“I can still…” I stopped, searching. “I can still fix things. Figure out how things work, what’s wrong with them. The mechanical work yesterday felt good. Natural.”
“Keep going.”
I stood up, couldn’t sit anymore—moved to the window, hands shoved in my pockets. “I’m still the guy who shows up when his family needs help. Even when my body’s telling me to stop, even when it costs me. Maybe that’s not always smart, but it’s who I am.”
“Why does that matter to you?” Elena asked quietly.
“Because—” My throat was tight, painful. “Because if I’m not useful, if I can’t contribute, then what’s the point? I can’t fly anymore. Can’t serve. Can’t do the thing I spent my entire adult life training for. So if I can’t at least show up for the people who matter, then what am I?”
Elena was quiet for a long moment. When she spoke, her voicewas gentle but firm. “You have an aerospace engineering degree, but you’re treating yourself like you’re only worth what your body can do right now. You’re not a tool, Finn. Your worth isn’t measured by your utility.”
“Feels like it is.”
“I know it does. But that’s the military conditioning talking, not reality.” She stood, came to stand near the window without crowding me. “You just listed several things you’re still capable of. Aviation knowledge. Mechanical problem-solving. Teaching. Showing up for people you love. That’s not nothing. That’s identity.”
I swallowed hard, not trusting my voice.
“The flight suit was part of who you were,” Elena continued. “But it wasn’t all of you. The expertise that made you a good pilot? That’s still there. The instinct to protect and teach and solve problems? Still there. You haven’t lost yourself, Finn. You’re just learning to recognize yourself in a different context.”
My hands were shaking slightly. I shoved them deeper into my pockets.
“This is hard work,” Elena said. “Three days of intensive processing, unpacking trauma, questioning your entire sense of self. It’s okay to be tired. It’s okay to feel raw.”
“Feels like falling apart.”
“Feels like,” she agreed. “But you’re not. You’re doing exactly what you need to do. Looking honestly at who you are now instead of who you used to be.”
I turned away from the window, met her eyes. “What if I don’t like who I am now?”
“Then we work on that too,” she moved back to her chair, gestured for me to sit. “But Finn, from what I’ve observed these past three days—your competence, your care for Alex, the way your family trusts and relies on you—there’s a lot to work with. You just have to be willing to see it.”
I sat down heavily and scrubbed at my face with both hands.
“Go rest,” Elena said gently. “You’ve done hard work this morning. Give yourself permission to just exist for a while.”
I walked back to the lodge in a haze. Three days of emotional excavation and I was already exhausted. How was I going to survive another week or more?
Alex was in our room when I got there, working again. She took one look at me and closed her laptop immediately.
“Rough session?” she asked quietly.
“Yeah,” I sat on the edge of the bed, feeling the weight of the morning settle into my shoulders, my chest, my hands.
She came and knelt in front of me, her hands covering mine on my knees. “What do you need?”
“I don’t know.” I was too tired to figure out the right answer.
“Okay. Let me take care of you for a bit.” She stood, pressed a kiss to my forehead. “Boots off. Lie down.”
She helped me get my boots off, then my button-down, leaving me in my t-shirt and jeans. We climbed onto the bed and she pulled me against her so my head rested on her chest.
Her hand moved through my hair, slow and steady. Grounding.
“You don’t have to talk about it if you don’t want to,” she said softly.
“I know,” I closed my eyes, letting myself just breathe. Her heartbeat was steady under my ear. Solid. Real.
We stayed like that for a while. No words, just her fingers in my hair as the weight of everything began to lessen slowly.
