"What was it like? After." I gesture vaguely toward his leg. "Like, after the blast. When you were recovering. What was that like?"
He goes still. Not tense exactly, but that focused stillness he gets when he's deciding whether to open up or shut down.
Then he exhales slow, takes a drink. "What do you want to know?"
"I don't know. All of it?" I shift, pulling my knees to my chest. "You told me about the blast, about losing your leg. But I want to know what happened after. What it was like adjusting."
He's quiet for a long moment, beer balanced on his thigh, eyes somewhere far away. Deciding how much to share. Whether to let me into this part of him.
"It was bad," he finally says. Simple. Direct.
I wait. Let the silence hold him.
"They shipped me to Germany first. Military hospital. Then Walter Reed for the long-term stuff." His voice goes flat. "Physical therapy. Learning to walk with the prosthetic. Dealing with phantom pain. All of it."
"Phantom pain?"
"Your brain thinks the leg's still there. Sends pain signals. You feel it—really feel it—but there's nothing to hurt." He says it matter-of-fact but I can hear the frustration underneath. "Happens to most amputees. Sometimes it goes away. Sometimes it doesn't."
"Does it still happen?"
"Sometimes. Usually at night." He takes another drink. "But that wasn't the worst part."
I stay quiet. Let him find the words.
"The worst part was..." He stops. Swallows. "I didn't give a shit about anything. For months. Just... nothing."
My throat gets tight. "Depression?"
"Yeah. Clinical depression, they called it. Which is just a fancy way of saying I stopped caring whether I lived or died." His voice is still flat but there's something raw underneath. "They tried to tell me it was normal. Part of the process. Trauma response. Whatever."
He's gripping his beer bottle tight. I notice but don't say anything. Just listen.
"Finn was there. He'd come sit with me even when I wouldn't talk. Just sat there making noise so I wasn't alone with my head." Holt's jaw works. "I was such an asshole to him. Told him to leave. Told him I didn't want company. He kept showing up anyway."
"Because he's your brother."
"Yeah." Soft. Grateful. "Yeah."
He takes a long drink. Finishes the beer. Sets it down carefully on the coffee table.
"It took a while before I wanted to try. The prosthetic, I mean. They kept telling me I needed to start physical therapy, start learning to walk with it. And I just... couldn't make myself care enough to try."
"What changed?"
"Finn." A pause. "He came in one day and said, 'Listen, you can lie here feeling sorry for yourself for the rest of your life, or you can get up and figure out what comes next. Either way I'm here. But I'd really like to see you try.'"
My eyes are burning. I blink hard, take a drink to cover it.
"So I tried. Took months to learn to walk properly with it. More months to build up the stamina. It hurt like hell—the prosthetic rubbing, the residual limb not healed enough, everything just constant pain." He says it like he's talking about the weather. "But I kept at it. Because Finn believed I could. And eventually I started believing it too."
"And then you started the shop."
"Eventually. Took another year or so before we had enough saved, before we found this place." He looks around the loft like he's seeing it for the first time. "But yeah. We started the shop. Built something good."
I set my empty bottle down, scoot closer. Not touching him yet but closing the distance. "Thank you. For telling me."
"You asked."
