12. Mark
12
MARK
M achine-gun fire rang out through the smoke. The truck had turned over. I was trapped inside.
I could smell the smoke as much as I could see it, acrid and burning, like a network of gray mesh wires piercing into my brain. And heat—immense, indescribable heat. There was a fire somewhere close to me. I just couldn’t see where through the smoke.
Suddenly, something was pulling me backwards, dragging me across the ground. Shit. My back hurt, like it was on fire itself. Why was I moving? How was I moving?
“Lieutenant Riordan? Sir? Are you alright?”
Hernandez’s eyes swam into view, and as soon as I saw them, everything snapped into focus. We’d been hit. Our convoy had been traveling through a remote pass in the mountains, an area we were sure we’d cleared the day before. But we must have missed something. An IED, maybe.
It didn’t matter now. What mattered was finding the rest of my men. Hernandez helped me drag myself to my feet, back pain forgotten, and I surveyed the scene. Christ, it was carnage. The forward truck was in flames, the one I’d been in had flipped upside down, and the third, where Hernandez had been riding, was on its side.
My heart broke when I thought of the men in the first vehicle. Nothing but a burned-out shell remained. But there wasn’t time to mourn them now. As men crawled out of the third truck, I threw myself forward toward my own. There were three more men in there.
The smoke felt thick enough to touch as I lurched back to the vehicle, like I should have been able to part it with a knife. Shit. I could hear groans. Freeman and Polakowski were in the back, or at least, they had been. I couldn’t even see them now. The body of the truck down had crumpled around them, trapping them inside. There had to be a way to get them out. Maybe with more men.
I turned to Sergeant Miller up front. He’d been driving, and was more accessible for the time being. His eyes were closed, but he was groaning as I approached on all fours, trying to keep myself low and not breathe in too much of the smoke.
“Miller, Miller, can you hear me?”
Miller’s eyes flickered open, dazed. I grabbed his hand and squeezed it, hoping the pressure would help him focus, before I realized his arm was crunched against the ground at an unnatural angle. God, no wonder he was groaning.
“Miller, I’m going to get you out of here, I just need you to stay with me.”
“Sir, is that you?” Miller’s brow furrowed as he tried to focus on me. “Fuck, it hurts. Have we been hit? Oh, fuck.”
“It’s okay, I’m going to get you out. Just stay with me.”
“Sir, you’ve got to back up, it’s not safe.” I heard Hernandez calling behind me, but I ignored him. I could get Miller out, if I could just reach in and grab him from the other side.
“I’m gonna get you out of here, Miller,” I told him. “You’re gonna be fine.”
“Sir, we’ve got to move. The fire could—”
“Not now, Hernandez,” I shouted over my shoulder, before putting him out of my mind. I turned back to Miller, his body crushed up against what had been the roof of the vehicle, now lying against the ground.
“Miller, I’m going to reach around you and try to get you out that way, okay?” I narrated what I was doing, trying to keep his attention on me and keep him conscious. I could hear someone, Polakowski or Freeman, groaning in pain in the back. As soon as I got Miller out, I could focus on them.
“God, it hurts,” Miller said as I started to pull him out, then stopped abruptly.
Shit. He was stuck on something. I could only shift his torso a few inches before he stopped moving. And for all I knew, trying to move him was making his injury worse. But leaving him in the vehicle wasn’t an option.
“Sir, you have to—”
“Shut up, Hernandez,” I growled.
I shifted my attention back to Miller. I just needed to try harder. Or get another angle. If I could come at him from underneath—
But before I could try anything, Hernandez was pulling me back again, ripping my arms away from Miller as he dragged me back from the truck. Miller’s eyes had finally focused on mine, just in time to see me moving away from him. He cried out, wordless, and I fought to get free of Hernandez’s grasp. Didn’t he understand that Miller needed our help?
That was my last thought before the air flashed bright, so bright that all color and even sound disappeared, and everything went still.
I sat up in bed, my heart pounding. I had to go back, I had to help them. I had to do something.
But I couldn’t.
It was over. It had been since the moment I woke up in a hospital bed, recovering from the second explosion that took out our vehicle. The explosion that killed Miller, and Freeman, and Polakowski. The explosion that would have killed me, if Hernandez hadn’t pulled me back in time.
It was just another dream. A nightmare. The same fucking nightmare I couldn’t stop having, no matter how far I tried to put it behind me.
I looked around the room wildly, trying to make sense of what I saw. Where was I? I didn’t recognize the room, or the bed, or the walls, or the windows—but then I saw Jesse lying next to me, and it all came rushing back.
Where we were. The reason we’d come on this trip. And everything we’d done, just a few hours ago. I looked down at the sheets tangled around us and realized we’d fallen asleep without even getting dressed.
Jesse stirred in his sleep, and my eyes widened, my heart still racing. Had I woken him up? I wasn’t sure, but I thought I could remember myself shouting just a few seconds ago. I couldn’t tell if it had been real or in the dream.
Jesse’s eyes blinked open and shone in the pale moonlight. “Everything okay?”
