by L. A. Witt
Wait, what?
I shook myself and gripped the wheel tighter. What the fuck was I thinking? I was not getting drunk. No. Not happening. Not tonight. Not any night. I hadn’t even craved it in so long that the casual thoughts of hunting down some booze were alien. And yet . . . not. There was comfort in a bottle, and—
No, Logan. Can’t go back down that road. Not again.
But I wanted to. God, I wanted to.
I forced myself not to, though. Instead of hunting down some late-night booze, I concentrated on driving until I reached Anchor Point’s famous pier. I parked, killed the engine, and stared out at the deep black void where the ocean would be when the sun came up.
And my mind went right back to liquor.
I closed my eyes and exhaled. The temptation to go find something alcoholic was almost unbearable. It was painful, the need to deep-throat a forty until nothing hurt anymore.
No.
Damn it, no.
I’d been dry for way too long—I hadn’t even wanted to drink—and I needed to stay that way.
Fuck you, Casey.
Instantly, I felt guilty. It wasn’t his fault. Except it was. And it wasn’t. And . . . I didn’t even need to drink because my thoughts were so jumbled and fucked up, I might as well have already been drunk.
Because I was flailing and alone and still shaky from that nightmare and . . . he had to kick me out now, didn’t he?
I rubbed my eyes. Okay, I’d put my foot in my mouth. But didn’t he understand? He thought he got it, but he didn’t. He didn’t even know the half of it. Yeah, washing out of BUD/S with a broken leg sucked, and I felt for him, but didn’t he understand all the hell he wasn’t going to experience now? Of course he didn’t. Nobody did if they hadn’t been there and seen it, heard it, felt it, smelled it, tasted it firsthand.
Didn’t he get that every time I woke up to him after one of those nightmares, I saw him in those war zones?
I closed my eyes and rubbed the back of my neck. When had I started sweating again? And why was I shaking?
Because I’d been there tonight. I’d been there, and instead of calming down and getting it out of my head so I could go back to sleep, I’d fought with Casey and wound up here.
I could do this. All I had to do was ride it out. It would suck, but I could do it.
It occurred to me then that I’d left one of my sketchbooks in the car. Hadn’t I? I reached behind the seat and felt around, and sure enough—there it was. The sun was still down, so my dome light would have to do. If the lines and shadows weren’t perfect . . . oh fucking well. And even if it wasn’t the right book . . . whatever. I needed my other sketchbook—the one I only brought out when my mind was really, really dark—but this was all I had right now.
And besides, there was an unfinished sketch in the black book. I hadn’t been able to open that book since I’d last worked in it. I’d seriously considered buying another one even though I hated starting a new sketchbook while the other still had blank pages. But opening that book meant seeing that drawing, and I—
Froze.
The pencil stopped.
In my mind’s eye, I could see the drawing I’d left unfinished in the black sketchbook. I could fucking feel it—everything that had torn through me while I’d frantically committed those lines to paper. Just thinking about the image almost sent me back to the nightmare that had woken me up tonight, and I forced myself to take long, deep breaths. Anything to stave off an actual flashback.
Hand shaking, I started drawing again. I had to get this out of my head, and I had to do it here, in the car and in this sketchbook, because Casey had thrown me out.
And didn’t he have every right?
Fuck. Yeah. He had.
Because hadn’t I been devastated when I’d realized I couldn’t reenlist? The Corps would’ve taken me, but I hadn’t been able to sign the paper. Not after everything I’d been through. Surrendering my ID card for the last time had nearly broken me. I wasn’t a Marine anymore. They say that once you’re a Marine, you’re always a Marine, but walking away a civilian, I hadn’t felt like a Marine. I’d felt like a failure. Someone who couldn’t crack it. Someone who didn’t deserve to be among the few and the proud.
It had been the best thing. Going back for another round in the Sandbox would have killed me. If a bullet or an IED hadn’t taken me out, I’d have finished myself off after I’d come back stateside. An honorable discharge after eight years was the best possible outcome at that point.
