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When they first meet, there's a chasm separating Nate from Brad that's three paces wide and a million feet deep. Nate stands at attention in front of the platoon, looking directly at Brad. In that second, when he has no choice but to stare straight ahead and meet Brad's clear blue eyes dead on, he realizes he wants what he can never have in a whole new special way.
Nate thought he understood self-denial before. He thought he'd mastered his demons—the quiet wants that sometimes snuck up in the dead of night and blindsided him.
But Brad's eyes don't waver and for a second, Nate imagines that maybe Brad's wrestled with those same demons. Wrestled and won, of course, and now their bodies are buried in a shallow unmarked grave.
He knows he needs to do the same. Knows that every inch of space between them will be impossible to traverse until he smashes down this terrible want inside. The irony burns the back of his tongue.
The irony is especially cruel because it takes this pain to make him realize that this isn't just a want. It's the only thing there is. Up until now, everything good and normal has been a distraction and now that he knows this he can't pretend otherwise anymore.
He can't pretend and yet he violently has to. The war inside is far worse than any he's actually ever physically fought.