by Joanna Bell
"Yes, I think so."
"Good. But I'm coming straight over after work, OK? Don't clean up, don't make dinner, just take a Xanax and wait for me to get there. Deal?"
"Deal," I whispered.
I spent the time before Jess arrived curled up in a ball on the sofa, my body rigid with anxiety and my mind filled with dread over the prospect of another panic attack. It's a testament to how serious the situation was that I even called her in the first place, and allowed her to come over. I've always been one of those people who prefers to be alone during difficult times – I actually go out of my way to hide it from the people who care about me when I'm having trouble.
Not that day – I couldn't handle it on my own.
"Here," Jess said, setting a small white box down on the coffee table in front of me when she arrived. "I got you a cupcake. I got myself one, too, but I already ate it in the car."
I laughed and opened the box, making sure to keep the cupcake out of Lulu's reach. "Thank you, Jess. Thanks for the cupcake, I mean, but thanks for coming over. I feel so awkward about this. I hate it, actually."
"I know you do. You're such a weirdo, Blaze. Whenever I have a bad day the only thing I want to do is tell Chris about it, or call my mom, or you. But you've been like this ever since I knew you – in fact I always know when something is up with you because you just disappear off the face of the earth."
I smiled guiltily. "Am I that obvious?"
"Yup. But so am I, so is everyone. You can't know someone well without noticing how they deal with stress. Did you take a Xanax?"
I shook my head. "No. I feel like, I don't know, like if I take one I'll be –"
"Giving in?"
"Yeah."
Jess shook her head. "I bet you don't even have any idea why this happened, do you? Is that what you told the doctor? That you didn't know?"
"But I don't know!" I replied defensively. "I don't!"
My friend winced, the way you do when something is obvious and someone else isn't getting it.
"Listen," I said, getting annoyed, "if you just came here to make fun of me –"
"I didn't come here to make fun of you!" Jessica told me. "Oh my God, Blaze! I came here because you're my best friend and I love you and I would never, ever make fun of you over something like this!"
"Then why are you making that face?"
She sighed heavily. "Because you are one of the dumbest smart people I know, Blaze Wilson. You didn't even have to answer my question about not knowing what caused this, because I knew you wouldn't make the connection. Not because you are dumb – and believe me, I have my blind spots too – but because I just know you. I knew you wouldn't see it."
"See what?!" I shouted, frustrated.
"Montana," Jess said quietly, taking one of my hands in hers and squeezing it tight. "The flood. I saw those scratches and bruises, Blaze. You told me about it, remember? You told me you thought you were going to die. Did you think you were just going to get over that? The way you get over a hangnail?"
"But... I didn't die," I replied, genuinely confused. "I'm fine. The bruises are almost all faded now, scratches all gone, not sore at all."
Jessica was still giving me that look, that why-is-this-incredibly-dense-person-not-understanding-what-I'm-saying look. But instead of saying anything further she just took out her phone, Googled a word I couldn't quite see her entering, and handed it to me. I looked down. It was the Wikipedia entry for PTSD. Post traumatic stress disorder. My mouth suddenly felt funny, like it wasn't sure if it was going to curl into a smile or wobble into tears.
"PTSD?" I finally said, only talking about it because I could tell Jessica was serious. "Jess, that's for people who have fought in wars. People who grew up in warzones."
"Not just them."
Jess's voice was quiet and gentle. Something about it was making me angry. "You don't have to talk to me like I'm stupid, by the way," I said. "Like you're my therapist or something. I know what PTSD is and, no offense, but I don't think you're on the right track with this."
"You're right," she replied, still using the exact same vocal inflection. "I'm not your therapist. I'm not a doctor. It's entirely possible you don't have PTSD. But you're wrong about it only happening to soldiers or victims of war, Blaze. People can get PTSD from being in car accidents. Any kind of incident where a person feels their life is at risk can cause it. And you didn't just feel like your life was at risk in that flood – it was."
I met Jess's eyes and saw nothing in them but concern. So why did I still feel so angry? "I don't want to talk about this!" I spluttered. "I – Jess – I don't want you to talk to me in that kindergarten-teacher tone of voice anymore."
