All I Have Left

by Shey Stahl

  “I need to know, Grayson.” I said softly rubbing his back. “For us to be together, I need to know what you went through.”

  He rolled over to his back and stared at the ceiling, his left hand still on my bare thigh. When I looked at him, his eyes filled with so much emotion I never thought I’d find the end of it. It was hard to read. He sat up, running his hands over his face, groaning. He was torn as he sat on the edge of his bed, his eyes guarded and tortured with fear.

  He looked back at me like he wanted to say it, say something, and I waited but nothing came.

  He swallowed, shaking, his eyes sad.

  Then something flickered in his eyes. He blinked and it was gone.

  That’s when he finally opened up to me.

  He moved to sit beside me on the bed, facing me. “After I left, I was stationed in New Mexico. It was rather quiet there. We mostly just ran training drills and what not. Time seemed to go on agonizingly slow. I never stopped thinking of you, not for one moment.” He touched my cheek with his calloused fingertips, and then pulled away. “My training in the Army was in Special Forces, specifically in Counter-Terrorism. In November of 2001, my team was shipped to Iraq on a mission. Me and another guy, Matt, were out one afternoon a couple weeks after we got there on clean up as we called it. It’s just combat search and rescue. We would go out and look for other soldiers who hadn’t returned to the base. About an hour into it, we came across a deserted town about twenty miles from the base,” he stopped, and looked away.

  I knew it was going to hurt to know how much he suffered. To know he could have died over there and I would have never seen him again.

  “It was a set-up from the beginning” he muttered uneasily. “To make a long story short we came under attack and were captured. Matt and I were stuck down in an underground bunker.”

  “What did they do?” I was oblivious to a lot of things that went on after 9/11. I was scared to know how bad it was.

  That fall, after Grayson left, was when 9/11 happened…living in Pinckard, Alabama, we were sheltered from the battles being fought half way around the world. All I knew was that was I missing Grayson more and more every day.

  I remember 9/11 like it was yesterday though. I remember the day they sent in our troops too. I remembered thinking of Grayson and wondering where he was and praying for his safety.

  Was he alive? Would he make it?

  To know the truth, to know he was suffering it was harder than I imagined. I had no idea that after war, this is what’s left of a person.

  “They kept us alive, but only enough so they could torture us for information—information we didn’t have. After the first few days, we started to feel like we were never going to get out of there. Days would pass when we wouldn’t see anyone. But we heard them. I started to think we were going to die in that place. Every night I would lay awake and hear the sounds of bombs going off accompanied by constant machine gun fire. I was in hell. Right in the middle of it, the worst place on Earth fighting someone else’s battle, in a fucking hole in the ground, left to die,” he paused, seeming to struggle for a moment, his voice starting to shake. “I told myself that if I ever got out of there alive I would come home to tell you how I felt.” He paused for a long moment, seeming to know what he was about to say next would be difficult. “And never let you go.”

  “How did you get out of there?”

  He bowed his head, the weight of his admittance heavy, maybe too heavy. “They started to get hostile when we had no information so they began torturing us.”

  All those scars finally made sense. I ran my hands over the gun shot over his shoulder, he let me this time and then reached for my hand to hold it in his, a hand three months ago I thought I’d never get to hold again.

  “When we didn’t tell them anything they threatened to kill us. Matt was desperate and wanted to lie to them and tell them something but we had nothing—we didn’t even know why we were there and the Army kept it that way in case something like that happened, our mission was to protect the mission. We were search and rescue. We didn’t know shit. I’m not even sure how long we’d been there but one night they led us to a field where a group of men were. They had baseball bats in their hands.”

  I could feel his reluctance to continue. It meant telling me details he never thought he could share with anyone.

  I flinched at the thought of what he was about to tell me. I knew exactly where it was going. A rush of memories from Shane flooded back, overwhelming and made me feel like I was going to die from the pain. It shot through me, cold and hot at the same time, pricking my skin.

  “They were done playing games,” he shook his head, taking another deep breath, his shaking taking over. “They forced me watch as they beat Matt to death with a bat…and he screamed until he couldn’t scream anymore for me to make them stop.”

  Oh God, I…I couldn’t even imagine what he must have felt…the complete and utter helplessness, and then to see me…

  “Watch me fuck her against your truck.”

  I saw the reaction he was reminded of the day, both days right then. I see it. It was written in his eyes, written in both our eyes.

  He could barely get the next part out. “I couldn’t do anything, they had me tied up, all I could do was scream and beg them to stop. But they didn’t. They shot me four times and threw me on the ground next to his body. I was out there, for what seemed like days or even weeks, I don’t even know.” He looked down, his eyes breaking from mine as tears fell. “The next thing I remember I was in a hospital back in New Mexico and my commanding officer told me I was being honorably discharged.”

  “How did you…what made you come back here?”

  “It’s all I have left. I wanted to see you.”

  “I’m so sorry, Grayson,” I cried into his chest. His arms wrapped around me, pressing me into him.

