The therapist asked another question, but I barely heard it. My thoughts were already with Camille, the way her eyes were on me as we played mini golf. Or the small dimple she has when she allows herself to truly smile, thinking I wasn’t watching. I’d rather sit with these thoughts; they were safer.
I hated this room, this chair, these questions. But more than that, I hated myself for thinking maybe she’d be betteroff if I just stayed away. Because if my own dad thought I was weak for feeling, how the hell was I supposed to believe she’d think otherwise?
The therapist prompted me again about “strategies” I’d been using when the nightmares hit. I shifted in the chair, staring at the diploma on her wall like it was supposed to mean she understood. Truth was, I’d been sitting in chairs like this since my last deployment to Afghanistan.
These sessions were mandatory. Something I’ve had to do since getting diagnosed with PTSD once I got out. They awarded me monthly checks to compensate me for the bruises on my body and mind, but it didn’t make it better. Neither did these box-checking exercises dressed up as concern. We’d file in one by one, sit across from someone half the unit’s age, and nod through the same questions: Any trouble sleeping? Any panic symptoms? Any thoughts of hurting yourself or others?
You learn quickly what they want to hear. Keep it light. Shrug. Joke. Let them tick the box and move on. Because if you tell the truth, if you say you wake up drenched in sweat, heart pounding like it’s still under fire - suddenly you’re “flagged.”
That second deployment left marks. The kind I don’t talk about. We lost guys. Good ones. And some nights I still see their faces when I close my eyes. I walked off that plane knowing I was never walking back into life the same. I carried more than just the physical scars of those four deployments.
And sitting here, across from this woman with her monotoned voice and clipboard, I felt it all over again, the uselessness of it. Because she didn’t know me. Didn’t know what it meant to keep people alive under fire. Didn’t know theweight of going home when others didn’t. I glanced at her again, her polite patience, the way she leaned forward like she could coax me into spilling what I’d spent years locking down.
And damn if I didn’t think, not for the first time, that Camille would be ten times the therapist this girl was. I was still getting to know her, but she spoke about becoming a therapist with such passion. Camille wouldn’t press with clinical questions and head tilts. She wouldn’t rush me. Wouldn’t try to fix me with a worksheet.
She’d just…be there.
Chapter Eleven
Camille
The week blurred into the usual storm: school drop-offs, late shifts at the office, night classes that stretched my brain past exhaustion.
And yet, it all felt a little lighter because in between the chaos, my phone kept lighting up with his name.
Good luck on your exam today,Beautiful.
Did the milk survive breakfast this morning?
Sometimes, the messages came when I needed them most, like when I was fighting with the printer at work and wanted to cry, or when the twins refused to nap and I thought my sanity was on its last thread. He had this uncanny timing, like he knew when I needed a reason to laugh.
By Friday night, I was sprawled on the couch, hair a mess, kids finally asleep, when my phone buzzed with a FaceTime call.
Hunter.
My heart stopped. I almost didn’t answer. My shirt had a juice stain, the lighting was awful, and I looked exactlylike a mom who’d been through a war zone of toddlers and cheese puffs. But then I remembered the way he teased me for dodging his jokes, the way he’d said,Well, I’m not most guys.
So I answered.
“Hey,” I said, shifting so the camera didn’t catch the toy explosion in the background.
His face filled the screen. Bright blue eyes, scruffy ginger beard, that crooked grin that made my pulse trip. He was leaning back somewhere quiet, his voice low. “Hey. You look… comfortable.”
I snorted. “That’s polite code for ‘you look like a hot mess.’”
“Not at all,” he said easily. “I mean, I wouldn’t call that a red-carpet look, but you still pull it off.” A smile tugged at his lips.
I laughed, tucking my curls behind my ear. “You’re lucky I like honesty.”
“Good,” his eyes softened. “Because that’s all I’ve got.”
We talked for an hour. About everything, and nothing at all.
His day at work, my latest class assignment, the kids’ antics. He asked what they were like, and I found myself telling him more than I meant to: how Zeke wanted to be an astronaut, how Avery could throw a tantrum worthy of an Olympic medal, and how Chloe still found her way into my bed at night.
He listened. Truly listened. Nodding, asking little questions, smiling as he took in every messy detail.
His gaze was caught on mine. “What?” I asked, self-conscious.