She shrugged and took back her phone. "OK, we won't talk about it. I was just trying to help. Just like you would do if the roles were reversed. And you called me, remember? You called me, Blaze. That's what people do when they're in trouble, or when they're upset. They call their friends, they call the people who love them. I know you're not good at acknowledging your own emotions, but please don't snap at me because I'm trying to help you."
My very first instinct was to lose my temper. It was there in my chest, a white-hot flash of pure fury that seemed to come out of nowhere. That wasn't like me – none of this was like me. Jess wasn't wrong, I'm not the most emotional or feelings-oriented person in the world, but that kind of anger when it was obvious she was just trying to help didn't make any sense at all. So I ignored it.
"I know," I said, consciously trying to sound calmer than I felt. "I know. I'm sorry, Jess. I'm just a little freaked out by this whole thing. And I'm so worried that it's going to keep happening. I don't know if I can handle spending all my waking hours worried I'm going to lose it again. What if it happens at work, during a meeting? Or when I'm meeting with a client? Ugh, that would be so embarrassing."
"You have something for it now, right? The alprazolam?"
"No," I corrected her, "it's Xanax."
"They're the same thing, Blaze."
"How do you know that?" I asked, before it dawned on me. "Wait – do you take it, too?"
"Not very often," Jess replied. "Maybe five or six times a year. I find just having it in my purse makes me less likely to feel panicky in the first place, you know?"
I leaned back a little, dumbfounded. "Wait. You get these, too? Panic attacks? What? Why didn't you tell me?!"
Jess sighed. "Do you want the real answer to that question?"
I nodded. "Yes. Obviously."
"Well," Jess started, looked reluctant. "The real answer is because I know how you are about this kind of thing. You see it as a weakness or a – a character flaw. It's –"
"No I don't!" I cut in, horrified that my best friend would think I might look down on her for something like panic attacks. "Jess, that is just not true at all! How long has this been happening? When did –"
"I got the prescription during our sophomore year of college, but I'd been having them – panic attacks – since high school. And Jess, I know you wouldn't consciously think of me as weak or anything like that, but look at you right now – look how you're reacting to this whole thing. You think the people who know you don't see how much of your identity is wrapped up in being this super-competent, never-ruffled superwoman? And that's not me bashing you, either. We all have our 'things,' we all have parts of ourselves we strongly identify with or present to others as who we are."
Oh God, we were back to the armchair psychoanalysis. "But that is who I am," I replied. "What if I identify with it because that is just who I am? Like, you're the motherly, caring one and everyone knows it, everyone thinks of you that way. Matt was smart, that was his 'thing.'"
"But Matt wasn't smart," Jess laughed. "He just thought he was. Remember that stack of New Yorkers he used to keep on his coffee table? That everyone knew he didn't read? Oh my God. Why did you stay with him for so long? And that habit he had of just casually dropping Latin phrases into casual conversation? Ha!"
Never one to turn down a chance to slam my pretentious ex, and more than grateful for the change of subject, I joined in enthusiastically. "And that summer he spent in France between junior and senior year and started just 'accidentally' using French words when he came back? I was at Chipotle with him once and he ordered a 'burrito de poulet.'"
"Oh my GOD!" Jess yelled, covering her mouth in horror. "He did NOT do that! Did he do that?"
I nodded, giggling.
"A burrito de poulet?" Jess cackled, barely able to get the words out she was laughing so hard. "Burrito de poulet?! Ha ha ha!"
Just the sight of Jess cracking up made me start to do the same. I looked at her and nodded to the cupcake on the table. "Perhaps it's time for me to eat the rest of my cake-de-cup, what do you think? Wait. Can I work something Latin into that? Ipso facto it's time for me to eat the cake-de-cup?"
I barely got the words out before sliding off the sofa and collapsing into a giggling pile on the floor, wiping tears out of my eyes as Jess and I threw various Latin phrases and ridiculous, made-up French terms at each other."
