wanted, and how much I liked it.~

been trying to outrun that ever since. Maria didn’t make me a monster. She just taught me how to stop pretending I wasn’t already one.

That’s what haunts me. Not the blood, not the orders, not the bodies left behind.

The part I can’t forget is how easy it was to become what she <

I did things I’ll never speak aloud, and I did them because I believed that it was better than being nothing at all.

I wasn’t a hero. I just knew how to look like one. I wore the coat, carried the saber, said all the right things, but when the time came to be more than a symbol, I failed. And I’ve<

something to follow that didn’t ask for reflection.

And I let her.

I didn’t resist. I didn’t flinch. I leaned into it because obedience felt better than remorse. Because being needed, even for violence, felt more familiar than being forgiven. She made me her enforcer, her handler, her shield. <

look at me like I was still something worth using. And I mistook that for salvation.

She offered me purpose, not forgiveness. Clarity, not comfort. Orders I didn’t have to question. A role I didn’t have to grow into. She turned my guilt into loyalty and my empathy into a weapon. She gave me <

not good enough to save. And when the war ended, I didn’t feel like I’d survived it, I felt like I’d failed it.

That’s what Maria saw. Not the uniform, not the rank. She saw the cracks. The shame. She didn’t have to promise me anything. She didn’t need seduction or coercion. All she had to do was <

of them. I remember the way one of them looked back at me, waiting for the order I didn’t give in time. That moment became a weight I carried in my chest long after the war was done.

My voice had made them feel brave, but it couldn’t keep them alive. My instincts were good enough to inspire, but <

moment came that called for something real, when I had to act, to command, to decide... I hesitated.

It happened near the Sabine. A bad crossing, low visibility, green men, cold powder. We were ambushed, scattered, picked off in the trees. I froze for maybe three seconds, and they died for all <

their trust. But in truth, I was just a boy with a gift for saying the right thing with the right tone, at the right time, someone who could calm fear, steady a hand, make soldiers feel like they weren’t walking into a grave even when they were. That wasn’t leadership. It was theater. And when the <

the experience to deserve it.

I looked like a man. Wore the rank. Spoke like I knew what I was doing. But inside, I was still too green, still soft in ways I didn’t understand yet. Old enough to carry a saber, but too young to carry what came after.

I told myself I was leading. That I’d earned <

in Texas. It wasn’t glory. It wasn’t remembered. We weren’t marching into legends; we were holding broken lines in swamp heat and red clay, scraping by on the promise that we were doing our duty. They called me “Major” because I could make men believe we weren’t already beaten, not because I had <