I’m sitting here, 2 AM again, staring at the ceiling of this penthouse apartment I bought with the bonus money. Should feel… triumphant, I guess. Got the promotion, got the corner office, the whole shebang. But it just feels like… more beige. Like everything else. A few years back, maybe five now, an opportunity came up. Volunteer legal aid abroad. Africa somewhere, can’t even recall the country name anymore. All the usual stuff — helping people, making a difference, a bit of adventure. My old CO, a good man, he actually called me up, said it was right up my alley. Said something about how I "missed the dirt," that I’d dried out too much. He wasn't wrong. A few months out of the daily grind, real work, real people. I almost took it. Got the forms, looked at the plane tickets… Then the senior partner, old man Withers, pulled me aside. "Son," he said, "you’re on the cusp. This is your year for partner. You go play humanitarian, that train’s leaving without you." And he was right, too. The money, the prestige, the security… it was all laid out. The path. The *sensible* path. So I declined. Wrote the polite email, felt a small pang, then went back to billable hours and mergers. And now here I am. Partner. The salary is… obscene. More than I ever thought I’d make, even after the Corps. I can buy anything I want, go anywhere I want. But I just… don’t want anything. I’m numb. I saw a picture online the other day, some kid I knew from basic, covered in dust, laughing, surrounded by a bunch of local kids. He looked… alive. Like he was actually *doing* something. My hands remember the feel of a rifle, the weight of a pack, the dust in my teeth. They don’t remember what it’s like to help someone who isn’t paying me six hundred dollars an hour. It’s not regret, not really. More like… a dull ache. A phantom limb. The part of me that craved a purpose beyond quarterly reports, that part got amputated somewhere along the way. Replaced with a bigger bank account and an empty feeling that no amount of fancy scotch or new car smell can fill. I made my bed, I guess. And it’s a very expensive bed. Just not a very comfortable one.