"Quid pro quo," she spluttered, holding her stomach. "Quid pro quo we go to McDonald's right now and get some shakes de milk. I want berry-de-straw flavor!"
'Berry-de-straw' was it for me. I lost it completely, curling up into a ball, half-hysterical with laughter and half-crying because my stomach was beginning to hurt quite a lot.
It didn't end there, either. My best friend and I spent the next part of an hour rolling around on my living room floor, our faces red and wet with tears from laughing, imagining things my ridiculous ex would have said. It was the best possible kind of catharsis, and when we got to the point where we were able to glance at each other again without setting off fresh gales of giggles, I was as limp and spent and happy as a marathon runner at the end of a race.
"You certainly know how to pick 'em, Blaze." Jess said, when we could speak again. "Was that cowboy guy really pretentious and up his own ass, too? Because that seems to be your type."
The mention of Jack brought me back to reality. I wasn't upset anymore, because it's hard to be upset after laughing like that, but I did sober up a little, emotionally.
"I don't know," I replied, taking the question seriously. "Mostly he just seemed... hurt."
"Hurt? What do you mean? Like, something happened to him?"
"No, I mean by me. By what I told him. He seemed hurt. And angry."
"I guess that's not a surprise."
I rolled over onto my side – Jess and I were both on the floor by that point, with Lulu taking turns licking each of our faces. "Yeah, I guess it's not."
She didn't ask me any more questions about Jack. Nor did she push me any further on the question of PTSD and whether or not I had it. That night, though, after my friend was gone and I was lying alone in my darkened bedroom, the worry about the panic attacks came back. Maybe she was right? Maybe I had been more affected by getting caught in the flood than I thought?
It wasn't just worry I felt, either. It was loneliness. I suppose loneliness wasn't unfamiliar to me at that point in my life, it's just that I'd kind of gotten used to it. The conversation about my ex, Matt, and the brief mention of Jack had stirred things up, though. Things I didn't really want stirred up. Matt was ridiculous, in an annoying but mostly harmless way. We'd broken up after we graduated, after I decided I was going to stay on the east coast to do my Master of Finance and he went to California, like we'd planned to do together.
Pretentious or not, though, Matt had still been a warm presence in my bed, a comforting shoulder to cry on (although I didn't really cry in front of him, ever), a person to talk to over bowls of cereal in the morning. I didn't have that any more. I didn't really miss it, either. Except when something – or someone – prompted me to. Someone like Jack McMurtry. There was something about him. Even in the very brief and fraught time we spent together, there was a spark. Not just of attraction, although I can't deny that was there, but of like-mindedness, maybe. That feeling of meeting someone and just being at ease with them. I didn't feel that with too many people.
I blinked away a few tears and told myself to grow up. It is what it is. That phrase is a bit of a mantra to me. It is what it is. He's a cowboy in Montana and you're an IRS agent in Washington, D.C. Even if you hadn't showed up at his house and told him the IRS was taking his family's legacy, it could never have worked out.
I rolled over and forced all thoughts of Jack and Montana and PTSD out of my mind, falling asleep soon after.
Chapter Nine
Jack
I woke up disoriented and looked out the window. The sun was setting. The sun was setting! Shit! The Moileds! I sat up on the sofa and grabbed my boots, pulling them on clumsily and then stopping when I stood up and the bile rose in my throat. Was I going to puke?
No. I forced the grim nausea back down and made my way into the kitchen. Empty beer cans and pizza boxes littered the countertop. On the kitchen table sat a half-full bottle of Jameson. I scared the hell out of myself for half a second wondering if old Blackjack had returned from the dead to torment me – Jameson was always his tipple of choice.
A hazy memory came back to me as I made my way down to the barn. The previous night, the Little Falls Saloon. Did I steal that bottle of Jameson from the Saloon? I tried to remember. There had been some kind of altercation, a shouting match in the parking lot. Jimmy Lewison from high school getting his back up when he thought I was going to take Kayla Landers home.
