I can’t tell if she’s teasing or taking a jab.
“I’ve always lived beneath my means.”
“I like that about you.”
Her voice is soft now, almost careful. Our eyes meet and linger, heat tightening the air between us. She slides into the chair across from me. The grilled cheese lands in front of me like a peace offering.
“What about you? Why does everyone here look at you like you’re some hero?”
I stare down at the sandwich. The smell brings comfort I didn’t know I needed. But I’m not ready for the memories it stirs. Ever since I returned home, I haven’t wanted to really talk about my time in the military or the trauma I developed during my time serving. And I certainly haven’t talked to anyone besides my therapist about the last mission I was on.
“I’m not a hero. I was just doing my job, is how I see it.”
“Okay, and what job is that? What exactly does a tier one operation look like? Like what kind of stuff did they make you do?”
“Okay, and what job is that?” she asks, mouth full of sandwich. I laugh—can’t help it. She’s beautiful when she doesn’t care what she looks like.
“It just depends on the mission. We are involved in various high-profile military operations like counter-terrorism, hostage rescue, high-value target extraction, ya know, stuff like that.” I shrugged my shoulders and picked up my sandwich, taking a bite. The gooey, warm cheese woke my taste buds up, and my stomach danced at the thought of the yummy food coming down my throat.
“This has to be the best grilled cheese sandwich I’ve ever had,” I say with wide eyes.
“Okay, you don’t have to lie.”
“Seriously. I never thought I could get addicted to bread and cheese, but I was wrong.”
“You’re Italian. Isn’t bread and cheese your life?”
“I’m half and bread and cheese is more of a French thing.”
“Okay, Mr. technical.”
We sat in silence for a moment before she said. “Ya know, I read this fiction book about a military guy, and he would have recurring nightmares like you, and he said his therapist called it PTSD nightmares, but it meant that he had unresolved issues. The longer you avoid addressing the problem, the more likely you are to have the same dream.”
I chewed slowly as I stared at her. This girl really was clueless to shit like this. No damn fiction book is going to describe what I’ve gone through in real life.
“I don’t think that’s why I have the same dream. It’s called combat. And I’ve seen things far worse than expected in ways you couldn’t even fathom. The weird thing is that the more time between combat and me, the worse it gets. You’d assume the opposite. While the jumpiness and stuff like that subsides, a good bit is replaced with depression and difficulty maintaining a normal life or healthy relationship. There’s a loss of interest in things I used to find fun. I easily stress out and can be quick-tempered.”
“No, you?,” She says, sarcasm spilling from her lips.
“Very funny.”
“Thank you.” She says with a cocky smile.
Liking how this felt, to open up and release some of the skeletons I’ve been holding since I got back. I continued on.
“It’s hard to describe. I mean, sometimes I have a general disgust for humanity and what we are capable of doing for the most petty reasons. I have no patience for people complaining about how hard their lives are when there’s this sickening dread that I constantly feel inside, and I assume it’s because once you see the darkness that exists out there, it’s a curse because you know it’s there, lurking, just out of sight every day of the rest of your life.”
She leaned forward and placed a hand under her chin, appearing rather interested, so I carried on.
“On top of that, working in general is torturous, and life is generally unexciting. How could it be? Because nothing comes close to the emotions and adrenaline surges of combat, and it’s hard to feel like anything you do has meaning. While things do have meaning, it’s just I don’t know, different. I often go throughlong stretches of my life where the only thing I’m capable of is waking up every day and waiting to die until I open this restaurant. Adrenaline comes back to me when I’m back there, sweating and helping the line cook get food out.”
And now, when I think about you, and pulling this fake marriage off.
“Shit, I opened a can of worms.” She takes another bite of her sandwich.
I laughed lightly. “Sorry, just don’t talk much about that stuff to anyone. My mom and sister worry enough, and the psychologist made me feel like a science project, remember?”
“I remember,” she gets up and pulls out two glasses, placing one under the water filter in the fridge.“I brought up the book because the female character started waking the soldier up before he could have the nightmare.”
