CHAPTER ONE
Liberty
The airport smells like recycled air and desperation.
Richmond International, baggage claim. My hand stays locked on the strap of my carry-on, knuckles aching from how hard I'm gripping.
The other hand curls into a fist at my side, nails biting crescents into my palm.
Too many people. Too much movement.
A woman laughs somewhere behind me and my skin prickles, every nerve straining to identify the sound, place the threat, calculate the response.
There is no threat. You're in an airport. Breathe.
A kid three carousels over drops a sippy cup.
The plastic cracks against tile and my vision whites out.
For one stuttering heartbeat I'm not here.
I'm in a convoy outside Kandahar, dust in my teeth, the crack of a rifle splitting the air, and someone is screaming, someone is always screaming?—
I force my eyes open. Force the airport back into focus.
Fluorescent lights. Luggage carousel. A toddler wailing while his mother scoops up the cup.
My hands are shaking.
I shove them in my pockets before anyone can see.
Eight years of combat did this to me.
It rewired my brain so I can't stand in a crowd without mapping exits.
Two to the parking garage. One to ground transportation. One emergency near the restrooms. I counted them within thirty seconds of walking in, couldn't stop myself if I tried.
The Army taught me to survive.
It didn't teach me how to stop surviving.
My duffel comes around on the carousel. Olive green, military issue.
Everything I own fits inside: clothes, discharge papers, a medal I never wanted and can't throw away because throwing it away would mean the people who died for it died for nothing.
I grab the bag and move. Don't linger. Don't let anyone look too long.
The rental counter blurs past.
I take the cheapest sedan, sign papers without reading them, and escape into the parking garage before the fluorescent lights can crack my skull open from the inside.
Virginia in June.
The humidity hits me the second I step outside, thick and wet, and for one lurching moment I'm back in Kuwait.
Sand grinding between my molars. Sweat pooling in the hollow of my throat. The sun pressing down like a hand trying to shove me into the earth.
Then a minivan rolls past blasting Taylor Swift and the desert dissolves.
