Now or Never

face and agony flowed through her. She picked up the phone and called Heather.
    “Did anyone get hurt on the team?”
    “Grace, why are you asking that?” Her voice raised several notches.
    “Just a weird feeling, that’s all. If you hear anything let me know.”
    “You’re scaring me Grace. Ethan has told me about your freaky sixth sense thing. Do you think something happened to Ethan?”
    “No, no. Not Ethan.” What the hell had she been thinking calling Heather? Of course, she was going to assume it was Ethan. “Derrick. I think something happened to him.”
    “Derrick?” Heather asked confused, but considerably calmer.
    “Yeah, we’ve spent some time together. But we kept it a secret.”
    “Oh, Grayson. OK, let me make some calls and see if I can find out anything. However, I’ve heard nothing so far so I think you’re mistaken this time.”
    “I hope so. I really hope so,” Grayson said and clicked off the phone.
    But, she knew she wasn’t wrong. The cold pit at the bottom of her stomach would not go away. Could Derrick really be dead?
    She turned on the news and couldn’t find anything. Online she searched deaths in Afghanistan, but nothing from today. She sent a few messages to Ethan’s Skype and paced the house. She was glad her mother wasn’t home to see her such a wreck.
    Several hours later Heather called her back. “Grace, you’re freaking me out here. You know I can’t talk about that stuff even if something did happen.”
    Her stomach twisted. If nothing had happened, she would have told her everything was fine, and she was over reacting. The worst part was they had kept their relationship a secret. No one even knew how crazy she was about him.
    “Just tell me is Derrick alive?” She asked, her voice cracking.
    “Grace, I know you have your little witchy thing going on, but I can’t tell you anything. All I can say to you is that there has been an incident. Turn on the news and you’ll see.”
    She dropped to her knees and she just knew he was gone. He was gone and she never got to tell him how she felt about him. They hadn’t even given their relationship a real chance. All because of her stupid fucking rules.
    Forcing herself to her feet Grayson made her way to the living room. Everything seemed to be moving in slow motion. Grabbing the remote she turned back on the television and flipped to fox news. She covered her mouth as she heard the newscaster speak. “Breaking news: Two Special Forces soldiers were killed in Afghanistan during a raid. Names will not be released until family members are notified.”
    No. No. No. No! She mumbled shaking her head. This couldn’t be real. Grayson ran into her room, and threw herself on the bed crying. Her body shook with heart-wrenching sobs from her head to her toes.
    Finally, when she thought she could talk, she called her sister Luna and filled her in on everything. Her sister rushed over and threw her arms around her.
    She couldn’t believe this was happening, and the last conversation they had they were fighting. All because of some stupid sexual relationship she had that meant nothing to her.
    Somehow she made it through the day, and her phone woke her around three thirty in the morning. She recognized the out of country code. She braced herself to hear the news.
    “Ethan?”
    “Grace, you didn’t hear this from me.”
    “Ok.”
    “Derrick died.”
    Grayson closed her eyes and hot scalding tears silently fell.
    “But they brought him back to life. He’s been medevaced out of here, but it doesn’t look good. His injuries are extensive. They don’t think he’s going to make it.”
    He’s alive? That was all she heard all that mattered to her. He had a chance.
    “Was something going on with you two? I know you get these feelings, but it’s usually only about someone important to you.”
    There was no sense in lying about it anymore. “We had been seeing each other on and off for months.”
    “I thought that might be the case. He’d been acting different lately.”
    “How so?”
    “No more bragging about his sexual conquests. I thought he was going through a dry spell.”
    “What about the blonde?”
    “The blonde?” Ethan sounded confused.
    “You mean Megan?” Ethan asked.
    “I don’t know her name.”
    “She’s just some girl on their endurance team. I think they used to have a thing, but nothing serious. She was kind of psycho if I recall. He was definitely not into her the way she was into