Ask Me Again

by E. J. Noyes

  In blood and sweat-soaked scrubs I could have laughed at the sight of them standing at attention before me. “At ease,” I’d said, surprised by the steadiness in my voice. I was a master at holding my emotions, but I’d felt that tenuous grip slipping with each step I took away from the OR. I was so close to breaking. “Leave me, please. Wait outside if you must but I want this space cleared in thirty seconds.”

  A chorus of, “Yes, ma’am!” rang out and they filed silently from the shed, pulling the sliding shed door mostly closed.

  In the enclosed space, I became aware of a mix of overwhelming odors. Blood and shit and vomit. Dried sweat and bile. The choking smell of dust. Diesel fuel. All of it mingled to create a nauseating conglomerate of horror. I’d picked up a flashlight someone had discarded near a deflated rear tire, and the click of its button echoed through the shed. The heavy metal tube shook in my hand.

  The Humvee was upright, the driver’s side door set on the concrete floor beside it. The metal was marred by large dents and bullet holes, the rear doors hanging open, two of four tires completely flat which made it sit lopsided like a drunk slumped in the gutter. I’d paced slowly around the vehicle, staring at every part of the mangled hulk.

  Whatever had been launched at the Humvee had punched through the armor, leaving two gaping holes—one behind the driver’s seat and the other through the bench seats opposite. I could have easily fit through either hole. My knees trembled so much I had to lean on the side of the vehicle and draw deep slow breaths, reminding myself that Sabine was alive. She would be okay. I mentally placed the fates of the other occupants where I set all the patients who’d passed through the FOB. Acknowledged, but not dwelt upon.

  Where had she been sitting? The flashlight beam wavered over the interior as I tried to visualize where she would have settled herself. Though the entire interior was splattered with blood, the major pooling seemed concentrated in a few areas on the right side. Nowhere seemed like a position of safety. How the hell had she survived this? I’d never been particularly religious, but I leaned my head against the cold metal and I prayed my thanks to everyone and everything I thought might be listening for letting her come home.

  Layered over the gratitude was that overwhelming sense of guilt, along with a feeling of almost sick satisfaction, like I deserved this. I’d broken one of the most fundamental and unbreakable rules of the military, and this was my punishment, to have come so close to losing her.

  Now I’d have to live with my own part in it for the rest of my life. I’d had to clap my hand over my mouth to stifle my choked sob, lest I was heard outside.

  Then I had drawn in a deep breath, straightened my shoulders and strode out of the shed to my office. It was time to call Sabine’s family back in the States and tell them she had been wounded in action, had had surgery and was currently classified as serious but stable.

  I would forever remember the panic in Carolyn’s voice as she’d screamed for Gerhardt to please please hurry up and come to the phone. And I could do nothing but convey the facts calmly and with the minimum of emotion. As I always did. The moment I’d hung up, I’d sunk to the floor, leaned against the desk and cried.

  I’d led the team that fixed her broken body, but now it seemed I could do nothing for her precious, intricate mind. My helplessness was chipping away at me, one small piece at a time. I wondered idly how many more pieces I could lose before Sabine would notice.

  I straightened as Sabine wandered back into the kitchen, gesturing expansively with her free hand. “Nein, Oma. Ich habe leider keine Zeit fuer mehr Urlaub.” She frowned. “Weil ich, ich—” Sabine’s feet stopped as abruptly as her German, and when she spoke again it was in English and in a tremulous voice. “Because…because I just had a v-v-vay-cation.”

  The stammer alone would have caught my attention. She’d stammered as a child but had overcome it, and until a few years ago it hadn’t happened since. Now, she sometimes stammered when she was upset—another side effect of The Incident and one I knew she was self-conscious about. Stammer aside, this sudden language switch was odd. She never did that. It was German or English, never augmented with words from the other.

  Her eyes were wide, her expression one of horror. I moved toward her, fearing she’d suddenly received bad news but Sabine shook her head at me. She turned away and left the room again, words trailing behind her. “Ich werde es versuchen. Ich verspreche.” Her conversation was a little louder now, the words taking on a slightly clipped tone. After another few minutes she came back, the phone clutched in a white-knuckled hand.

