by Vivian Wood
Shrugging, I lay out the stuff for dinner. Tuna in the can, cheddar slices, and a package of Ritz crackers. It’s a little sad when I am presenting it to another person. To my surprise though Rachel doesn’t complain. She just grabs a cracker and some cheese, munching on it.
“Needs some wine,” she jokes. “What goes well with this? A chablis, maybe?”
My mouth curves upwards. “Oh, man. I left all the chablis back at the campsite. How stupid of me.”
She smiles at me, her mouth still full of crackers. I dig in, glad that the tension between us seems to have temporarily dissipated. She crawls out of her sleeping bag and puts her book down on top of it.
“What are you reading?” I ask.
Her cheeks immediately stain with color. “It’s… a romance novel.”
I chuckle. “One of those ones with Fabio on the cover?”
Her blush grows deeper.
“No. It’s a highlander and his foreign bride. It’s silly, but…” She shrugs and takes another cracker. “I just needed an escape from reality. These are great for that.”
“I can understand that.” I feel a weird need to put her at ease. “Maybe not Scottish brides, but… the other part, I get. That’s one of the reasons that I live out here in the woods.”
Her mouth pulls down into a slight frown. I realize my gaffe too late; I’ve never said a word to her about why I vanished, or my motivations for being here. Here I am, rubbing it in her face.
I stand up and peer outside. My shoulder aches from the weather. The rain has slowed to a steady drip-drip-drip and the skies are partly clear, allowing me to see the sunset. I clear my throat.
“Right up there we should be able to see Orion’s Belt as soon as the sun goes all the way down.”
Rachel stands up to see. “Yeah? How do you know?”
My brows furrows. “I think we are facing southeast. According to the farmer’s almanac, the stars that make up Orion’s Belt should be the brightest in the sky tonight.”
She cocks her head. I feel her gaze on me.
“How do you know what direction we are facing?”
I glance back at her. “Because. We are right by Lake Sutherland. I can calculate what direction we are facing by knowing where we are in relation to the lake.”
She looks thoughtful. “Most people don’t know where they are, much less what direction they are facing. I think that you must just be blessed.”
“Nah. The Navy trained me to be aware of it, and I can’t ever not be aware of it again.” I shrug.
She rolls her eyes. “I barely know what state I’m in.”
“Why don’t you use your compass then? It should help you get a better idea of where we are at.”
Rachel laughs. “If only I knew how to use one of those things…”
My eyebrows rise. “You don’t know how to use one?”
She ducks her head and blushes. “Well, when you say it like that…”
Striding over to my pack, I dig through it and pull out my compass. It’s attached to an old bronze necklace, engraved on the back with the initials R. G. T. I pass the whole thing over to Rachel, who takes the necklace in.
She turns it over. “R. G. T. Who is that?”
My whole body grows rigid. It stands for Robert Greaves Tillson, the great grandfather of my best friend in my old Navy unit. I don’t even have the words to tell her how much I don't want to talk about it, so I just brush the question off.
“Never mind,” I say, clearing my throat. “You’re supposed to be looking at the other side anyway.”
She shoots me a look, but thankfully she lets the matter drop. “Alright. Now what?”
“Well…” I sidle up to her, gently grabbing her hand and moving it back and forth. “See the two arrows? One moves, and one doesn’t. The one that doesn’t move is the orienting arrow. The one that moves is the magnetic arrow. It always points to true north.”
Her hand is cool under mine, but where we touch it feels like… there is an energy that sparks between us. Being this close to her makes me ache with the need to kiss her and hold her. I don't have to touch her to explain how a compass works, but it just seems natural to do so.
I haven’t felt the touch of a woman in so, so long. And she’s not just any woman…
She’s the only one that ever knew me, inside and out. And though I have a lot of misgivings about my past, I would never give up one second of our past together.
Never.
Rachel swallows, her throat working. She looks up at me, her brown eyes softening. “I see.”
Does she? It feels as though I’m translucent, as if she can see right through me and knows my thoughts.
Our shared history hangs in the air between us, unspoken of and yet very much still there. It makes me all the more angry at myself, at the past, just knowing that it’s still alive between us.
Her eyes drop to my mouth. She’s thinking about kissing me. God, how I want that. I lean my head down, she presses up on her tiptoes. Our lips brush. Suddenly all I can think about is taking her, right here and now, stripping her bare on this battered tarp.
I kiss her harder, feeling for a second as though I can reach through the past and find the Rachel that I knew once more.
She pulls away though. It takes a few seconds, but she seems to remember where she is. The look in her eyes says that she remembers exactly who she’s with, too.
She remembers and it causes her pain.
“Oh my god,” she gasps. “Oh, that was a mistake. I shouldn’t have—”
Of course. Of course it’s a mistake. I know that as well as she does. This is just one more thing in my collection of regrets, I guess.
“Sorry,” I say at the same time. “It’s just… I didn’t sleep well and—”
RRRRIPPP.
One corner of the tarp above our heads collapses, causing both of us to fly to the other side. In the chaos of her pulling our packs out of the reach of the rain and me trying to un-collapse the tarp, the moment between us is lost.
