Chapter 23 Jericho
JERICHO
Istare at Raiden’s horrified expression as he looks at my leg, or rather what’s left of it. The scar tissue looks better now, I don’t want to think about his disgusted looks if he would have seen it right after it happened.
“IED. I stepped out of the van and immediately went down. I don’t exactly know what happened, but the blast and the shrapnel got me.
It would have been worse, but we were already getting ready to leave that site so there was an evac chopper close by.
” I shrug my shoulders, because I spent months afterwards lying in bed and cursing everything under the sun.
But I knew then that I was going to come out on the other side.
I wasn’t going to lose my battle to the darkness trying to close in on me.
“Oh my god.” Tears streak down Raiden’s cheeks as he looks at me.
There’s no pity there, or sympathy. There’s nothing he can do or say that would have changed the outcome or the trajectory of my life.
But I see overwhelming sadness pouring out of him.
Sadness for me, sadness for him not being there for me, whatever it is, I don’t like it. I hate him being this upset.
“Come here.” I rub his cheek with my palm, smoothing the tears into his skin and patiently wait for him to scoot closer to me until his side is fully pressed against mine. “I’m okay now, I promise.”
“But you almost weren’t!” He sobs and clings to me tighter. I take his hand in mine, and slowly trail it across my clothes covered body until I get to where my pants are rolled up and tucked so I can keep the bottom of my leg free of any obstructions.
“Feel, touch it for yourself,” I gently demand him, keeping our fingers intertwined as I rub across the skin of my leg.
Feeling it the same way he is. The rough calluses formed from where my prosthetic rubbed, slight divots from where my skin didn’t grow back all the way from the damage of the shrapnel, the smooth skin of the scars where they stitched me back together.
I’m back to feeling it for the first time, seeing it through someone else’s eyes. Liam never touches my leg, if anything it's an unspoken topic between us until he starts worrying.
Raiden’s fingers gently poke and prod, mapping out the damage that was inflicted on me for himself. I don’t rush it, letting him take his time until he’s satisfied with whatever he’s thinking.
“Does it stop you from doing certain things? I know you still ride a bike but is there anything else?” His question gives me pause, because instead of assuming I can’t do things, he wants to know if there is anything that I’m missing out on.
“Not really, the prosthetic does its job as my leg. It was weird to get used to at first, and I stumbled a lot, but now it’s easier to manage.
The only downfall is I have to sit down to shower.
” I try to make a joke of the situation and Raiden furrows his eyebrows, but doesn’t take his eyes off my leg.
I feel like a science experiment as he takes it all in, but not in a bad way. He’s curious.
“It could be worse,” he says simply and I nod my head in agreement, thankful that he’s not trying to offer me condolences.
“It could be. I could have lost the arm I jerk off with, and that would have sucked.”
Raiden lets out a huff of laughter, cutting his eyes to look up at me. “That was fucked, and you know it.”
“Dark humor is the only way to get through sometimes,” I offer simply. Our hands are still entangled and when he’s had enough exploring he rests them on my chest.
“Well, I can respect that but sometimes I’m still going to be shocked by the things coming out of your mouth.” He nibbles on his bottom lip for a moment, looking perplexed and so fucking cute.
“Ask me whatever else you want to ask me. I swear it won’t make me upset.”
“Does it still hurt? I know phantom pains are a thing but is there any residual pain?”
I shake my head, there are phantom pains occasionally but that’s more of a brain reaction rather than a physical one.
“Is the bottom sensitive? Or because of the amount of scar tissue–” he undoes his hand from mine, testing it for himself instead of waiting for me to answer.
His fingertips dance across the skin, and my leg breaks out in goosebumps.
His chuckle is delighted as he keeps it up, creating little patterns and pressing his fingers in at random spots to leave behind a white dot before it fades back to my natural color.
He continues like that, content to answer his own questions as he looks at me.
“Am I being rude? If I am, you can stop me.”
“You’re fine, Rai. I don’t mind.” As long as it’s you. If someone else were trying to rub all over the bottom of my leg I would have a problem being a spectacle. That’s not an issue with Raiden though, he’s curious. There’s so much missing time between us and this is helping him fill in that space.