  “Is everything okay?” I asked inanely.

  “I don’t…what the hell was that?” Sabine tossed her phone onto the kitchen table and sank back down on to her chair. She blew through pursed lips for a few seconds, then muttered a quick stream of German as though running through a test list.

  “What happened, sweetheart?”

  “I don’t know, it was like everything in my head was gone.” Now her expression was blank, incredulous. “I’ve been bilingual since I first learned to talk, Bec. When I’m speaking German, I’m thinking in German but my mind was just…empty. I couldn’t think of the words.” Her eyes begged me to explain the unexplainable to her. “What the hell?”

  I ran a soothing hand over her back, offering an unsatisfactory, perfunctory-sounding explanation. “You’ve had a difficult day, darling. I’m sure it’s nothing more than stress.” The muscles of her back were tight, and I drew my hand upward to massage the steel bands in her neck.

  “I know, but that’s never happened, Bec. Not even after the…thing, and that was stressful as hell.” She buried her face in her hands, and the rest of her words were muffled. “I seriously feel like I’m losing my mind here.”

  “Why don’t we schedule some tests? For exclusionary purposes only, just to give us a starting point,” I added when she opened her mouth to give what I knew would be an indignant protest. She’d been checked for a traumatic brain injury during her recovery, and I really didn’t think there was an actual physical reason for her issues. But it would give her the peace of mind to move forward and figure out what was going on.

  Slowly she looked up, then nodded. “Will you come with me?”

  “Of course.”

  Sabine inhaled slowly then let out another long breath. “Ich liebe dich,” she said, then after a beat smiled awkwardly and added, “Just making sure I’ve still got it.”

  I smiled back. I knew that one. “I love you too.”

  She drew me closer, resting her head against my stomach. Her arms came tight around me. “I mean it, Bec.” Sabine’s voice was barely above a whisper when she pulled back. Her hands came under my blouse to stroke the bare skin on my back. “I love you. I need you.”

  The unspoken statement was in her eyes. A silent plea. “I know. Me too.” I looped my arms around her neck, feathered my fingers in the hair behind her ears and answered the question she couldn’t ask. “I already told you that I’m not leaving, Sabine. I promise.” I would stay no matter what. No matter the cost. Because I loved her too much to leave.

  She bit down on her lower lip, before asking out of the blue, “Have you drunk too much to drive?”

  Frowning, I answered, “No. Just that half glass of wine.”

  Sabine stood so quickly I had to grab the chair to my right to stop myself being bowled over. She hurried toward the door, barefoot and only wearing her uniform pants and a T-shirt. Without slowing, she spun around, walking backward as she talked. “I want you to drive me somewhere. Anywhere, just make me sit in the passenger seat and fucking deal with it.”

  Before I could speak up to say maybe it wasn’t a good idea to push right now with something that caused her such anxiety, Sabine insisted, “Now. Please, Bec. Before I change my mind. I need to start working on this now.” Then she was out the door, leaving me with nothing to do but follow.

  Chapter Thirteen

  Sabine

  Jana pushed the dishwashe
r closed with her foot and collected her wineglass from beside the stovetop. “Look, my point is why should I waste my time with boring guys, even if they tick most of the other boxes?”

  I folded the dishtowel into a perfect rectangle and set it on my sister’s kitchen counter, turning it until the cloth lay parallel to the edge. “Because you rarely give them enough time to show you if they actually are boring. What if they’re just nervous? Shy? In awe of your beauty and charm?”

  She smiled beatifically at me. “That might be true, Sabs. I am both beautiful and charming.”

  “And egotistical,” I mumbled.

  With her free hand, Jana picked up my perfectly placed dishtowel and snapped it at me. “I don’t have time to find out what their problem is. I’m a busy woman, and they need to shit or get off the pot.” She dropped the towel back to the counter and I had to resist picking it up and refolding it.

  I turned away from the shapeless fabric mess and refocused on my sister. “That is like…the worst dating metaphor I have ever heard.”

  “It is pretty bad,” Bec agreed from the couch where she was working on an after-dinner cognac.

  Jana raised both hands, the wine in her glass sloshing. “Fine, yes, bad metaphor but that’s not the point. Is it wrong to want an instant connection with someone? To be swept off my feet? To have marathon sex sessions instead of one-hit wonders?”

