. What if she isn't faking? What if she's really"

For a fraction of a second, the color completely drained from my mother's face. But just as quickly, the mask slammed back into place.

"Are you lecturing me on how to run my command?"

"I'm just saying, whether you plan to discipline her or discharge her, we need to bring her back to base first. Leaving her out there... isn't this an overcorrection?"

The word hung in the damp air of the tent. Overcorrection.

The silence that followed was deafening, broken only by the relentless drumming of rain against the canvas.

My mother stared at Callahan, her chest rising and falling rapidly.

"An overcorrection?" she repeated, stepping out from behind the desk. Her voice was terrifyingly low. "Do you have any idea what she did when she was twelve years old?"

Callahan remained silent.

Instead of explaining, my mother took a deep breath, forcing her features back into a state of chilling calm.

"If she likes hiding in the woods, she can stay in the woods. Let's see how long her stubbornness lasts in the cold."

Callahan stood his ground. His lips parted, but before he could push any further, the tent flap flew open.

Kelsey ducked inside, out of breath.

"Captain, someone is here to see you."

My mothers lips curved into a bitter, knowing smile. She shot Callahan a look of pure vindication.

"See? What did I tell you? She was faking. She got tired of the rain and came crawling back. I told you, she just needs to learn a lesson. The more you cater to her, the more she manipulates you."

Suddenly, the heavy canvas door was ripped open from the outside.

A gust of wind drove rain deep into the tent, splattering mud across the tactical maps.

Major Henderson, the base commander, stood in the doorway. He was thoroughly soaked, his face a terrifying shade of gray.

He looked directly at my mother, cutting off whatever she was about to say.

"Why did you abandon a recruit in the field? Search and Rescue just pulled a body out of the ravine. She's wearing one of our uniforms."