Three Days too Many

Three Days Too Many 

by VetranWithanEar

You asked me to stay. "Just three more days," you laughed, said it was nothing. “Don’t be a chicken.” You made a joke of it, like it was the easiest thing in the world.

But I didn’t stay. I went back. Told myself it was my foot, the one I hurt early in the mission. That’s what I told you. But deep down, I know it was fear, a coward’s excuse wrapped in a limp.

You stayed. Three more days. And then you were gone.

I’m here. Still breathing. Still walking. Still carrying this weight. I hear your voice even now — the jokes, the teasing, the way you made everything lighter even in the darkest places.

We met up on Day 5. First team finally off the line, laughing, telling stories of the *** we’d seen, of the things we’d survived. And then you asked me again. Just three more days. “Don’t be a chicken.”

Three days. Three days too many. And I wasn’t there when it mattered. I think about that moment, the one when I chose to walk away. Three more days. That’s all it would have been.

I wasn’t there — not to have your back, not to keep you safe. I wasn’t there when that blast hit, when everything we thought we had left was taken away. And now you’re gone.

Still breathing, but the air is heavy with questions I’ll never answer. What if I stayed? Would it have made a difference? Would you still be here? Would we still be laughing?

I’ll never know. But I carry that "what if" for as long as I live. Because I walked away. I chose safety. And you didn’t. And now you’re gone.

I look in the mirror and see your face. Not mine. Your grin, your joke about me being a chicken, staring back at me. And it’s like I carry you with every step I take.

You never got to grow old. Never got to come back. And I’m here — alive — but carrying you. Carrying your absence. Carrying the weight of my choice.

Some days, it feels too heavy. Some days, the guilt threatens to drown me. But then I hear you, telling me to stop whining, telling me to stop carrying this burden that isn’t mine. Telling me to keep going. That I didn’t fail you. You would have kept going, even if you were the one who stayed behind.

So I keep walking. One step. Then another. Because you would want me to. Because I’m still here. And you’re not.

And maybe, just maybe, that’s enough. That’s the strength I need to keep walking. For both of us.