But it had still hurt. I’d been fucking proud to be a Marine. I’d loved working alongside my brothers and sisters out there. The fact that I couldn’t cope with burying another one of them or spend even one more night taking fire from faceless darkness didn’t change how hard it was to leave that world behind.
If anyone understood why Casey was hurting so bad after losing his shot at becoming a SEAL, it was me, and what had I done? Thrown it in his face. Tried to make him see the silver lining around that empty space where the gold trident should have been.
How could he throw me out tonight?
Because I deserved it.
My heart dropped into my queasy stomach. As much as I wanted to be angry and confused because that was easier than admitting I’d fucked up, the fact was that I’d, well, fucked up. The more the dream faded and my mind cleared—sort of—the harder it was to be mad at him. My anger started shifting toward myself as things started to make sense.
Whether I wanted to or not, I got why he was pissed. I’d woken him up in the middle of the night, punched him in the metaphorical dick, and had the brass balls to be surprised when he threw me out. Just because I’d been rattled hadn’t given me the right to throw his own pain in his face to make myself feel better. Again.
Drinking myself senseless was sounding better and better, if only to quell the guilt. It was the one thing that sounded good, but I reminded myself over and over it wouldn’t do anything except make the situation worse.
Except . . . could it get any worse? Yeah, I might add a hangover and some puking to the mix, but at the end of the day, Casey was done with me. I’d hurt him, he’d kicked me out, and that was it.
Aside from the part where we still had to work together.
And the part where I still wanted him.
Where I still loved him.
I squeezed my eyes shut. Oh fuck.
I did, didn’t I? I loved him. That was why it hurt so bad to think about him in a war zone. Why telling him he’d dodged a bullet hadn’t seemed like a slap in the face because in my mind, I’d heard what I was really saying:
The thought of you in the line of fire scares me so bad I can’t breathe.
If anything ever happens to you . . .
I just want you to be safe.
My eyes burned and I swiped at them. I needed to explain this to him. All of it.
How, though?
Sighing, I looked at the deserted pier stretched out in front of me. The sun was starting to light up the aging wood and the tree-covered hills in the rearview. As daylight melted away the dark of the night, my composure melted away too. I closed my stinging, tired eyes and rubbed my forehead as a few tears slid down my face. God, I’d been such an ass to Casey. But how was I supposed to undo it? How did I even start explaining it to him?
Talk to him. Tell him.
No. Don’t just tell him—show him.
Without a second thought, I tossed the sketchbook and pencil on the passenger seat, threw the car in reverse, and headed back to my apartment.
In my kitchen, I pulled the black sketchbook off the stack and flipped to the last drawing. Instantly, my stomach was sick. Well, sicker.
Would Casey understand if I showed this to him? I’d always been better at putting things on paper like this than I’d ever been at saying them out loud, and I was pretty sure anything I said would only make things worse.
I thumbed the corner of the drawing. Maybe this would make it worse too. Or maybe it would say what I
couldn’t.
There was no telling if Casey would hear me out and understand what I was trying to say, but I had to try. I needed to make this right. I couldn’t do a damned thing about my past, and I couldn’t change what had happened to him during BUD/S, but maybe there was still a shot at fixing us. Except when had that ever been my forte?
I stared out at the ocean. This was the point where my relationships had all fallen apart in the past. When things had gone south and I’d managed to fubar any attempt at fixing them. Most of the time I’d been drunk. I was sober now, but even that didn’t seem to help because I still had no idea how to do this without somehow making it worse.
Maybe I needed a little advice.
So I speed-dialed my therapist’s voice mail.
“Hey, it’s Logan. If you’ve got space this morning, is there any chance you could get me in? Give me a call. Thanks.”
Then I hung up, and hoped like hell she’d call.
I’d fucked up.
Holy shit—I’d fucked up.
At the time, flipping out at Logan had made sense, but now that I’d had a chance to catch my breath, sleep a little, and clear my head . . . Yeah, I’d seriously fucked up.
