Ask Me Again

by E. J. Noyes

  I took a chance, mustered up my parade command voice and said firmly, “Fleischer! Secure your weapon.”

  Her arms dropped suddenly, as though she was a puppet and someone had cut her strings. They hung slack at her sides, the Beretta still gripped in her left hand. Quickly, I closed the two feet between us and grasped Sabine’s bare forearm. Despite the cool air, her skin was hot, clammy. She didn’t resist when I took the gun from her.

  I ejected the magazine and racked the slide to remove the cartridge from the chamber. The bullet fell from my hand, and the sound of the metal rolling along the wooden floorboards was deafening. I set the gun on the dresser and slipped the magazine into the top drawer, then spun back to her.

  “Bec?”

  “Yes, darling,” I murmured soothingly. “It’s me.”

  Each breath came out a noisy gasp as Sabine swallowed convulsively. She pushed her hair back from her face, clapped a hand over her mouth and rushed toward the bathroom, almost making it past me before she stopped to retch. Vomit seeped through her fingers and inexplicably, Sabine pulled her hand away from her mouth. The rest of the vomit cascaded over her tee and fell to the floor to splash our feet. She raised her head, her expression one of absolute, wide-eyed horror. “Oh my—I’m sorry. Fuck, I’m s-so s-s-sorry.”

  I wasn’t sure if she was apologizing for pointing a loaded gun at me or throwing up on the floor. Inside, I was screaming but forced my voice to a neutral tone and took her arm. “It’s okay, we’re all right. Come on, sweetheart, let’s get you into the shower and cleaned up.”

  She let me guide her into the bathroom where I stripped her and turned on the shower. Now I’d moved into familiar detachment, the mindset I needed in order to deal with this terrifying thing. I’d been here in this zone so many times before and the familiarity was almost comforting. Every movement was mechanical and methodical, thinking about nothing beyond the next step. Sabine behaved like a mute child, letting me move her around without protest.

  I pulled off my vomit-spattered pajama bottoms and tossed them into the hamper with Sabine’s clothes. I dipped a hand into the stream of water to check the temperature then stuck my feet in one at a time to clean them off. Then I gently pulled her forward and with a hand on her back, told her to, “Hop in.”

  Sabine stepped under the spray, turning away from me to adjust the showerhead. My eyes inevitably strayed to the fist-sized scar on her back, the skin puckered and uneven in the crater left by the bullet exiting her body. When she turned around again, her head bowed under the water, my eyes were drawn like magnets to the other marks on her torso. I knew each one like I knew my own face. Had felt every one under my fingertips more times than I could count.

  Her childhood appendectomy. Bullet entry wound under her right armpit. Chest tube scar made by Mitch. My surgical incision, too long because I was almost mad with panic. Shrapnel marks on her thighs, arms, face and neck. All those wounds were hers but also forever mine, even now when I knew she didn’t want me touching them.

  She didn’t wash herself, just stood under the shower, shaking even though the water was hot. Sabine angled her head to catch water in her mouth, then spat it out again over and over. I rubbed my thumb and forefinger back and forth, trying to calm myself, trying to focus on the present, on this terrifying event. I felt as if we were back in Afghanistan, just like that fateful, awful day, and I was trying to put Sabine back together again. I wanted to talk to her, to ask her what was going on, but the look on her face made it clear she was in no shape for a discussion right now.

  Sabine shut off the shower and stood with her arms crossed over her chest, still shivering. I wrapped the towel around her, and after a few brisk rubs, left her to dry herself. It took an enormous effort to not rub the fluffy towel over her body. I wanted desperately to comfort her, and at another time she’d have enjoyed being taken care of, but now I sensed she’d take my action as some indication that I thought she wasn’t capable. Or that I meant her harm.

  After a final glance to make sure she seemed okay by herself for a minute, I hopped around the mess on the floor to fetch a pair of sweats for myself and something for her to wear. The Beretta on the dresser was a dark and menacing shape, a sharp contrast to the sweet, light-filled photographs of Sabine and me. I bent to retrieve the stray bullet from where it’d rolled away to rest against a bed leg. “Sabine? Are you okay in there?”

