Chapter 10 #3
God, there were days when he wished he could.
How much better would it feel to wipe out the memories that haunted him?
Even as he thought it, the guilt spewed up, clogging his throat.
Wiping out the memories would be to wipe out Garrett.
Memories were the only thing he had left.
And she wanted him to trot that shit out for conversation? “You don’t know what you’re asking.”
“I think I do. I’m not here to force you into reliving the trauma.
I don’t need to know all the details. But I’m not some stranger or a well-meaning shrink.
I knew Garrett. I know what he meant to you.
And I know that his death is eating you alive.
You’ve been losing yourself in my case, in me.
But I see it underneath, and I’m afraid if we don’t acknowledge the ghost in the room, it’s going to fester until it becomes something we can’t survive. ”
He didn’t know how to acknowledge that ghost without falling back into darkness. He’d worked too damned hard to claw his way back out to risk that again. To risk taking her down with him.
She stepped closer, cupping his cheek. “I don’t want to lose you because we can’t talk to each other. You believing that you couldn’t did not end well for us before.”
Ty closed his eyes at the old pain in her voice.
He hadn’t known how to talk to her about his choice to go into the Army.
And there’d been a big part of him that had held back because she’d had the power to change his mind.
But he knew the silence had hurt her almost as much as the breaking up.
Because she’d believed they’d shared almost everything. Why should that have changed for her?
Ty opened his eyes, taking in the expression of earnest yearning in her face.
She wanted so desperately for him to trust her, to give her this piece of himself.
He could see, too, the underlying expectation that he wouldn’t, and in that doubt, he recognized the seed of their destruction.
She needed more than surface. He’d known that, hadn’t he?
It was why he’d tried—poorly—to resist the siren song of what she offered. But he’d thought they’d have more time.
It was hardly the first time he’d been wrong on that front. Time was a precious and fickle commodity. It seemed theirs was up.
She couldn’t possibly understand that in asking him to open this wound, he’d absolutely destroy her view of him as a hero.
But he didn’t deserve to have her keep looking at him like that.
It wasn’t who he was, and she needed to know the hot mess she was taking on before they got in any deeper.
He’d promised himself he’d do right by her.
Maybe it would be better for her this way.
He’d have preferred going through Ranger School again with one arm tied behind his back than talking about any of this shit.
He didn’t know how to handle the grief in any other way besides ignoring it or channeling it into something else.
He’d given up trying to drown it after Harrison stopped him from taking the coward’s way out.
Running from this, shoving it under the bed like a corpse, was just another step down the coward’s path.
He might be a failure, but he wasn’t a coward.
“We were in a convoy.” The words were like razors in his throat.
“Doesn’t matter where or why. It was a typical part of the job.
Typical day. We were a little over a month into our deployment, settling into the rhythm, such as it was.
Garrett was hyped. He’d just had a video call with Bethany, which always pumped him up, but this was more than usual.
I finally asked him what the hell was going on, and he says it’s time for him to think about getting out.
It wasn’t like we hadn’t talked about it before, when things got really bad.
But we’d both ultimately decided we’d put in our twenty years first, so this felt out of left field. ”
Because his legs didn’t feel altogether steady, Ty slumped back against the counter.
“I asked him why the change of heart. He’s all but bouncing in his seat like a kid with a secret.
Says he’s not supposed to tell, but who the hell am I gonna blab to on the other side of the world?
With the biggest smile I’ve ever seen on him, he tells me Bethany’s pregnant. And then the fucking world blew up.”
He closed his eyes again, seeing the dust and the blood. Christ, the blood.
Paisley’s hands wrapped around his, an anchor that pulled him back to the now. He wanted to feel all of her, to lose himself exactly as she’d accused him of doing, but he needed to get through this, so he focused on the warmth of her grip and breathed through the grief shredding his chest.
“Our Hummer had hit a roadside bomb. We were taking on fire. Most of the convoy was already dead by the time I managed to find Garrett. He’d been thrown from the wreckage, and he’d—” Ty swallowed. “His leg was gone.”
Paisley made a small, choked noise, but said nothing.
“I managed to get him to cover, get a tourniquet on. I don’t know how long it took for backup to arrive.
It felt like years. And the whole time, I’m returning enemy fire, swearing and shouting at him to just keep fucking hanging on.
Then the helo set down, and I thought, thank God.
The flight doctor started work on him the second we lifted off, and the medic was shoving me down to deal with shrapnel in my shoulder I hadn’t even noticed.
Then he was just…gone. No last words. No nothing. Just…gone.”
Ty could still see Garrett’s limp arm slipping off the stretcher before the drugs took him under. “I swore to protect him, and I failed.”
“You did everything you could. You didn’t plant that IED.”
So, he’d been told, over and over. On his good days, he believed it, a little.
“No. But it was supposed to be me in that seat. It should’ve been me who died. He should have been able to go home to his wife and child like I promised Bethany he would the day they got married.” His throat closed up on the words as he fought back the tide of emotion.
“That wasn’t a reasonable promise.”
Ty stiffened, starting to pull away, but Paisley held on, her expression fierce.
“No, listen to me. You were brothers. There isn’t a soul who knew the two of you who didn’t understand that.
You were both willing to lay your lives on the line for each other.
And you did that, over and over again. But you aren’t God.
Garrett died because of circumstances outside your control, not because you somehow shirked your duty to protect him. ”
His throat burned with unshed tears as he uttered the truth he’d told no one else. “I couldn’t protect her either. She lost the baby.” And the last piece of his best friend had died with it.
“Oh, Ty.” Paisley cradled his face, and there was no pity in her eyes. Neither was there disappointment. Only a profound sharing of his grief that he didn’t know how to accept. She pressed against him, wrapping him in an embrace he understood was meant to banish his demons.
“I can’t face her. I can’t do it knowing she lost everything because I couldn’t keep him safe.”
“Okay.” She held tighter, brushing a soft kiss to his jaw. “Okay.”
And after an eternity warring with himself, Ty let himself lean on her and wept.