And now Logan wouldn’t return my texts or answer my calls. What if he’d gone out drinking? Or crashed his car because he was drunk or just fucked up from the flashback? Or both? In a moment of early-morning panic, I even called Coastal General to see if he’d checked in, but no dice. Which was good, but still left me wondering if he was all right.
So I went out driving. He wasn’t at his apartment. He wasn’t at work. He wasn’t at any of the bars around town. None of the ones I knew of, anyway. Shit. Where the hell was he? If he didn’t want to talk to me, fine, but for God’s sake, I needed to know he was okay.
Please tell me I didn’t send you out to get fucked up or killed.
Eventually, I had to give up searching and get my ass to work. I might’ve called Diego and made some excuse about needing to be late, but since Logan and I worked together, going into the office made sense. If he came in, then I’d know he was okay. If he didn’t . . .
I wasn’t going to think about that. Not now.
So, once I shaved, put on my uniform, and poured some coffee down my throat, I drove back to the base.
Logan’s car still wasn’t in the parking lot.
Oh no.
Oh, no, no, no . . .
Maybe he’d gone to another building to teach a class. Or run to the food court to get some breakfast.
Or maybe he wasn’t here. At all. Because something bad had happened. Because of me.
I hurried to the door, punched my code into the cipher lock, and took the stairs as fast as my stupid leg could handle. By the time I reached the top, my leg was throbbing like crazy, enough to make my eyes water with every step, but that was why God had given us Motrin. I could deal.
When I walked—well, limped—into the office, Logan’s cube was empty. There was no sign he’d been here today at all. His computer was off. His chair was still tucked in. Nothing had moved.
I spun around and faced Sarah. “Where’s Logan?” My voice shook with the panic that had been coursing through me since before the sun had come up.
Sarah eyed me like I’d lost my mind. “He’ll be in late. Called and said he had an appointment or something.” She cocked her head. “Why? You think he got abducted by aliens or something?”
“No. No.” I shook my head, trying to hide how insanely relieved I was that someone had heard from him. “Just . . . hadn’t heard . . .”
“Honey, relax.” She winked at me. “You can go a few hours without hearing from your man. Don’t worry.”
I forced a smile. “Yeah, I know. Just . . .” There was no point in even trying to make excuses, so I didn’t bother.
Logan had called in, so at least that meant he hadn’t gotten himself killed. That wasn’t enough to quiet my conscience, though. I needed to do something.
Except how? I could apologize until I was blue in the face for throwing him out last night, but how could I assure him something like that wouldn’t happen again? How could I assure myself I wouldn’t fly off the handle like that again? I couldn’t even figure out why I’d gone so fucking batshit over it in the first place.
Maybe I needed some advice.
I chewed my lip, then said to Sarah, “My first class isn’t until 1100. I’ll be back in a few.”
She didn’t question me, and I left the office, leg aching miserably as I headed back down the hall. I probably should have taken a Motrin, but that could wait until I’d done something about everything inside my head.
My stomach roiling with guilt and my heart pounding with nerves, I tapped on the doorframe of Commander Fraser’s office. “Do you have a minute, sir?”
He looked up from his computer screen and nodded. “Sure, GM2. Come on in.” As I did, he added, “What can I do for you?”
“I . . .” I toed the door shut behind me before taking a seat in front of his desk. “Look, I know you don’t know me from Adam, sir, but I need to talk about something off the record. Something personal.”
Fraser studied me. “Logan?”
I flinched. “Yes, sir.”
“Let’s kill the formalities for a bit.” He waved his hand. “We’re just a couple of guys talking, all right?”
That relaxed me a little, but not much.
Fraser’s eyebrows rose. “So what happened?”
I inhaled slowly through my nose, and then told him everything.
When I was done, Fraser whistled quietly and sat back. “Shit.”
“Yeah. And I guess . . . now I’m terrified to talk to him about it because I’m afraid I’ll make it worse somehow. Because I’m not even sure how to explain it, you know?”