  “Uhhh…no, but…” I looked helplessly to Bec.

  She picked up the conversation where I’d faltered. “No, sweetie, but I think maybe sometimes you’re a little picky.” Only she could get away with saying something like that to my sister.

  “Maybe…” Jana mused.

  Bec laughed. “Maybe? Do you remember that guy you dated in April? The one who lasted a record seven dates?”

  “What guy?” I looked between the two of them, waiting for someone to explain what I’d missed while I’d been in Afghanistan. “There was a guy who actually stood out?”

  Bec made a go on gesture. Jana sighed, then explained, “He was a firefighter. Cute and really really fit, like muscles everywhere, but not too bulky, you know?”

  “Mmmm, so your typical specimen of masculine perfection. What else?” I asked.

  “Cute, funny, a gentleman of the door-and-chair-holding variety, similar taste as me in movies and music, not awful in bed.”

  “And why did you stop seeing him?” Bec prompted.

  Jana looked like a kid who’d just been told to stand up in front of the class and read aloud a note they’d been caught passing to a friend. “Because he was a vegetarian. One of those scary ones who believes non-vegetarians are basically awful people who’ll burn in animal-eating hell. And I thought you know, I really like steak and bacon, and it doesn’t matter if he’s sweet and funny and knows the meaning of multiple orgasms if he’s going to scowl at me every time I eat a piece of an animal. Or worse, try to convert me.”

  Bec buried her face in her hands, shaking her head. After a strangled laugh she looked up again. “An actual hero, Sabine. He even rescued stray animals. And she ended it because of that.”

  I shrugged. Funnily enough, it wasn’t the worst reason I’d heard. Jana once declined a second date with a guy because she didn’t like the way he knotted his tie. Deep down, I thought it was less about pickiness and more about fear of rejection or of failed relationships.

  Jana uncorked the wine and poured another half-glass for herself. “Hey, come on, Bec. It’s not like you’ve got exceedingly high standards.” She jerked her thumb at me. “You’re still with her.”

  I raised a middle finger at my sister.

  They both laughed and started up with sweet, good-natured teasing all directed at me. I laughed with them but at the back of my mind lingered an awful thought—why hadn’t either of them told me about this guy while I was away? A small, innocuous thing but they both knew how important the seemingly unimportant is while you’re deployed. Was I not worthy of being told about it? Did they forget about me? No, don’t be an idiot. Just an oversight, Sabine, their lives didn’t revolve around keeping you informed of every tiny thing while you were away.

  Suddenly I wanted nothing more than to be safely at home, cuddled in bed with Bec. I’d let her drive us to Jana’s, the sixteenth thing I’d done in the past five days that made me extremely uncomfortable, and the slight panic I’d felt at the start of the night was turning into something I was finding hard to suppress. As the night wore on the discomfort became layered with self-chastisement because I was at my sister’s and should not feel uncomfortable. I should be feeling safe and happy, and enjoying dinner and the company of people I loved.

  Just keep doing it, and it’ll get easier. Right.

  Adding to my anxiety was the decision I’d made yesterday to really push the limits of what I thought I could handle. To really ramp up my exposure therapy. Next Monday, after Bec finished her shift, I would take the bus from my work to meet her at her work. Lookit me! I can do things regular people do! Well, I can do it after over a week of planning ahead so I could psych myself up enough to follow through.

  I snuck a peek at my watch. Almost nine thirty. Polite time for a getaway. “Right, speaking of multiple orgasms, I think it’s time for us to head home.”

  Bec had stood the moment I said orgasms. Jana made a dramatic gesture. “Fine, go. Leave me here alone and on the verge of spinsterhood.”

  “Okay,” I agreed, forcing a teasing cheer into my voice.

  We exchanged hugs with my sister, and on the way to the door Bec slid her arm around my waist with her fingertips resting lightly on my hip. In the elevator, she leaned into me, her breath whispering over my neck. Soft kisses made their way to my ear before she murmured, “So, multiple orgasms…”

  It had been an off-the-cuff comment, but when Bec’s fingers slid up under my top I knew she hadn’t taken it as such. She stroked along my spine to my ass, the sensation causing a shudder of pleasure to ripple down my back. I closed my eyes, relaxing into the touch until predictably, on the back of pleasure, came the panic.

