I pull away from him and take a few, tentative steps. “I might still fall on my ass, but I can make it to the checkpoint. Do you want to come with me? You said that your dad is not a good person; do you need help getting out of the country?”
I didn’t know how it would work, but I had to try.
He shakes his head. “I am no longer willing to stand by as my father guts this country that I love. If your people want me, they will need me to be here, with my father. You tell them and I will wait for their contact.”
I squeeze his hand and watch his car disappear around a corner, then I stumble to the checkpoint with my hands in the air.
* * *
The days and weeks after my return were a blur. I was flown to Ramstein, where they put me and Nick in the same room. Once we were both stable enough to travel, they sent us home. There was a key to the City of San Antonio, my hometown. I remember a letter from the Navy thanking me for my service; my TBI was too severe to continue on with my team. There were the days of debriefing that felt like another ring of hell, save for the moment I gave Asadi’s name to DB. His expression shifted, and I knew that I’d just handed him a major win. I felt absolutely no guilt for omitting the kiss.
I went with my cousin every day to rehab for his leg. I was there for his first supported steps, his first solo walk on his new prosthetic, and his first run. We felt encouraged as we worked together and got better physically, so we started doing free workouts with other vets in the park, followed by requests for us as personal trainers. Once Scout became involved, the gym became inevitable.
I was going to keep my promise to Asadi, of that I was certain.
* * *
I blink, looking into the concerned eyes of my family, expecting judgment and seeing none.
Jake looks mildly impressed. “DB debriefed you for two days, and you never told us about the kiss.”
“I couldn’t have it get back to anyone who could hurt him.”
“DB’s a bloodhound for that kind of thing.”
I shake my head. “I’d have gone to my grave before I said anything.”
“It’s a good thing you didn’t. We might not have used him in the same way, and that would’ve been a shame. I’m trusting everyone here when I say that he was the single most effective asset my team ever had. Iraqi intelligence never figured out where we got our intel from, and then he went and fell in love with one of our translators.”
I look over at Jake, shocked. “His husband was an American?”
“Yep. Language analyst borrowed from the Air Force. DB was there the moment they met, and he said that you could see the sparks go off between them. Just instant connection. I’m not kidding, the dude looks a lot like you, though maybe a little shorter.”
I run my fingers through my hair and look at Jake sideways. “He’s not nearly as fun or pretty as I am, though, right?”
Jake’s laugh, which used to be so rare, fills the room. “Of course not, my friend. No one’s as pretty or funny as you.”
The mood in the room shifts again when Nick stands in front of me. “Thank you. Thank you for saving my life, and for telling me what happened to you. It was awful, and I’m sorry about what happened to Asadi, about what you witnessed. But real talk,primo, I’m so fucking grateful that you weren’t the one being tortured.”
Nick’s arms envelop me again, and we hug for a long, long time, so much being said in the silence. After a while, he shifts back and pins me with his customary serious look.
Oh, damn.
No preamble, he just dives right in. “The new rule is, no more of this running yourself ragged. If I find that you are working and volunteering a combined total of more than sixty hours a week, I’m going to bring in your mother, and you will not like it if I do.”
“Really?Pulling the mom card? If I can only work sixty hours, the other hours will start to fill with the other things, the memories that I don’t want. Please… at least let me do eighty. Eighty still gives me plenty of time for living.”
I look around the room and am getting no sympathy from these people who love me so damned much. Traitors.
“If you need eighty hours to out run your memories, then you need to go back to your therapist. And, if you’re going to a therapist and still feel like you are not being helped, we’ll find a better therapist. Or some in-patient help, if that’s what you need.”
“Are you… threatening me with a psych hold?”
“No,Rolando, I am not threatening you. A psych hold is not a punishment, but that wasn’t what I was talking about. You know that Jake has had to go to a twenty-eight-day facility, a couple of times now. It’s not because he can’t handle his life, it’s because handling his life means knowing when to get the next level of help. You were held for three days, and now we all know how much they purposefully mentally fucked you over. Now, I’m not an expert, but if you’ve been professionally mentally fucked over, perhaps now is a good time to consider getting professionally mentally unfucked over. Like, maybe you deserve that level of care. I’m not saying I think you need it right now; I’m just saying… If you’re doing everything you can and still feel the need to outrun this, instead of burying your head in the sand and under a shedload of work, let’s get this taken care of.”
“Do you think it’s that easy? That… I can just go somewhere and get it taken care of? That’s not how it works. Some of this will be with me forever, and I have to accept it. And I have to work with it, and this is how I work with it.”
“Yeah, but if the solution is just as damaging as the problem, then certainly there’s a better way. I’m not saying that I think you’re going to come out of this completely fixed, but certainly you could use a better strategy thanwork until I die.”