  “I’m fine,” she responded crisply. After a long pause she added less bitingly, “Thank you.”

  Fine was a lie.

  I crossed the floor, picked up the Beretta and robotically broke it down into harmless pieces, just as I’d done a million times before. After a quick glance at the bathroom door, I retrieved the magazine from the dresser drawer, opened the window overlooking our back yard and flung both the magazine and slide out into the darkness. Then I locked the rest of the gun parts and that stray bullet back in the safe, closing the closet door as quietly as I could. When I came back into the bathroom, Sabine was standing at the sink, my toothbrush in hand.

  “Sabine? That’s my toothbrush.”

  She turned to me, her eyebrows jammed downwards. “What? No…”

  My heart raced. I pasted a smile on my face and set the pile of clothes on the closed toilet lid. “Yes, sweetheart. Mine’s the green one.” Since I’d moved in, my toothbrushes had always been green, the same way hers were always blue because she loved blue.

  Sabine stood motionless, her head drooping to stare at the toothbrush in her hand. Eventually, she set down my toothbrush and picked up hers. She squeezed toothpaste with a steady hand and shoved her brush into her mouth.

  I tried to catch her eye in the mirror. “I’m just going to go down and get the mop. Will you be all right for a few minutes?”

  She looked up, the reflection of her dark eyes finding mine, and nodded.

  “There’s some clothes here for you.”

  She nodded again. I grabbed the wicker basket of soiled clothes and raced downstairs into the laundry. It only took a few minutes to rinse off our clothes, toss them in to wash, and grab the mop and bucket.

  When I came back into the bedroom, Sabine was in bed, still and quiet under the covers. She watched me clean the floor, her expression unreadable, and I couldn’t tell if she was scared, embarrassed, horrified or sorry. Perhaps it was a combination, and possibly more.

  I flipped off the light and slid into bed to cradle her from behind. Sabine stiffened at my touch, then after few moments relaxed and moved her arm to rest over mine. Her fingertip ran over my forefinger, all the way up, then down the back of my hand to my wrist. She did this to one finger at a time until all of my fingers had been touched. Then she started again. And she never said a word.

  My head swirled. Had she taken something? No, she wouldn’t. We’d argued about prescribed medications. Repeatedly. PTSD was the obvious but no less terrifying explanation, but it generally manifested in nightmares and anxiety about loud noises and being in the car, not this. Was it our fight that’d set her off? My harsh words? My pushing her?

  I opened my mouth, flexing my jaw to dispel the tears pooling at the corners of my eyes. “Sabine? Darling, what’s going on?”

  Her fingertip stopped halfway along my left ring finger. “I don’t know,” she whispered. After a shuddering breath, she choked out, “I am so sorry, Bec. I don’t know what to do.”

  “I know. It’s okay. We’re okay.” I kissed her neck gently then pulled myself closer to her, burying my face in her hair. My eyes strayed to the closet, the closed door and hidden safe before I glanced at the window where I’d tossed the only magazine and the pistol’s slide.

  But I didn’t sleep again.

  Chapter Seventeen

  Sabine

  Horror.

  Self-loathing.

  Fear.

  I lay awake for the rest of the night and when Bec shifted just after five a.m., I closed my eyes and feigned sleep, even as soft lips brushed against my cheek and temple.
She moved to the bathroom then the closet, and I heard her changing before she left our bedroom. The back door opened, and after a few minutes closed again. I waited for the drone of the treadmill downstairs before I rolled over and buried my face in her pillow.

  Bec’s scent was one of the most comforting things I knew—shampoo and lotion, her perfume and the thing that was just Bec. I’d always clung to it, even before all of this. Before we belonged to one another, I always knew if she’d been in the room recently, and knowing she was nearby helped soothe some of the discomfort of being deployed. When we were finally together, and my PTSD would overwhelm me, I would lie in bed and breathe her in until I was calm again.

  I pulled the pillow tighter to my face. What the hell had I done last night? It was unacceptable, unforgivable, terrifying, and the worst part was I still had no idea what exactly had happened. Had I had a psychotic episode? Was I really losing my mind? I’d been trying desperately for hours to connect the dots. To figure out how I’d done…that. But all I could remember was waking up, hearing a loud noise and being afraid, and that was it. Nothing. Blank. Until I woke up again, standing near the bathroom door. With a gun in my hand.