Fraser inclined his head a little. “Which part? You lost your shit at him after he had a flashback, and you realized you were wrong.” He shrugged. “Seems pretty straightforward to me.” There was a faint note of irritation in his voice, like he couldn’t believe I was this dense.
Yeah, join the club.
“It’s not just that. It’s . . .” I struggled to find the words. “The thing is, with most people, I get annoyed when they do the whole ‘you dodged a bullet’ thing. I know they mean well, and I just kind of grit my teeth and try not to let it get under my skin. But with Logan, it pisses me off. And it shouldn’t—not like that—but it does and I . . . I don’t know how to explain that to him because I don’t understand it myself.”
Fraser was quiet for a moment, pressing his elbow into the armrest and idly stroking his jaw as he stared at the desk between us. “Have you had anyone else with combat experience tell you that you should be glad you didn’t become a SEAL?”
I thought about it for a moment. “I’m not even sure. Some people are just other Sailors, so I don’t know what kind of experience they’ve had.”
“But you know Logan’s been to combat.”
I nodded.
“Did it bother you this much the first time he made a comment about it? When you’d just met him?”
“No. It was the same as everyone else. But after we’d been seeing each other for a while, and especially after I’d seen what the PTSD does to him, it was like . . .” I sighed. “I guess part of it was from watching him have one of those nightmares, and I started thinking, ‘Fuck, how does someone live like that,’ you know?”
Fraser flinched subtly. “It’s a tough thing to watch. My husband and I both have it, so I get it.”
“And I don’t,” I said quietly. “Because I’ve never been to combat.” I swallowed. “Because I dodged that bullet.”
The commander nodded slowly, eyes locked on mine. His expression was chilly, and I wondered if our uniforms were the only thing keeping him from letting me know how he really felt about what I’d done to Logan. After a moment, though, his features softened, as did his tone. “I think I might understand why you lashed out at him so hard.”
I
sat up. “Yeah?”
“Well, from everything you just told me, becoming a SEAL was pretty much the core of your identity all your life, and that was taken away from you. Ever since, you’ve been trying to figure out who you are now.” He paused, tilting his head a little and staring at me as if he were reading the words off my forehead. “And maybe when Logan’s PTSD episodes make you wonder if you could live like that, they’re actually making you question whether you really could have been a SEAL.”
I blinked, struggling to take in the words despite the fact that they made perfect sense.
“So maybe . . .” Fraser sat up, folding his hands on the desk. “You resent Logan for holding up a mirror to something you’ve been trying to avoid seeing.”
“I . . .” Couldn’t argue. At all. He was . . . Christ, now that he’d said it out loud, I felt like an idiot for not putting the pieces together myself. Exhaling hard, I dropped back against the chair. “Fuck.”
He was quiet for a moment. “Does all that make sense?”
“Oh yeah,” I said. “It makes a lot of sense. But . . . what do I do now? To fix this shit with Logan? I mean”—I winced—“I booted him out in the middle of the night after he’d had a flashback.”
Some brief tightness in Fraser’s features suggested—again—that he was holding back a comment about exactly how much of a dick I’d been, but when he spoke again, he was gentle. “All you can do is talk to him.”
“No shit.” I squirmed in the chair.
“No one said it would be easy.” Fraser paused. “And even after you talk to him, you guys have to figure out a way to strike a balance. He’s got his shit to deal with, and you’ve got yours. If you’re not careful, something like this is going to happen again.”
“How do we do that?”
“Can’t really tell you,” he said with a shrug. “That’s for you guys to work out.”
Which sounded so simple, and yet it was so fucking daunting.
My stomach threatened to kick back my coffee. God, I really had been such a dick to Logan. If he wasn’t interested in my reasons or my apologies, I didn’t think I could blame him. I exhaled. “You’re right. Assuming he’ll even hear me out, I guess we’ll . . . we’ll have to figure out . . .” I waved a hand and sighed heavily. “I’ll figure it out. One way or another. Thanks for the advice.”
