Holy Shit #3
"His wife asked me to speak. Said Lucas always talked about me, about our plans for after deployment.
So I stood up there in my dress uniform and tried to find words that would make sense of the senseless.
Tried to explain to a room full of grieving people that Lucas died a hero when the truth was he died because I froze. "
Vera remained quiet and held me, her thumb stroking over my heart in that soothing pattern she'd developed.
"His daughter Lily, she was so little, baby.
She gave me a drawing after the service.
It was of the three of us: Lucas, me, and Santi, with crayoned flames behind us and the words 'Daddy's Heroes' across the top.
She said her mommy told her that Daddy and Uncle Santi were heroes, and that I was a hero too for trying to save them.
" My voice cracked. "She thanked me. This tiny six-year-old child thanked me for watching her father die. "
I had to stop, had to breathe through the tightness in my lungs. That drawing was in one of the sealed boxes in our closet. I couldn't look at it, couldn't throw it away.
“Santi’s funeral was two days later. His parents flew in from Texas.
They barely spoke English. His mother kept holding my hands and saying things in Spanish that I didn't understand.
His father kept calling me 'mija,' like I was family.
" I closed my eyes, but I could still see Mrs. Ramirez's face, the way she'd cupped my cheeks and whispered blessings through her tears.
"His mother gave me his rosary. The one he carried every single day. She said he'd want me to have it, to keep me safe. And I just... I stood there and took it, knowing I didn't deserve it. Knowing her son was dead because I failed him."
"Petra—" Vera started, but I kept going, needing to get it all out.
"Coming home was worse. Everyone expected me to just readjust, to slot back into civilian life like nothing had happened.
My parents threw me a welcome home party.
A party, Vera. With cake and balloons and all our relatives saying how proud they were.
" I laughed bitterly. "I lasted twenty minutes before I locked myself in the bathroom and had a panic attack.
My mom found me, said I should talk to someone, get help.
My dad said I just needed time, that soldiers have always come home changed. "
"What did you need?" Vera asked softly.
"I needed them to stop looking at me like I was broken. I needed to stop seeing Johnson and Ramirez every time I closed my eyes. I needed..." I swallowed hard. "I needed them to be alive, and nothing could give me that."
I shifted, pulling Vera closer, needing her warmth to chase away the cold memories.
"The first few months were the worst. I couldn't sleep without nightmares.
Loud noises sent me diving for cover. I couldn't be in crowds without feeling like I was drowning.
Everything felt wrong. Like too loud, too bright, too peaceful.
I'd wake up in my childhood bedroom and not know where I was, and I’d reach for my rifle that wasn't there, and scan for threats that didn't exist. I couldn't connect with anyone from my life anymore, not even my parents. "
"Did you drink?" Vera asked, and I could hear she was trying to understand, to piece together how I'd survived.
"Yeah. Too much. I'd go to this dive bar on the edge of town and drink until I couldn't remember their faces.
Until I couldn't feel the guilt anymore.
Got into fights with guys who looked at me wrong.
Came home with black eyes and shit. My parents were terrified.
My friends from high school didn't know what to do with me.
I was angry all the time—at myself, at the world, at Johnson and Ramirez for dying, at the universe for letting it happen. "
I pressed a kiss to her hair, grounding myself in her presence, in the fact that I'd survived long enough to find her.
"The VA diagnosed me with PTSD and survivor's guilt. Put me in group therapy with other vets who had their own demons. That helped, a little. At least they understood. At least they didn't look at me with pity or fear. They just... got it."
"Is that when you became a firefighter?"
"My therapist suggested it. Said I needed purpose, needed to channel the hypervigilance into something productive.
I tried a few things first. Construction, security work, you know, but nothing fit.
Everything felt too slow, too safe. Then I heard about an opening in wildland firefighting and something just… clicked."
I thought about my first fire, the terror and exhilaration, the way it had felt like finally coming home to myself.
"It was dangerous enough to feel real, purposeful enough to matter.
Running toward fires instead of away from them.
Saving people instead of failing them. Every fire I fight, every person I save, it's like...
penance, maybe. Or proof that I'm not completely broken. That Lucas and Santi’s deaths weren't completely meaningless if I can use what they taught me to save other people. "
"You're not broken, Petra."
"I am, though, baby. Just in ways I've learned to manage.
The nightmares are less frequent now, but they still come.
The hypervigilance is useful on the job but exhausting everywhere else.
I still drink too much sometimes when things get bad.
I still have days where the guilt is so heavy I can barely breathe.
" I cupped her face, tilting it up so I could see her eyes.
"But I'm functional. I'm not a danger to myself or others. I'm just... scarred."
"We're all scarred by something," Vera said. "Yours are just more visible than most."
"Sarah sees them. Helen sees them. They're worried you're getting involved with someone who might not be stable enough or safe enough or even whole enough for you."
"They don't get to decide that. I do,” she said fiercely. "And I choose you. Every scarred, complicated, beautiful piece of you. And Petra, baby, you are whole. You’re my whole world."
I wanted to argue, to list all the reasons why loving me was a bad idea.
But looking at her, at the certainty in her eyes, the words died in my throat.
She knew. She knew all of it—the nightmares, the guilt, the trauma I carried with the ghosts of two soldiers I'd failed—and she was choosing me anyway.
"I've never told anyone all of this," I admitted. "Not the full story. Not the funerals, not what it was like coming home. But you..." I traced the curve of her jaw. "You make it feel safe. Like I can show you my broken pieces and you won't cut yourself on them."
She didn't offer platitudes or try to fix what couldn't be fixed.
She just leaned up and kissed me thoroughly, her hands framing my face like I was the only person who mattered to her.
When she pulled back, her eyes were dark with something that wasn't quite sympathy; more like understanding, acceptance, a loving stare so intense it took my breath away.
"Thank you for trusting me with this," she whispered, pressing a kiss against my lips. "For letting me in."
The kiss deepened naturally, her tongue sliding against mine, and suddenly the grief and heaviness transformed into something else. Need. Want. The desperate desire to feel alive, to be reminded that I'd survived, that I was here with her, and that was worth celebrating.
Vera must have felt it too because her hands slid under my shirt, seeking skin, her touch igniting heat that chased away the cold memories. I pulled her into my lap, her legs straddling mine, and she made a sound against my mouth that went straight through me.
"Petra," she breathed, grinding down against me, and I could feel how wet she was through her underwear. "I need you."
My hands found the hem of her dress, pushing it up and over her hips, bunching it around her waist. She was already working my belt, my zipper, her fingers clumsy with urgency. When she finally got her hand inside my pants, finding me soaked and ready, we both groaned.
"Fuck, you're so wet," she whispered, her fingers sliding through my arousal, circling my clit with maddening pressure.
“Let me have you, baby,” I managed, my own hand pushing aside her underwear, finding her just as ready. “I need to watch you come apart for me.”