Chapter 28 #2
He chuckled, lips brushing my temple as his large hand smoothed up and down over my naked body.
It was quiet for several minutes as we both came down from the high, but the silence was suddenly broken by Maverick barking at the door.
“He’s mad at us,” I breathed through a laugh.
“He’ll get over it.”
Eventually, we cleaned up and got dressed. When we left the bedroom, Maverick needed only a single treat to forgive us and forget all about it.
With the weather warm and cooperative, we spent the next day exploring the area.
Blake took me through the hiking trails he used to walk growing up as Maverick trotted alongside us—he wouldn’t let him off the leash in the woods on the off chance we ran into any bears.
Later, we drove into one of the neighboring towns, exploring the little shops there and stopping at a small local brewery before heading back to the cabin that evening.
Blake made dinner, and we ate out on the deck, watching the sun dip behind the mountains in the distance. While we were in town, we stopped and got stuff to make s’mores, and that night, after we cleaned up from dinner, he started a fire.
We talked while building our treats. Afterward, with the temperature dropping, I snuggled into the crook of his arm in the oversized double camping chair, enjoying the fire on our last night there.
As a comfortable silence settled between us, I couldn’t help but wonder again about his reason for this impromptu trip.
“Why did you decide to come up here this weekend?” I asked quietly.
“I don’t know,” he answered. “I guess to clear my head.”
Clear his head. The response gave me pause. “Because of the nightmare?”
His hand, which had been softly rubbing my arm, abruptly paused. His silence lingered before he admitted quietly, “Yeah.”
I kept my eyes on the flames. He wasn’t usually open with me, not about this kind of stuff. “Have you had any more since that night?” I asked, keeping my voice gentle.
“No,” he said. “I just…I hadn’t had one in a while, and I thought getting away for a few days would help take my mind off of it.”
I knew little about what Blake went through, and I gleaned most of it from Wes—his deployment, losing his friend, leaving early, and attending therapy.
There were hints of more that Wes hadn’t shared or that perhaps Blake hadn’t revealed to him.
It was obvious he held more than he showed, and I couldn’t help but feel curious.
“What was your nightmare about?”
I felt him stiffen slightly. “Just…remembering stuff.”
Remembering stuff.
Reliving a trauma.
I had enough knowledge that, with that, pieces slowly began to fall into place.
Wes had said he was in therapy. That he was “still Blake, but different.”
The episode I witnessed him have at work—the way he zoned out, his racing heart, heavy breathing.
The state of his house all those months ago when he’d taken a couple of days off, and I stopped by his place—it was similar to that of a depression room.
He said he hadn’t had a nightmare “in a while,” implying there had been others, rooted in the past he was trying to forget.
Blake had PTSD.
It was something I’d wondered before, knowing the little I did about what he went through, but now I was fairly confident.
I chose my next words carefully. “Remembering what happened…over there?”
Another beat of silence. “Yeah…”
Staring at the fire’s flames, I debated my next question. I didn’t want to push him or cause discomfort, but curiosity—and the hope he’d open up—won out.
“You don’t have to answer this if you don’t want to, but…” I started quietly. He tensed beside me, shoulders drawing up, like he knew what was coming. “What happened over there…with your friend?”
I slowly tilted my head to look at him. His eyes were locked on the flames, the light from them dancing across his face, and I could see the distant look there, like he’d gone back in time.
His jaw worked back and forth, and his foot began to bounce, not fast but gently, in a way that made him subtly rock, as if it were a comfort for whatever place my question had taken him to.
After several minutes of silence, just as I glanced away, convinced he wasn’t going to answer and not planning to push it further, he spoke, his voice quiet and aloof.
“There was a woman…”
I slowly looked at him again, his eyes still locked on the fire. “A woman?” I prompted, unsure what that had to do with his friend.
Blake nodded almost imperceptibly. “Another physician in my unit. She and I…we had this thing going on that started right before we got deployed. It wasn’t anything official, and we were the same rank, so it wouldn’t have been a big deal if it were.
When we were deployed, however, if any higher-ups had known, it would have been discouraged due to the circumstances.
But we kept it going anyway, on the down low,” he explained quietly.
“Did you love her?” I don’t know why I asked—it was none of my business and it wouldn’t have mattered either way, but the question came out before I could think better of it.
He answered without hesitation. “No. I think just having that connection made being over there and so far from home easier in a way.” Blake let out a breath.
