13. Bo and Rowdy
Bo and Rowdy
Bo
The bombs went off again. Closer this time.
Our CO ran toward us, holding his side, his mouth moving before we could hear him. “We need to...” A whistle cut through the air. Then came the explosion. Then the ringing.
Everyone was on their feet. Everyone except him.
“Gates.” His voice came from somewhere. Or maybe it didn’t. Maybe that was just what I wanted to hear. Then another whistle, low and climbing fast. “Move, move, move!” I was already yelling, already running, and then the next volley came and...
I shoot up in bed.
My heart pounds in my chest, dread gripping me. I reach for something that isn’t there. I stare at the darkness around me, my chest rising and falling, fingers closing on empty air.
No gun.
No CO.
No smoke.
Just the four walls and the sound of my own breathing.
I stay there until the shaking fades. Outside, Falon’s barn light comes on, a thin line of yellow under the curtain. I watch it, holding onto that small comfort.
That’s why I am forty-five minutes early.
I get dressed in the dark, drive into town with the windows down, and sit in my truck outside Ethel’s for a while, watching the morning.
An older couple comes out, moving slowly.
The man opens the door for his wife, kisses her cheek, then walks around to his side.
It looks effortless, just part of their day.
A shiver crawls up my spine.
Every sound sets my teeth on edge in a way I can’t shake. A chair scrapes the sidewalk, a delivery truck’s brakes hiss one block over, a rooster crows down the street. I square my shoulders and walk in.
Sam is already at the back booth when I walk in. He has a mug in front of him and a section of the newspaper folded in quarters. He doesn’t look up when I slide in across from him.
“You look terrible,” he says.
“Good morning to you, too.”
He turns a page. “Sleep?”
“Some.”
“Mm.” He sets the paper down and signals Lila without looking up.
She appears a moment later with a mug, sets it down without a word, and disappears again.
I hold the mug with both hands. The heat spreads through my fingers.
That’s when I see the dogs. Molly is curled up by Sam’s boots, her chin resting on her paws. Next to her is a younger dog, medium-sized with a dark coat and calm eyes. He watches the room with his chin on his paws, too.
He glances at me once. Goes back to watching.
“That’s Rowdy,” Sam says. “Molly’s pup. I started taking him wherever I go. Hoping he’d learn from her.” He glances down at the pup. “So far, he’s been a champ.”
I nod and leave it at that.
The Monday crowd comes in. Jake arrives first, then Terrance, then a few others whose names I am still learning. They take their usual seats. There is no agenda, no check-in circle. Just coffee with people who’ve been through it, and the understanding that nobody here needs to explain themselves.
That’s what I like about this group. No one offers advice or suggestions. No one asks gentle questions to push you before you’re ready. They know you’ll talk when you want to.
Sam waits until the table settles before he looks at me again. “You going to tell me, or are we doing the quiet version today?”
“Quiet version,” I say.
He nods. “Fair enough.”
Jake coughs from two seats down. “That’s what he said last week.”
“And I respected it last week.”
“You did,” I say. “Both of you.”
I take a long sip of coffee. Set the mug down. “Tyler’s been texting.”
Sam doesn’t react. “Yeah?”
“Check-ins. Thin news. He asks how things are, and I tell him fine.”
“Is it true?”
I consider it. “Parts of it, I guess.”
Jake is quiet on his end, but I can feel him listening. Terrance has his eyes on his coffee.
“There’s something I didn’t tell him,” I say. “A few things. I keep thinking I’ll say it, but I don’t, and now it just feels like this.” I pause, searching for the word. “Weight.”
Sam nods. “The longer you wait, the heavier it gets.”
“Yeah.”
“What’s the part you’re not telling him?”
I look at the table. At the coffee ring from someone’s mug. “That I’m not here because he asked me to be.”
Nobody says anything. They don’t have to.
“I thought it was the same thing at first,” I say. “His reasons and mine. I thought they were separate.” I shake my head. “They’re not.”
Sam rests back in the booth. When he listens, he goes completely still. It always catches me off guard. The noise and anxiety seem to quiet down.
Something nudges my knee.
Rowdy had left Sam’s side of the booth and was standing at mine, nose tipped up, watching me with those same calm eyes. He hadn’t done it to anyone else at the table. He just stands there, patient and waiting.
I reach down and scratch behind his ear without thinking. He settles his chin onto my knee.
Then I almost jump out of my skin.