  The fingers stilled but stayed on my skin. I hadn’t said anything, hadn’t moved away or asked her to stop but she’d read me like a book. Bec had always been incredibly perceptive but seemed even more so with me these days. So much so I’d wondered if the near-constant stream of thoughts in my head were somehow coming out my mouth. The electronic numbers counted down three floors before she quietly asked, “Is it me?”

  I turned slightly to the side so I could look into her eyes. “No! I swear it’s not you. Not wanting you isn’t the problem, Bec. I wish I didn’t want you so badly because that would make this less distressing.” Her thinking that I didn’t want her that way, wasn’t attracted to her, or that I didn’t hunger to have my hands and mouth on her made my self-loathing well up again.

  “What’s making it so upsetting for you, sweetheart?” she asked, the hand resuming its stroking, but staying well north of my waist now.

  I scrubbed a hand over my face. “Because…all the feelings are in there, but there’s something sitting on top of them as well and I don’t know what it is.” Something that made me afraid to let her touch me that way. The elevator jerked to a halt and the doors slid open. “And I don’t know how to figure it out.”

  The drive home was quiet, and as if by unspoken agreement, Bec and I went straight upstairs instead of heading into the den for some mindless television before sleep. We readied for bed quickly, the way we always did, sharing sink space and passing floss and face cream back and forth. Nice routine. Routine is good. Be quiet, Sabine.

  Bec held the covers up for me to slide in, and once I was done wriggling into a comfortable position, she kissed me gently. “Night, darling.” She snuggled close as she always did, body pressed tightly against mine and her head on my breasts, her hand rested on my stomach, its soft weight warm and comforting.

  “Night…” I closed my eyes and ran my fingers lightly up and down her arm, hoping the soothing rhythm would
help lull me to sleep. It didn’t, neither did my usual foot squirming, and after forty-three minutes I still wasn’t asleep. The more I tried to lie still, the more agitated I became. So I gave in and rolled over. Then rolled back. Covers off, back on again. One foot out. Where’s the cat? Not here.

  Stop being so ridiculous, Sabine.

  I couldn’t stay tossing in bed and risking waking Bec. But I didn’t want to leave the room. Stealthily, I slid out of bed and crept over to the wingback chair in the corner of our bedroom. Bec’s plush robe was slung over the back and I pulled it down to cover myself as I settled in the chair.

  Over and over, my brain looped around with what’s wrong, what’s wrong, what’s wrong? Then an answering repetition of fix it, fix it, fix it! I clenched my jaw hard, trying to force out the intrusion. There was nothing physically wrong with me. I’d had a barrage of tests and scans a few days ago, and as I’d expected, they had shown no lesions, tumors, scar tissue or other physiological cause. Perfect. All in my head, hiding in those tiny parts of my brain where no scan would ever find them. I desperately wanted something tangible that I could fix, but the cure was “Just keep plugging away at it and one day you might feel like yourself again.” Exactly what I was not good at.

  It was a few days until the full moon, and I could see Bec with its strong light stealing through the curtains. With my legs drawn up and my chin resting on my knees, I sat as still as I could and watched her, lying curled in fetal position the way she always slept. I should have been behind her, pressed tight, holding her with my cheek against her hair. But instead I watched her from across the room like a stalker. It was easier to say everything that was in my head when she wasn’t looking at me with the expression that had always made me blurt out my secrets even when I’d sworn to myself I wouldn’t.

  Bec, I don’t feel right. I don’t like who I am anymore. I don’t know what to do.

  Perfect, Sabine. Why not just hang a sign around your neck saying I’m damaged and not really getting better, feel free to bail on the relationship. I scrunched my eyes closed. Stop it. I’d asked her so many times to stick with me and every single time, without hesitation, she’d given an affirming promise that she would. I believed her, trusted her, but deep down I still couldn’t shake the fear that I really was too screwed up for her. It had to get better soon. Exposure therapy worked, right? Soon something would kick in for me and everything would be fine. It had to be.