“What else happened while you were gone? Can you tell me?” My body tightens with tension and I feel the budding irritation rise in me.
He would know what happened if he would have listened to the voicemails I left him.
Countless times I listened to the line ring, just for the automated message to tell me to leave a message.
How many times did I spew my guts to him and he never had the decency to call me back?
How many times did I admit to him I was scared, that I regretted ever enlisting because it wasn’t what I imagined?
The moments I would share funny stories of what was happening with my other teammates as we would prepare to spend all our waking moments together.
“Jer?” Raiden’s hand is off my leg and he rests it on my chest, over my heart that is thumping erratically underneath my skin.
“Give me a minute,” I tell him trying to get my ire under control so I don’t snap at him.
“Oh, okay,” he says softly and attempts to pull his hand away. I snatch it in mine and keep it on top of me, the tight grip I have on his hand steadying me.
“Did you not listen to the voicemails I left you?”
He shakes his head, confusion lining his eyes as he leans his head back to fully look at me in the face.
“What voicemails?”
What voicemails? After all this time, he truly has no idea. Or he’s playing me for a fool. I remember my mom telling me he was getting them, because he made a comment that he would have only known if he had talked to me.
“The ones I left you while I was deployed. Every time I got phone privileges, you were the first person I called.”
His face turns ashen and he ducks his head away from my eyes. I don’t stop talking, now that I’ve started I need to see this through.
“I detailed everything I could. I wasn’t allowed to tell you where I was at, but I described it to you.
The sandy desert with only the wind to keep me company.
Oceanside bases where I could watch the waves crash against the shore but I could never get close enough to feel the spray of the water. All of it, Raiden.”
“I didn’t know,” he whispers, gently. His breath coming in small puffs against my shirt.
“You didn’t know?” I ask incredulously. “You didn’t know that when I was leaving you voicemails, I was fighting for my life in other countries and was scared shitless more times than not and all I needed was my friend to comfort me?”
“I didn’t know!” Raiden yells into my side, his cries growing louder and louder until it's the only thing echoing in my ears. He keeps mumbling under his breath. I didn’t know, I didn’t know, I didn’t know.
“What?” I don’t know if he heard me over the sounds coming out of him, a wounded animal begging for help.
He doesn’t respond and I’m worried he’s going to make himself sick from how hard he’s crying. He shouldn’t be the one crying, I should be. I should be fighting him to show him how much he hurt me. But his sobbing and his choked words burrow themselves deep into me.
He didn’t know. Raiden didn’t know. He hadn’t listened to a single voicemail I left him. He doesn’t know the anguish I felt with every call that went unreturned.
“I’m so sorry, Jer. I’m so, so sorry.” He turns his body back towards mine and buries his head into the crease of my armpit, and the material starts to get wet from his tears. “If I would have known I would have answered. I would have responded. I never would have left you alone.”
His cries start to die down, and I think he cried himself to sleep. His sorrow is bone deep inside of me, the ache flaring up and causing my own pain to ricochet in my body.
A cannonade of thunder right outside my window stuns me for a moment, the loud sound cracking and rumbling through the silent bedroom. Rain starts to pour down outside, pelting off the window and creating a desolate tune of despair.
Raiden stirs beside me, sitting up and wiping his eyes.
The brown irises surrounded by red and his lashes stuck together from his tears.
I want to take him to the bathroom and wash his face, help him calm down enough so we can finish talking.
He left me on a cliffhanger before he had his breakdown, and I’m hoping all of the crying is out of his system because I don’t know how much more my heart can handle seeing him in so much pain.
“Let’s go shower,” I suggest when he opens his eyes.
There’s dried tear tracks down his face and his eyelashes are matted together from how hard he was squeezing his eyes shut.
I wipe my finger across his eye trying to help separate them a small bit.
It doesn't help, but Raiden doesn’t make a move to sit up. He just continues to stare at me.
“How can you look at me? How could you be around me? Thinking that I left you behind like that.” He doesn’t make a move to get away from me, so I guess a shower is out of the question.