“But the morning of the—of the attack…I found her with one of the other officers in our unit. Looking back, it wasn’t that big of a deal—like I said, it was purely physical between us.
But again, being so far from home, we’d been gone for months at that point, and just…
I don’t know, it fucked with me way more than it should have… ”
He paused, jaw clenching visibly. I noticed his hand tightening on his knee, knuckles pale, but I remained silent, waiting for him to continue.
“My head was all over the place afterward, and I was distracted because of it. I was supposed to meet Noah over in the rec center later that morning…and I was in my fucking head so much, I blew him off.” I caught the break in his voice.
“Noah,” I repeated softly. “That’s your friend?”
He nodded, cleared his throat, and rubbed his hand over his mouth in an attempt to reel his emotions back in.
“I was in, uh…I was in the barracks…when I heard the explosion. We were in a non-combat zone, so it took a moment to register what was happening. Then, the alarm began to sound, and people started yelling. I ran out…and that’s when I saw that they hit the rec center… ”
Just before he rubbed his eyes, I saw the glisten in them, his grief raw and visible.
My own eyes welled up as an ache bloomed in my chest. I instantly regretted asking him, making him feel like he had to talk about it when it was clearly so painful.
I shifted, sitting up and turning my body to face him, my hand reaching down to curl around his resting in his lap.
I didn’t expect him to keep going. I got the gist of it…or so I thought.
Blake dropped his hand and avoided looking at me, his gaze fixed on the fire. The unshed tears in his eyes shimmered in the firelight, his jaw clenched tightly.
“I didn’t even think…” His voice cracked again.
“I just went running. All I could think was that Noah was in there. I barely registered the others on the ground…all I could focus on was finding him. And I did...” He shook his head, the first tear slipping free, trickling down his cheek.
“I’ll never forget the look in his eyes when I knelt beside him.
And it was like…everything I’d ever been taught, every piece of training I had…
was gone. I just fucking knelt there, looking at him, doing nothing.
He was shaking...staring up at me...and I was frozen. ”
My own tears were falling now, my throat tight, knowing what he went through, what he saw.
“By the time we got him into the infirmary…he was gone. They said along with his other injuries, there was too much internal bleeding…that nothing could have been done. But if I’d been faster…
if I hadn’t been distracted, maybe I wouldn’t have locked up.
If I—if I had fucking been there with him like I was supposed to be…
then I could have—I could have done something.
I could have gotten him out. I could have fucking saved him,” he choked out, bowing his head. “I should have saved him.”
Blake blamed himself. He blamed himself for Noah’s death. And he blamed himself for being distracted because of that woman.
And suddenly, everything clicked into place. He’d told me before he couldn’t promise me anything, and now I understood why. He didn’t want to risk being distracted again.
“Blake,” I said, my breath hitching. I reached up, gently cupped his face, and tilted it toward me. “If they said there was nothing you could have done, then there’s nothing you could have done. You have to believe that.”
“I can’t,” he whispered, shaking his head. “I f-failed him.”
“No. No, you didn’t fail him, Blake. You didn’t.
You’re looking for someone to blame for that loss, and the easiest target you can find is yourself.
That doesn’t make it true. That self-blame is not the truth.
It’s just noise repeating itself.” His eyes searched mine, and I wondered if any part of him believed what I was saying.
“You can’t keep blaming yourself, Blake.
You can’t. What did you tell me that day I lost that patient?
That what happened was entirely out of my control, and there was nothing that I could have done differently that would have changed the outcome.
The same goes for you. There was nothing you could have done. And it’s not your fault.”
My eyes dropped down. I hadn’t even realized he was fisting the fabric of my—his—sweatshirt in his hand, clinging to me. I covered his hand with my own, squeezing gently, and looked back at him, my other hand brushing the tears from his cheeks as my heart pounded with empathy.
“It’s not your fault,” I whispered.
Blake leaned forward, resting his forehead on my shoulder, and I gently curled my hand around the back of his neck, tucking my face against his cheek.
After several moments, I broke the silence, trying to lighten the emotions of the moment so he wouldn’t dwell on them. “Tell me something real…”
I heard him let out a soft breath as he lifted his head, his eyes meeting mine. And then he whispered, “When I’m with you…in any capacity…my thoughts are quiet.”
My expression softened. That’s why he asked me to come with him this weekend. Because I was a safe space for him.
And I was honored to be that for him.