  “He was only nineteen years old, Evie. Nineteen.” His voice and tone was one of annoyance, but also regret, his lips pressed to my neck, just once. “He had a wife and a little boy back at home in Texas. That little boy will never see his dad again, his wife will never see her husband and the father of her child again and here I am alive, getting a second chance, or a third chance to do it right,” his voice cracked, and then he cleared his voice.

  Drawing back, he stared at me, his hands on my shoulders and I took a fleeting moment to really look at him as I tried to steady my heart rate. He looked awful. His hair had started to grow back but the scar on the side of his head was a reminder that would never go away. What was worse was that emotional scar was more powerful than any physical scar. It was a scar that split his chest in two.

  Trying to control myself, I wanted to vomit, or breakdown and cry on floor…cry for everything, for what he’d suffered, for what he’d lost, for what we’d lost, for what wasn’t able to be forgotten. Everything that I was after hearing that.

  I got him to lay down on the bed and I held Grayson tightly, kissing his shoulders, his cheeks, his forehead, everything I could but never his lips.

  We lost more of ourselves that night than we wanted to admit. Or maybe ever would admit.

  “Don’t…don’t leave me…please…I can’t,” he couldn’t speak, just held me tightly, almost too tight. “Without you…I can’t.” He wrapped his arms around me and we didn’t move for the longest gut wrenching moment, maybe even hours. Strong arms held me in place, welded together, shaking for different reasons, breathing for the same, numbness for the same.

  “I can’t do this without you. I fucking tried. I can’t. I’m sorry I let them touch you like that...I’m so fucking sorry!” his body couldn’t take much more of this. Not only was he still healing physically, but the emotional damage was breaking him apart. Soon there’d be nothing left.

  “Shhh…I’m not going anywhere,” I assured him. “But we need help. We need to talk to someone about this.” He knew what I was referring to. “If every time you kiss or touch me, you think of what Shane did, we need h
elp or this isn’t going to work.”

  “Okay…okay…” and then the tears coming from him were a little more than I’d seen in a while. “You’re all I have left,” he cried against my skin, tears soaking me, and he was right, in some ways, in his emotionally shattered heart, I am all he has left.

  There’s a spot on Dean Church Road I’ll never forget. A spot on that road that turns off onto an old country dirt road. It’s overgrown with trees and so well tucked away you wouldn’t even know it’s there.

  But it’s there.

  And I’ll never drive by it again and not see my life for what it is right now. I was mad as hell, angry at the world, myself, Grayson, Shane, everyone.

  There’s things in this world you’ll never forget. Things that happen to you that can’t be taken back. It’s a scar, a permanent reminder.

  That road is a scar for me.

  I’m still mad at the world that I couldn’t see it coming.

  I’m still mad at myself that I let it.

  I’m still mad at Grayson for leaving, and coming back.

  I’m still mad at my mom for letting me think that putting up with abuse was ever acceptable.

  I’m still mad at my brother for not intervening when he knew what Shane was doing to me.

  I’m still mad at my friends who suspected and did nothing.

  I’m still just mad and I’m not sure when that feeling will subside, or if it ever will.

  It has to or Shane wins.

  September 2004

  We all make stupid mistakes from time to time.

  Most therapists will tell you that the power to change your situation is all on you.

  But how do we forget?

  It’s not easy.

  For a while I thought it impossible. Hell, I believed it was impossible.

  Though the events of that day with Evie are fuzzy, I remember bits and pieces and not the ones I wanted to remember.

  I remember them raping her. It’s a vivid memory and far worse than I ever imagined it would be. It was so bad I couldn’t have sex with her because anytime we tried, I was reliving watching that event.

  It took us ten months after that day to finally have sex and me not to have a panic attack. Liquor lit to control myself, we had some of the best sex we’ve ever had. Given it was only our third time, but still, it was fucking good.

  Regardless, Evie and I had to base our relationship on something else besides physical contact. I couldn’t use it as a bandage to avoid my real problems, something I was doing whether I wanted to admit that or not.

  I see a doctor once a week. He’s fucking crazy if you ask me but maybe it’s helping. Evie sees him too and once a week we see him together.

  That helps. It has to. Anything is better than nothing.

  When something like this happens to you, all of us seem to ask the same questions.

  They start with, who am I? What’s the meaning of this? Why is there so much pain? Why am I afraid?

  And then finally, how can I let go?

  It’s almost like those stages of grief. Well, actually, it’s exactly like that.

  We don’t want to feel, but then again, we want to feel. Just not what we’re feeling right then. When that happens, you turn to something. Liquor, drugs, sex, you name it. The problem is, it’s a distraction. A moment where you feel better and you could escape.

  Those first few days when Evie and I got together, we had control over our situation because we were feeling something other than what we had been for so long, both for different reasons. The problem was we didn’t see that we had some real problems before it was too late.

  I thought if I came back, she could fix me. The problem was no one can fix you but yourself.

  I didn’t want this to be our life, my life. We moved on because we needed to, not because we wanted to. If you want to change, you have to do it for yourself and no one else.

  I changed for me, but also Evie.

  I felt guilty about what happened to Matt. I still do. But I no longer blame myself. I didn’t kill him. They did.