I froze, my breath still coming in short gasps. Did he know? Had he heard me? Was he waiting for some kind of explanation?
Or maybe— maybe —was he just surfacing from a dream himself, and wondering why I was sitting up in bed?
“Yeah,” I said, praying it was the latter. “I’m just going to the bathroom. Go back to sleep.”
I leaned over and kissed him on the forehead lightly. Something in my stomach fluttered when I did that. I still wanted him, just as badly as I had before we’d hooked up. But what were the chances of him wanting me if he knew the truth?
Jesse smiled sleepily and rolled over. I exhaled slowly. Please, please let him forget about this by morning .
As gingerly as I could, I climbed out of bed and felt around on the floor for my boxers before fleeing to the bathroom. I pulled them on as soon as I got inside and closed the door. Then I turned on the light and slowly slid my back down the wall until I was sitting on the floor, silent sobs shaking my shoulders.
Fuck.
Fuck, fuck, fuck. This was what I’d been afraid would happen. What I’d known, somewhere deep down, was always going to happen, the second I let my guard down around Jesse. I’d let myself get sucked in, feel too comfortable. And I’d paid the price.
He was never going to want to date me now. I was a mess who couldn’t even sleep through the night without getting nightmares. Who wanted to date a guy who woke up screaming, who sobbed like a baby over something that had happened ages ago? A guy who had panic attacks without warning, who’d quit his job because he’d lost touch with reality at an office party. A guy who couldn’t even trust himself to drive anymore, in case he lost it while he was behind the wheel.
No self-respecting person would want to put up with me, and I certainly couldn’t ask that of Jesse. Not when he’d already spent most of his life caring for his mom. There was no way he’d want to be saddled with me after everything he’d been through.
It was just so unfair. I’d thought I was making progress. Therapy had been helping, slowly but surely. Or so it had seemed. I’d gone for weeks without a panic attack in the middle of the day. Even tonight, at the festival—I’d been nervous, but I hadn’t freaked out in the crowd.
But now it felt like all that work was coming undone. Like I was unravelling. Why did this have to happen now, of all times? Right when I’d finally found someone I felt comfortable with? Why was my own brain fighting against me?
I forced myself to run through my breathing exercises, one after another, until my heartbeat slowed and my inhales and exhales returned to normal. I glanced at the door to the bedroom, thinking of Jesse asleep on the other side.
I wanted to crawl back into bed with him and pretend none of this was happening. I wanted to pretend I was a normal person. But could I do that? Would I ever be normal with my stupid broken brain?
If I went back out there, I risked having another nightmare and waking him up again. But I couldn’t spend the rest of the night in here either. That would tell him that something was wrong for sure. And if there was one thing I knew for certain, it was that I couldn’t bear to tell Jesse what was wrong with me. I couldn’t handle him breaking up with me before we even got off the ground.
I just had to find a way to deal with this. To get control of myself. That shouldn’t be so hard. I was good at fixing things, after all, at making them new and improved. I could do the same thing with myself—and if I did it fast enough and well enough, maybe Jesse would never have to find out.
As if thinking his name invoked his presence, a knock on the door broke through my endless anxiety spiral.
“Mark, are you okay?” Jesse’s voice came through the door, sleepy but concerned. “You’ve been in there for kind of a while. Is everything alright?”
So much for him not remembering this tomorrow.
None of my options were good. If I told him to go back to bed, that I’d be out in a bit, I’d ensure that he’d definitely worry about me. But if I told him what was actually wrong, I’d have to see his disgust when he found out I was crazy, and watch him distance himself from me. Or it could be even worse. So many people assumed that PTSD made a person violent and dangerous. I might see fear in Jesse’s eyes, instead of disgust.
I knew that would break me.
So that only left me with one other option: Tell him everything was fine. And hope that somehow, I got through the rest of the night.
“Yeah,” I said, forcing myself to smile, forcing warmth into my voice and hoping it covered up the panic. “Just feeling a little sick from all the beer tonight, I guess. But I’m fine now.”
I unlocked the bathroom door and opened it. Jesse stood there, still unclothed and bathed in moonlight, completely perfect. All I wanted to do was pull him close.
“Okay,” he said. He paused for a moment, looking concerned. “You know it’s alright, if you’re a little freaked out about what we did tonight. It was a big step. It’s normal for you to need some time to process it.”
My eyes widened. That was what he thought I was worried about? I smiled, and this time it wasn’t forced.
“I’m not confused about that at all,” I told him. “I promise. I’m glad we did it. I’d, uh, like to do it again. Sooner rather than later.”
A grin blossomed across his face, and relief was evident in his voice. “Oh thank God. I was afraid you were having second thoughts or something.”
“No second thoughts,” I said, giving in to my urge to wrap my arms around him, loving the feeling of his skin on mine. “Come on, let’s go back to sleep.”
I let Jesse lead me back to bed, and curved my body around his. I let him draw my arm over his chest, holding him close. It felt good. It felt right. And now that I’d found this happiness with Jesse, it felt like something I couldn’t lose.
I just had to figure out how to keep him.