Blue tile flashes in my head. A wall of sound. Vin still and heavy atop me. Blood when I touch his back.
“No!” I gasp, but even before I gasp it, he was already scrambling up and off me.
His eyes are pinned to the neck of my shirt, which has slipped off one shoulder, exposing the thin scar down my collarbone. The same scar that extends the rest of the way, fourteen inches, down his back.
He’s got one hand covering his mouth and his eyes are a little wild, he’s breathing hard, and not in the delicious way he was thirty seconds ago. “Jesus.” He’s tearing his eyes from mine and turning away, giving me his back. His feet on the ground and his elbows to his knees. The picture of defeat.
It’s not a mystery, really, why we stopped sleeping together after the accident. First of all, because we were literally injured and needed a lot of time to heal. Me, a sprained shoulder from where I fell and the laceration on my collarbone, four inches long. And Vin’s down his back, fourteen inches long. From the same section of windowpane that the truck crashed through. Vin’s injuries were, obviously, worse. He also scraped a lot of the skin off the back of his right hand. And then, of course, there was taking care of Raff.
We were battered people. There was the medical stuff, and the legal stuff associated with the accident. We were lucky if we slept a few hours in a row. I challenge literally anyone in the world to feel sexy under those circumstances. That was just…not what our marriage was about during that time.
This is the first time, since the accident, that Vin has laid me down in a bed, with intention. And if this were pre-accident, I’d already be biting a pillow and trying not to wake up Raff.
Instead, Vin sits, facing away from me and looking like he’s never felt more worthless in his life.
When I touch his back—the side without the scar—he’s sweaty. His muscles tighten under my hand. I’m not sure I’m welcome. “Don’t leave,” I whisper, and he turns his head enough to give me his profile.
“Let’s just try to sleep,” I say, tugging a tiny bit at his shirt. “If you get up right now…I feel like it’ll all, just, break.”
His brow furrows. “Isn’t it already broken?”
But still, he lies down next to me.
Nine
“Hey, Google,”I call, sitting at the high-top table in KitchenB.
“Whaddaya want?” Deb the nutrition educator responds with a scowl. It’s lunchtime and she’s just putting the finishing touches on some fried-egg sandwiches for me and Cherise. We decided to take an unsanctioned break from bean lasagna today and I’m feeling the reward of it down to my very marrow.
We’ve been referring to Deb as “Hey, Google” since we found out that not only did she graduate from Le Cordon Bleu in the seventies, she became a registered nurse in the eighties and traveled the world with Doctors Without Borders. Oh, and she has a pilot’s license. She knows literally everything. Hence the nickname. She’s basically Google if Google had a soul and a New Jersey accent.
Deb slides the sandwiches onto the table and Cherise puts away the grant application she’s been working on for the last three weeks. I’m eating lunch with the two people who keep the roof on Harvest NYC.
“I was just wondering,” I say, faltering for a second, only because I’m not sure I actuallywantthe answer to this question. “I was just wondering what you know about PTSD.”
Both Deb and Cherise look up at me over their sandwiches in unison.
Cherise’s eyes are wide, Deb’s are narrowed.
“I just mean…you know everything about everything. So. Is it real?”
“Is itreal?” She’s looking at me like she’s finally realizing just how puny my intellect really is. Which, of course, is why I’m asking Deb of all people. If I wanted a clinical answer, I would have actually googled this. But what I really want is for someone to gruffly point out the obvious to me. “I take it you’ve never met a Vietnam vet?”
“No! No, I knowthatis real. But, like, what about ordinary people? Civilians.” I’m starting to flounder. “It’s…recently been suggested to me that…I might have it.”
They both nod in immediate understanding.
“From the accident?” Cherise asks gently.
I put my sandwich down. My stomach has just tightened. The blood in my extremities has started to do that fluttery thing it always does when someone says the wordaccidentto me. “Yeah. I guess.”
“You didn’t get screened for PTSD?” Deb asks with a frown. “The hospital should have at least offered some services.”
“There was this, like, worksheet thing. I filled it out.”
“And nothing came of it?” Cherise asks.
I’m embarrassed about this part. “Well…it’s so obvious…which answers you’re supposed to give…”