  I felt for a while I needed to protect him. I was older, but I couldn’t. I had to accept that I couldn’t control that.

  You’re probably thinking, who is this guy?

  I asked myself that a lot too. It didn’t mean that I didn’t have problems. I still wanted revenge on Shane. I would willingly go to jail for the rest of my life if it meant he suffered and slow painful death.

  I went a little crazy when I got out of the hospital. Destroyed my truck and burned it to the ground. Screamed, took my aggression out on a punching bag. Ran. Anything I could do to let off steam.

  Evie and I talked but after a while, we had to stop. We couldn’t get past it if we kept bringing it up. We needed closure.

  We also had something in common. We wanted the visions to go away. We wanted our memories of that horrific day gone.

  The problem is, the mind is a funny thing and won’t let you. You can get counseling and what doctors call healing but it never fully goes away. No matter what you do the memories will stay with you forever. I knew exactly what she was feeling. For the longest time I’d been haunted with the vision of Matt lying beside me, motionless, caked in blood from his beating and I wanted the vision gone, erased.

  Evie now had that very same memory of me.

  We both finally accepted the fact that it wasn’t going to happen and we just needed to move on and find peace with it all but it’s still a constant battle with for the both of us not to let the memories consume us.

  It made us stronger. I will say that. We went through hell and back again.

  Shane and his friends were all charged with attempted murder, assault, and rape. Shane was sentenced to twenty years, his friends were sentenced to ten. It was nowhere near enough in my eyes but at least they were held accountable for their actions.

  Twenty years was a fucking slap in the face for what they did to us.

  If I ever see any of them again I can’t guarantee I wouldn’t kill one of them, just saying. The trial did not go well. I had to pay $5,000 in damages to the court room while Shane spent the night in the hospital before heading off to jail, that part was worth the money to me. They tried to stick me, and Ethan with assault but we had a good lawyer thanks to Aiden and his connections with Jameson, whose lawyer was a fucking badass.

  What wasn’t worth it was watching Evie toss and turn throughout the night, it was excruciating. There were times when I thought I was at my wit’s end when she would let out a strangled scream for them to stop. It took everything in my power not to find him again and kill him this time. I knew what was happening, she was remembering. I knew because I’d been there before.

  And then I broke. I fucking broke into a million tiny pieces right before her eyes.

  I thought I was okay but it was apparent that I wasn’t.

  It’s been over a year since that day. And unfortunately, I still thought about it. Some things are just unforgettable.

  I found Evie in our bedroom that morning before I left for work.

  “Don’t be late tonight,” I said to her, kissing her forehead as she searched through garbage bags for a pair of gloves. She was working outside today, with my mother of all people, getting ready to work on our backyard. Evie didn’t work anymore and I wouldn’t have it any other way. I felt better knowing she could relax and do what she wanted to. I made pretty good money working construction so it was easy for her to take some time off. She talked of going back to college and getting her degree in psychology but hadn’t yet. I knew with time, she would.

  We hadn’t moved into our new house we were building just yet but half our shit was already over here so now we were living out of bags while Ethan and I finished it.

  “I’m never late. You’re the one who is always late,” Evie smiled when she found the gardening gloves and held them up as if surprised that she actually found them. “Don’t forget, we have therapy at three,” Evie reminded me before I made it out the d
oor to work.

  I groaned. “Do we still have to go? The guy’s a weirdo.”

  “It’s our last session,” Evie giggled. “If you had to listen to other people’s problems all day long, you’d be weird too.” She kissed my cheek. “We’ve have emotional damage. We need to go.”

  “No we don’t,” I argued reaching for my spare jeans so I didn’t have to sing tonight in my work jeans. “I don’t think we need to keep going.”

  She gave me a skeptical look. “Okay, so,” she paused and I knew what she was about to do, she did this every time I tried to talk her out of going to therapy. “You being held captive in Iraq. I was beaten and raped…” my throat got tight at the word. That fucking word, “and you have nightmares and now I have anxiety attacks.” Evie raised an eyebrow. “Do you need any more reasons?”

  “Nope, got it—three, right?” I laughed, light but a little annoyed.

  She smiled and reached up to kiss me. “Yep.”

  “And then I have a surprise for you.”

  “I hate surprises. They give me anxiety.”

  “You’ll love this one.” I said, winking and not waiting for her to argue with me.

  I picked up Ethan on the way to work, their house was just up the road.

  He smiled when he got into my truck. “I like this one!” He ran his hands over the leather arm rests. “Try not to set this one on fire.”

  I laughed but it didn’t sound like me

  Being the smart intuitive guy that Ethan is, he knew something was up as soon as he got into the car.

  “All right, so what’s going on?”

  I chuckled but kept my eyes on the road. “I need to talk to you about something.”

  “You have my blessing,” he said, as if he knew. And he did. He knew exactly what I wanted to ask.

  “How do you even know what I’m going to say?”

  “Grayson, you’re sweating, get your shit together and ask her to marry you.”

  “It’s September. It’s hot. That’s why I’m sweating.” I had to point out. “And I’m asking her tonight.”

  The truth was, I was nervous. I was a fucking wreck.