  The look on Bec’s face had told me everything. I’d threatened her. With a gun. Who the fuck does that? The whole experience was akin to watching myself in a dream, until I kind of snapped from one place to another and I was looking through my eyes again. After the argument we’d had last night, anxiety had remained like a lump of stone deep in my stomach, but I never would have thought it would ever lead to—

  Don’t cry.

  I squeezed my eyelids closed until I was certain no tears would escape. Downstairs, the treadmill continued its rhythmic whine. I had no idea how she’d just gotten up and gone downstairs for a jog, as though this was an everyday morning when it was anything but. If she stuck to her schedule, Bec would finish in fifteen minutes or so. She would want to talk about what happened. But I couldn’t, because I just didn’t know. I stretched off the side of the bed and reached for my Uggs.

  I’d brewed coffee, set things for Bec’s breakfast on the table and was forcing down granola when she emerged from the hallway. She rested a hand on my shoulder, leaning down to kiss my temple. “I’m just going to shower.” Bec seemed calm, unconcerned, but I knew her well enough to know how good she was at setting aside her feelings. My girlfriend was an expert in compartmentalization.

  My skin was electrified, my body twitchy. I felt like I was back at school, outside the principal’s office. When Bec returned, she was in a robe, not her work clothes. Her hair lay in wet curls against her neck as though she’d barely taken the time to towel it dry. She picked up my nearly empty coffee mug. “I’m going to call in today.”

  “Why?” I straightened up from my hunched position and rested my hands on top of the table.

  “Because of what happened last night. I’m worried about you, darling.” The statement was matter-of-fact but still gentle. “And I don’t want you to be home alone,” she added from her position by the coffee machine.

  I ran my tongue along my lower lip. “I won’t be home alone, Bec. I’m going to work.”

  “Oh,” she said on an exhalation. “Is that a good idea?” Rebecca poured coffee for both of us and sat in her usual spot to my right.

  I had no idea what was a good idea and what wasn’t. The correct course of action, how I should act, what I should say. But I knew one thing. “I have to tell Colonel Collings what happened.”

  “Okay then. Yes. That’s the right thing.” An awkward silence descended as she trickled sugar into her coffee, poured cereal and began slicing a banana over her bowl.

  I added milk to my mug and stirred for exactly thirty seconds then stared into my bowl and counted to fifteen. Spoonful of soggy granola. Chew for fifteen seconds. Swallow. Wait fifteen seconds. Spoonful. The pattern was comforting. I repeated it. Then told myself to stop repeating it and ate while staring out the window at the yellow and red oak leaves moving in the light breeze. One leaf…two. My neck tightened. I dropped my eyes back to my breakfast.

  I was desperate to break the quiet but had no idea what to say. Sorry I held a loaded gun on you didn’t really seem to cut it. The sound of Rebecca setting her knife on the side plate dragged my eyes away from the mess in my bowl.

  “Sweetheart, are you all right?” She dipped her spoon into her breakfast and my main thought as she put it in her mouth was that she had a disproportionate ratio of banana to Special K.

  I pushed my breakfast to the side. “I don’t think so, no.”

  Bec swallowed and gave me a small smile, reaching out to touch my arm. She curled her fingers around my wrist, holding me in a gentle cage. “Do you want me to come with you to talk to Collings?”

  “I think I need to see him by myself first.” I drew in a long, shaky breath. “Bec, I’m so so sorry. I don’t even know what happened. I wasn’t…I would never sh-sh—” Jesus, I couldn’t even make myself say it. Shoot you. I would never shoot you.

  “I know, darling,” she soothed, stroking my forearm. “Tell me about it, tell me what you think happened.” She casually ate another spoonful, as though she wasn’t really that interested in what I had to say but was being polite. It was almost like we were talking about whether to cook or order in for dinner tonight.