Kayla Landers. Damn. She'd been trying to get into my pants for weeks. Had she succeeded? My head was throbbing and my stomach was sour, and for the life of me I could not remember a damn thing about Kayla Landers and the previous night. I didn't suppose I had taken her back to Sweetgrass Ranch, though, because if I had she would have been around, hanging off me, laughing at all the dumb shit that came of out of my mouth like she always did.
The cows were restless with hunger, eying me reproachfully. By the time I'd hauled the hay into each of their stalls, I was out of breath. I sat down on the stack of hay bales just inside the door to catch my breath and my phone rang.
"Hello?" I mumbled, not bothering to check who it was.
"Jack?"
"Uh-huh."
"It's DeeDee."
"OK."
"You sound like shit."
I coughed. "That's a funny coincidence, because I feel like shit, too."
"Are you alright? Don't get mad at me for asking, Jack, but you were pretty out of it last night. You're lucky I didn't call the police. I would have, if it was anyone but you."
The police? What was DeeDee talking about? A few more memories suddenly popped into my mind. A fight. With Jimmy Lewison – it hadn't just been a shouting match.
"Oh shit," I groaned, remembering just enough to know it had been bad.
"'Oh shit' is right," DeeDee replied, sounding exasperated. "How long do you think this is going to go on for, Jack? I'm starting to feel guilty for serving you. Like, is this a phase you're going to grow out of soon or am I just enabling someone into alcoholism right now?"
The word 'alcoholism' was like a sharp slap across the face. Old Blackjack was an alcoholic. My father was probably an alcoholic. Nobody ever said it – well, apparently my mother said it a few times, before she died – but it's not like we all didn't know. So to hear DeeDee use that word in reference to me was a rude awakening.
"I'm not an alcoholic!" I told her. "I'm not drinking all day every day, I'm still getting everything done."
"Are you, Jack?"
I looked down the row of stalls, at the cows with their heads buried in the hay. "Yes," I replied. "I am." I didn't bother to add the 'just barely' on the end of that response.
"Because Alice Medd said her husband found one of your steers dead up in the foothills two days ago."
"What?" I asked, sitting up quickly.
"Yeah," DeeDee said quietly, obviously worried that I was going to take what she was saying as some kind of acc
usation. Which by all rights it should have been. "Said it got its leg tangled in some brush down by Parson's Creek and looked like it drowned when it couldn't get out."
I closed my eyes tightly as a feeling of shame settled down over my battered psyche. "Was he sure it was one of mine?"
"Uh, yeah. Had the 'MS' brand so, it, uh, it must have been."
'MS' stood for 'McMurtry Sweetgrass.' The branding irons hanging up outside the barn were the originals, forged in the 1800s when Sweetgrass Ranch first came into existence. One of the steers had been lost. And it was my fault. I couldn't even remember the last time I'd been out to check on them.
A sad silence settled over my conversation with DeeDee. I didn't know what to say. Even if I was going to lose the Ranch, I didn't want it to be like that. I wanted to go out with some kind of honor.
"I know this is hard for you," DeeDee said eventually. "Have you talked to anyone yet? A Lawyer? Sheriff Randall? The Sheriff and Blackjack were thick as thieves, he might have some – I don't know, some advice or information or something?"
"You didn't say anything, did you?" I asked. "To Sheriff Randall, I mean? I want to handle this my own way, DeeDee, I –"
"I didn't say a thing, Jack. I know you want to handle this."
I didn't know why DeeDee was being so nice to me, but I reckoned it had something to do with me being nice to her back when my brother treated her like dirt in high school. She had her head on straight, and she was prone to giving helpful advice rather than lectures.
"This is pretty bad," I said. "Thank you giving a shit, DeeDee."
"Of course I give a shit," she responded. "I've known your family since I was a little girl, the McMurtrys are part of this town – and I reckon you're the best of the bunch."
"You don't have to –" I started, but she didn't let me finish.
"I'm not just saying it, though, Jack. You are the best of the bunch. I'm not under any illusions about Blackjack, OK? Not like the rest of this town. I saw him yelling at your grandmother once, outside the grocery store. And not in a normal husband and wife kind of way, either."