And I’m glad to have the distraction. She blushes her way through helping me fix the makeshift roof, but doesn’t say a single word about our kiss.
Which is just as well. Because I can’t think of anyone who would be less well-suited for a casual fling than Rachel. And I sure as hell am not interested in anything more.
Sure, I could see us starting something in the short time she’ll be here. But then I imagine it being torn away from me once more when she inevitably decides she’s had enough of roughing it in the woods.
And I just won’t put myself through that. I need to straighten my gaze and do a better job of looking forward. Soon she will be gone and I…
I will return to my humdrum life as a park ranger. Maybe I can even try to lead tour groups.
After we get it under control I lope out for a run under the stars. Pushing so hard I can barely breathe, I promise myself that when I get back I won’t let myself get thrown out of orbit by Rachel’s gravity again.
22
Grayson
I don’t know if it is falling asleep to the sounds of rain or what, but I dream of the mental hospital that night. The very first one they put me in when I got out of the regular VA hospital. The hospital and the staff are very grainy and gray, like the whole world is desaturated. Bleached of color. I’m on a lot of meds and I’m so alone. I’m also more fucked up than I can possibly comprehend.
I’ve gone from freaking out over every little thing to a curious numbness, which is so much worse. I know, but I can’t bring myself to care. Maybe that’s why the doctors put me on this cocktail of heavy medications.
If I don’t care enough to do anything, I won’t commit suicide.
I stand in the faded blue pajamas that they issue to everyone, looking out the window. The legs on my pajamas are several inches too short but I don't really care.
I don't care about anything right now, which is a sign that the doctors have me on enough medication. Or at least, the
voice that constantly roars about my fellow soldiers dying is now muted to a hum. Everything feels… numb.
The window is streaked with rain and everything outside is blurry because of it. I feel something wet on one of my cheeks. Touching it, I realize that my cheeks are streaked with tears. Why?
That’s just one more thing I don't know. A nurse touches me on the shoulder, nearly causing me to crawl out of my skin. I blink at her.
Her face morphs into the terrified face of Lieutenant Danvers. He steps closer, beseeching me. “Don’t go around the roadblock. Please…”
He bands his fingers around my arm, and shakes me. I notice that he is bleeding out of his nose and mouth.
I struggle to get away from him. “No!” I plead. “No, stop—”
I wake up screaming at the top of my lungs. Shaking, shivering, and damp from my own perspiration. It takes a few seconds and a few long breaths before I am fully conscious. Rachel is already kneeling at my side, her face pinched with worry.
Her voice is quiet. “Gray… are you okay?”
“Oh, fuck,” I say, sitting up and leaning my head on my knees. I can’t breathe. “God damnit.”
The trembling gets worse. I can’t see anything but the blood leaking from Danvers’s nose. I can still smell the tang of iron in the air. My cheeks are coated with my tears.
Closing my eyes, I listen to my heart as it pounds through my ears. Of course when I’m here with Rachel I have the worst nightmare I’ve had in ages. I tried not to fall asleep but there was no point, obviously.
I feel Rachel’s small hand on my back, stroking in soothing motions. It only makes me feel worse somehow but I don't say that. Instead I launch into my mantra.
“It is the fifth month, the month of May.” I whisper it to myself, tasting my tears. “It is the fourteenth day of the month, a Sunday. I’m currently in the Olympic National Park. My name is Grayson James Sellwood and I am okay.” I remind myself to breathe. “I am going to be okay.”
Rachel stays quiet, sitting and rubbing my back.
I exhale and try to make my mind perfectly blank. “It is the fifth month, the month of May. It is the fourteenth day of the month, a Sunday. I’m currently in the Olympic National Park. My name is Grayson James Sellwood. I am okay. I am going to be okay.”
Exhaling another shaky breath, I feel the knot in my stomach loosen just a bit. Wiping at my face, I open my eyes. I can’t even bring myself to look at Rachel. I’m so ashamed of coming apart in front of her.
I’m supposed to be this strong man, a Navy man. Instead here I am, a gibbering mess. I never intended for her to see any of this. This humiliates me.
I look at her for a second, then look away. I won’t meet her questioning gaze.
She keeps rubbing her hand over my back in little circles. “Let me know what I can do to help.”
A huff of humorless laughter leaves my lips. “If three stays in three different psych wards can’t help me, what is it exactly that you think you can do?”
Her mouth opens into an o. “What? Why? And…” She stops, flustered. “When?”
There is a burning sensation in the pit of my stomach. “It’s the reason that I was medically discharged from the Navy.”
She moves around me. I can almost see the gears turning behind her eyes.
“You didn’t tell me about it. When was this?”
I close my eyes again. “Five years ago. I… I don’t know how to even tell you about it. I’ve been keeping it inside for so long…” I gulp in the night air. “I still don’t want to tell you, even though I think I have to now. I just… I can’t stand for you to see me differently.”
Her breath leaves her in a rush. “Why were you in the hospital, Gray?”
My faces burns with the intense feeling of shame that nearly overwhelms me. How can I even start to tell her this story?