Lila drops a tray somewhere behind the counter. The crash hits hard and fast, and my mind leaves the room. I am halfway to war before I even know I’ve moved.
I clench my hands on the table. Rowdy is on his feet before I realize. He presses his side against my legs, steady and firm, and doesn’t move. Just weight and warmth, a quiet reminder that I am not alone and the world had not, in fact, ended.
Jake and Terrance look at their coffee. Sam watches me, steady, checking whether he needs to step in. He doesn’t. Rowdy has me with his calm presence and those soft brown eyes.
I look down at him. He looks back up, chin still on my knee, tail making slow sweeps across the floor.
“Sorry about that, Sam.”
“Nothing to be sorry for. That’s what he’s trained to do.” Sam watches him for a moment. “He did well.”
Neither Jake nor Terrance says anything, though I catch the edge of a smirk on Terrance’s face he doesn’t bother hiding.
Sam sets his mug down. “The thing about carrying someone else’s purpose is that it gets real heavy when your own starts to grow underneath it.” He nods toward Molly. “She never fixed anything. She just made my broken parts easier to carry.”
Rowdy settles his full weight against my leg and sighs like he’d been waiting all morning to do exactly that.
My phone buzzes. I take it as my cue and start to rise.
The absence hits me before I’ve fully stood. Rowdy whines once behind me, quiet and low. I look back. He is watching me with those brown eyes, tail gone still.
“I’ll call you,” I say to Sam.
He picks up his coffee and nods before taking a sip.
I had just gotten in the truck when I see Sam and the others leaving the diner and getting in their cars. I watch them for a moment. Their lives continued after they got back, but I am still living my past. I shake my head and start the truck.
I need a few things from the store before I go back to the ranch. I’d used the last of Falon’s laundry soap, and though she wasn’t a bad cook, I want something simple tonight. Tacos. Just a few ingredients and I am already tasting dinner.
I pull into the lot and look at the store doors. I am so on edge today that I am grinding my teeth. I take a breath and walk in, shop in a hurry, and head back out.
A grocery cart slams into the cart return on my way out.
I clench my fists. Keep walking.
This is my life now. Some days are good, but today isn’t.
That’s just how it is. I know I can’t continue living like this.
I need help, even if I don’t want to admit it yet.
Sitting in the parking lot, I grasp the steering wheel and feel my heart race.
I pull out my phone, scroll to Sam’s name, and pause over Call.
It takes a few seconds before I press it.
Reaching out is the only next step I can see.
I know what I have to do.
I call him from the truck.
Didn’t plan to do it right then. I’d meant to drive home first, maybe think it through, talk myself into it.
Maybe even ask Falon if it was okay. It was her house after all.
But I am still in the parking lot outside the store with the engine running and Rowdy’s eyes in my head, and I have my phone out before I’ve made any kind of decision about it.
Sam picks up on the second ring.
“That was fast,” he says.
“Is the offer still open?”
There is a pause. “Yeah, Bo. It’s still open.”
“What do I need to know? About having a PTSD dog. The real version, not the short one.”
I hear him sit back in his chair. He talks for a while. He explains how important consistency and routine will be. Rowdy will learn my patterns, just like Molly learned his. It isn’t magic, and it isn’t a cure.
"There will be some mornings he would just be a dog, and others he would be your saving grace." He sighs. "Rowdy will wake you from nightmares before you do, pressing his nose to your wrist."
He chuckles. "Molly did that the other day before I even knew I was struggling. Rowdy might bring you your shoes or nudge you to step outside, even if you don’t want to.
Or if you freeze, he might press against you or lick your hand until you come back.
If you start to panic or dissociate, he can interrupt it.
Sometimes he’ll put his head in your lap or nudge your arm, just to ground you.
If you get stuck in a flashback, he’ll be there, steady and gentle, doing whatever he can to pull your focus away from your mind and remind you that you’re here. "
"Over time, you’d learn what each sign means.
The tilt of his head when you start to spiral, the weight at your knee reminding you to breathe.
Living with him means making time for new routines: setting out his bowl before coffee, walking the property at sunrise, learning calm together, day after day. "
It would mean finding a new normal, or at least getting as close to normal as I could.
“He chose you in there,” Sam says. “I want you to know that. Three Mondays now, and he’s never left my side for anyone else.”
I don’t say anything to that.
“Come by this afternoon,” Sam says.
“Yeah,” I say. “I’ll come by.”