  I knew she was trying to keep me relaxed and open to discussion. At the same time, I almost wished she wasn’t so calm. I didn’t deserve this acceptance. I reached for my mug, wrapped my hands around the warm ceramic and chanced a look at her. Bec chewed slowly, her eyes focused on me. Desperate to relieve my dry mouth, I swallowed a gulp of too-hot coffee, scalding my tongue in the process. “I’m really not sure I can explain it.”

  “Try, Sabine,” she urged gently.

  I tried to order my thoughts. “It sounds so fucking stupid, but I woke up and heard a loud noise, and I just knew I was over there, not here, and something bad was about to happen.” My voice broke. “I was so scared, so I got the gun out of the safe, but it was kind of fuzzy, like watching me do it, not actually me doing it, and…then it was like I was just me again.”

  “Did you think it was an intruder? Or something else?”

  “I’m really not sure.” Gritting my teeth, I tried to fight the defensiveness, that deep indignation which stemmed from knowing I’d done something wrong, however unintentional. My question came out as a forced whisper. “There’s something really wrong with me, isn’t there?”

  Bec’s eyes softened and she blinked rapidly a few times before answering, “No, not wrong with you, but I do think there’s something wrong. And I don’t think it’s anything that we can’t work through, darling. But…I think it’s time to admit that we need some help.”

  Nothing we can’t work through. But I’d have to come to the party. I thought I’d been at the party but apparently I was just standing outside by myself while everyone else mingled. “I’m just so…” I threw my hands up, unable to even find a strong enough word to express how I felt. Devastated came pretty close.

  She reached over to softly thumb the edge of my mouth. “I know, I can imagine. How are you feeling now?”

  I ticked off emotions like a list of things I was supposed to get from the grocery store. “Mortified. Scared. Embarrassed. Anxious.”

  “That all seems reasonable, sweetheart.” After another mouthful Bec added, almost absently, “You were holding it in your left hand.”

  “Pardon me?”

  “The gun. It was in your left hand.”

  Left hand. I couldn’t breathe and had to suck in a sharp breath to kick-start my diaphragm. That day came flashing back, my thoughts as clear as they had been while I was sprawled in the foot well of the Humvee, hiding from enemy fire. Entry wound under my right armpit. Exit wound near my right scapula. I couldn’t move my right arm to handle my rifle or pistol as I usually did. My lips moved soundlessly as the exact thought I’d had in that moment overtook everything else in my head.

&nbs
p; It’s going to have to be southpaw.

  “Sabine?” Bec grabbed my hand, her tight grip bringing me back.

  “It’s going to have to be southpaw,” I repeated aloud. The rush of clarity was swift. It was a nightmare, that’s what had happened last night. If I was dreaming about that, acting on that, then I couldn’t be trusted. The choking intensified until my breathing was nothing more than ragged gasps. Breathe in, count to five. Breathe…out, count…to five. But trying to control my breathing had no effect on the panic smothering me.

  Bec pushed out of her chair and crouched in front of me. “Look at me.”

  I couldn’t. Couldn’t do anything but try ineffectually to draw in oxygen. She took my face in both hands, forcing me to look at her. There was just the faintest quaver in her voice. “I’m okay. You’re okay. I promise, sweetheart. Breathe in and hold on to it. Do it for me, Sabine, even just a little bit of air. You can do it.”

  I tried to do as she asked, felt the tiniest amount of oxygen hit the bottom of my lungs, then hiccupped it out.

  “Good,” Bec murmured. “Now breathe in again for me, darling.”

  After a few minutes of her coaching me to stop the panic-induced hyperventilation, I finally managed to ask, “Bec, can you please change the gun safe combo?” If I couldn’t get in there, I couldn’t hurt her. But she would know it and could protect herself from…whoever she might need to.

  “I’ve already taken care of it,” she said quickly. “I’m getting rid of it today. I…I should have thought about it sooner but…” Her voice dropped until I had to strain to hear her. “I was so busy focusing on everything else, and we’d talked about…I never thought—”

  “Thank you. I can’t take the chance that I might do something like that again.” I sucked in another gulp of air. “I’m so afraid of what I might do when I’m not myself that I can barely breathe.”

  It took her a while to answer, and when she did, it looked like the words actually hurt her to say them. “Sabine, you’re not thinking about doing anything, uh, dangerous?”