“Okay, tell me. I’m here to help.”
Help.
God knew I was going to need that.
Because I couldn’t lose my son.
Chapter Four
JETT
BACK IN THE STATES
Come back to me.
I tried to get her out of my head, but it was impossible.
It was as if I could hear her calling to me, her pleading voice full of anguish. I was trying to do the right thing for her and Griffin, but was I hurting them more by staying away? If I went home—something I was now free as a bird to do since being discharged—I wasn’t sure I could handle watching her live a life without me right by her side.
But I was as damaged now as I was back in that run-down shithole the bastards had held me captive in months ago.
While I may have been cleared by the military to move forward, to create a new life for myself, I had no clue how to do that or what that even looked like.
And it wasn’t just her in my head. It was the terror-filled voices of my teammates, their cries of agony as they died but tried so damn hard to be strong, and the guilt swimming constantly in my gut because I couldn’t save them.
I hadn’t really saved the only other one that made it outbeyond myself. I thought about Dusty, that guilt I harbored thick as molasses, sinking deep into my stomach once again. She may have been alive, but she would never live the same life she had, or the one she wanted.
Blowing out a ragged breath, I worked to untangle myself from the blankets twisted around my body. It was how I woke up every morning after a fitful sleep full of raging nightmares. Throwing my legs over the side of the lumpy mattress, I dragged myself out of bed and padded to the bathroom to shower.
Yup, I was holed up in a seedy motel in Texas, letting the days slip by as I wallowed in the grief of the fucked-up shit running rapidly on an endless loop through my mind. There was no off switch.
Even if I desperately wanted one.
Did I deserve any better anyway?
After yanking off my boxers, I tucked myself under the hot spray, praying it would wash away everything I was thinking, even if just for a second. A reprieve from the horrid memories would be a blessing.
And anything to help with the ache from missing Patience, Griffin, and my family would be a godsend.
It didn’t work. Images of my best friend, the one I loved beyond reason but hadn’t told, emerged. With those came Champ’s words that had shocked me to my core.“Daddy, when are you coming home?”
Griffin had sounded so hopeful, and I had crushed him—Patience too from the sounds of her soft cries in the background—by not being able to tell him when I was coming home. In my mind, a voice was asking,Am I ever going home?But I didn’t have the heart to voice that. Not to anyone. I knew my sister was crushed too after I asked everyone not to come, and I kept stalling about when I’d be returning.
Fuck!
I hit the shower wall with my fist, and someone on the other side pounded back.Yeah, yeah, I get the message.They wanted me to be quiet, and who could blame them? It was probably the crack of dawn since sleep was hard to come by. Hell, it could be the middle of the night for all I knew; I hadn’t looked at the time.
Never did I bother pulling open the hideous, thick, pea-green floral curtains in the room, so it was always dark.
You would think after being held against my will in a dark room that I’d want to bask in the light, but for some fucked-up reason, that wasn’t the case. Something my therapist liked to explore—along with a million other things—when I had my sessions.
We repeatedly talked about medication, but I’d refused so far. Would it help? Maybe. But I didn’t like the idea of taking anything after watching my mother use whatever she could get her hands on for the years I had been with her as a child before she’d dropped me on Gramps’s doorstep at the age of eight.
However, I couldn’t help but wonder if they would help the anxiety, nightmares, and this feeling of despair always pumping through me.
Leaning my head against the fiberglass wall, I let the water cascade over me as I prepared for the day.
It wouldn’t be a lot different from the other ones I had recently. I’d go see my therapist—a bit reluctantly, but I wasn’t completely ignorant to the fact it was necessary—before I checked in on Dusty, then tried chasing the demons away by running six miles, and lastly, I would wallow in a beer at the bar close to the motel before I tried to get some sleep.