I draw in a shaking breath. “I was in an accident when I was abroad. Our Humvee was attacked and flipped upside down. Everyone else died except me.”
That moment, the moment where I realized that I was the only one left… It sears me on the inside, cauterizes my broken and bleeding wounds. My voice breaks but I push through the immense pain I feel.
The truth is killing me as surely as the sun rises and sets every single day. I have to get this out.
“My rotator cuff in my left shoulder was torn, but other than that...” I shake my head a little. “If I hadn’t been so cocky, we might not have been blown up.”
She squints. “What do you mean?”
“We were coming up to a roadblock. They’re pretty common out there in the desert. Anyway, we had to be somewhere. We were late. I looked at that roadblock coming up ahead and I thought…”
I take a deep breath.
“I thought about how late we were going to be, not about the security protocols for when we approached one of those roadblocks. I made the call to go around. It was too late by the time I realized that we were being attacked.”
She frowns. “Who attacked you?”
I shrug. “Hezbollah took credit for the attack, but I’m not sure that it was them. A lot of times they take credit for violent acts just to show that they are aggressive.”
Rachel sighs. “So… I’m just trying to understand. You don’t know if they attacked you for being in the US military or whether you provoked them by driving around the roadblock?”
I pause, hesitating. “That’s right.”
“And that is your fault why, again?”
“I made the call,” I say. “And I was the only one that survived.”
“Did you know that you would be attacked if you disregarded the roadblock?”
That gives me pause. “No.”
“Did you know that you would be the only one to survive if you were attacked?”
I shake my head slowly. “No.”
Rachel narrows her eyes on my face. When she speaks though, her tone is reassuring.
“I don’t understand what you feel you did wrong. And maybe I had to be there. But… it sounds like you lived through a tragedy and you’ve been struggling to make sense of it. Unfortunately, it also sounds like you took the wrong lesson from the loss of your unit.”
My eyebrows fly up. “There is a lesson I should have learned?”
Her face softens. “Yes. You should be glad that you survived. You should be doing what you can to honor the memories of the ones you lost.”
That hits me hard. I close my eyes. It seems like Rachel isn’t done, though.
“How did you end up in the hospital?” she asks.
I take my time in answering that one.
“You never get over an experience like that. I was struggling with the burden of the death of my unit… and I told Aiden that I wanted to die.”
When I open my eyes and look up, I see Rachel’s eyes filling with tears. “Oh, Grayson…”
It feels like hell, telling her this. But she might as well know what kind of coward she is spending time with.
“It didn’t stop. That feeling of welcoming death, that dragged on for almost three years. I was in and out of psych hospitals for almost twelve months.” I need to stop and take a deep breath. “I had to… I couldn’t come back and pretend like nothing happened, Rach. I didn’t know how. So I just didn’t come back at all.”
A tear breaks free and rolls down Rachel’s face. “How did you end up here?”
“Aiden. He was cut loose from the Navy a few months after I was discharged. He sought me out. He was…” I blow out a breath. “Persistent would be a nice word for it. He brought me out here, no questions asked. Got me a job doing what he was doing. If I had a bad day, he was right there, kicking my ass until I got up.”
Her face says that I’ve answered one question but she has a million more. She bites her bottom lip. “So… your family knew where you were?”
I drag my hands across my face, rolling my stiff shoulder a few times. “Olivia did after a year, yeah.”
Her mouth creas
es. “Why didn’t she tell me?”
“I didn’t want her to. I didn’t want anyone to know that I was back. I thought… I thought it would be best if I just made a clean break.”
I suck in a breath. “Actually… I saw you.”
She looks confused. “What do you mean you saw me?”
“Right after I got out of the psych ward for the final time. About a year after the accident. I went looking for you, and I saw you.” The last part comes out sounding broody, even to my ears. “You were with someone. Before I could reach you, he kissed you. And… I just couldn’t compete with that. I didn’t want to disrupt your life—”
She scrubs a hand through her amber hair. “I don’t mean to drag you, but… Grayson, what the fuck? What were you thinking?”
Growing irritable, I answer without thinking. “I felt like… like I wanted to die. So I let that person I was before slip away. Everything from my old life just fell to the wayside. It was the only way that I could go on, Rachel.”
She puffs out her cheeks, exhaling slowly. “Jesus, Gray.”
“Hey. This time, I didn’t go looking for you. You just showed up unannounced. I wasn’t exactly planning on you waltzing back into my life.”
She gives me a smile that doesn’t quite reach her eyes. “No. You’ve made that quite clear.”
Rachel stands up and goes to the edge of the tarp, looking out on the moonlit night. I feel… god, so many things, all at once.
Shame.
Guilt.
Anger.
Resistance.
Most of all, I just want to crawl somewhere dark and quiet and be alone with my thoughts. Rachel feels that too, I guess.
“The rain has stopped. I’m going to go for a walk.” She reaches for her boots.
“Rachel.”
She looks at me. “Yeah, Grayson?”
“I am sorry for disappearing on you five years ago. Hope you know that I regret it every fucking day.”
She pauses for a second. “Thanks. For what it’s worth, I’m sorry that you went through that.”
For a second, I can’t breathe. “Thanks.”
