Chapter 21 #2
“I wish–I wish I’d met you five years ago! Ten years ago! All the years ago!”
“Me, too. You’re what, seven years younger?”
She nodded against his chest, yawning again.
“Obviously, it wouldn’t have worked when we were eleven and eighteen, but twenty-five and thirty-two?” she said, her voice getting quieter as she spoke. He stroked her hair, his own eyes getting tired.
“We have us now. That’s what counts,” he said, although it sounded like a platitude.
“Yes.” Another yawn. “Am I a terrible host if I fall asleep on you?”
He patted her ass. “I will give this Airbnb five stars. Great service. Owner goes above and beyond. Works endlessly to please the guests.”
As they faded off to sleep, sated and happy, Dennis found himself truly relaxing for the first time in, well…
Ever.
The boy with big brown eyes begged him.
“Mama says I can’t have him, but he’s my friend!” The dog wiggled in the boy’s arms as bullets whistled by, explosives going off all around the small market.
It happened so fast.
Sand filled his nostrils, smoke cut visibility to nothing, and worst of all, Dennis felt the bitter truth–that his entire team had been misled.
For all he knew, the kid was a plant. Could have been wearing a bomb. Same with the damn dog.
Except he knew this boy. His father was a translator. His mother cooked for him.
And the little boy begged with his whole heart.
A rope was all Dennis had to help, tying it around the dog’s neck loose enough not to choke it, tight enough to give him a way to track the damn thing.
“You hide here,” he said, but not in English. The words were sharp, one at a time, like bullets reluctantly discharged over his tongue. Under a broken chair, in a small alcove, he tucked the boy and the dog away just before he was hit, the bullet ricocheting off his flak vest.
A bruised liver he could survive.
Thank god for Kevlar.
Cacophony rained down on him like dirt, clods of it everywhere, as if they were being bombed with it by drones. A scream from the boy, then a flash of movement.
The dog darted down the alley.
“NO!” Dennis shouted, instantly distracted by a woman’s cry for help, a baby in her arms, two doors down from the boy.
Moving in slow motion, Dennis fought to get to the woman, his hands flayed by grit and friction, his mind a blur.
And then he was midair.
When he came to, the world was nothing but a high-pitched whine and goo.
Bloody goo.
The woman with the baby screamed, her cries joining the babe in arms, and all he could think was, alive.
If I can hear, I’m alive. If they can scream, they’re alive.
But then a man’s hoarse shout, followed by the gut-wrenching shriek of reality’s cruelty.
Dennis was face down, turned away from the man. As he pivoted on his belly, he slowly saw.
Saw too much.
Saw his failure.
Saw too much death.
Saw his–
“Dennis! Shhh. Shhh,” spoke the sand, the wind, the sun, all whispering in his ear at once.
“Unh!” Sitting bolt upright, he couldn’t make any sense of his surroundings. Soft sheets. Smooth skin. Someone else’s heat. Where the hell was he? How did he get here?
“You’re safe. It’s okay. Breathe,” said the woman beside him, ripe and round, naked under the sheet.
And who was..?
Oh. Right.
Ana.
“Not again,” he groaned, resting his elbows on his knees, hands raking his hair, pulling hard to wake himself out of the nightmare.
“You were muttering in a language I don’t know,” she said. “And you twitched and turned.”
“How long?”
“Maybe a minute.”
Lungs shouldn’t shake, but somehow his did, from the inside out.
“Can’t–can’t–” He tried to explain but his body was in two places, two time frames, two selves, and couldn’t merge.
“Just be. Let it happen. You’ll be fine. You will align. Nothing that happens now can hurt you.” She held his hand and locked eyes with him, saying no more.
Just breathing.
Her belly made him remember the baby, screaming in the alley.
So he closed his eyes.
And opened them right up again.
The mind’s eye was an evil little bastard, bringing him intrusive images he couldn’t wash away. Looking at Ana was far better.
As she inhaled, she tipped her chin up a little, then exhaled, tipping it down. Mirroring her, he eventually forced his lungs to let air in and out in a rhythm compatible with life.
Barely.
Sweat covered his naked skin, his legs askew now, his heart hammering so hard against his ribs, he was sure they were cracked.
He let go of her hands and fell back against the pillow, staring up at the ceiling fan.
“I’m so sorry.”
“For what?”
“That,” he managed.
“That was a nightmare. We can’t control nightmares.”
“You don’t need to be exposed to my shit like this.”
“How often does it happen?”
“I don’t know. It just does. Mostly after I see a kid get hurt.”
“That’s a lot.”
“It is. We–we don’t need to talk about this.”
“Here.” She reached over to her nightstand and handed him a glass of water. “Drink. It’ll help.”
Unable to argue, he did as told, and she was right.
It helped.
“Want to talk about it?”
“No.”
“Okay.”
“Yes.”
“I’m here.”
“I don’t want to talk about it, but I do want to talk about it, but the thought of talking about it makes me not want to talk about it.”
“I understand.”
“I’m glad one of us does, because I sure don’t.”
“Trauma is never rational.”
“Which is why I hate it.”
“I don’t know anyone who loves trauma, Dennis.”
He snorted, his throat slowly relaxing from the death grip the nightmare had on it.
“It’s a dream about a boy.”
It hurt even to say that.
“A dream based on reality?”
“Yes.”
“A real event?”
“Mmm hmmm. But the details aren’t always what really happened. The themes are, though.”
“Tell me more.”
“It’s going to sound… it’s not organized.”
“That’s okay.”
“You’re not my therapist, you know.”
“I’m your–what am I to you? We’ve never said. Girlfriend?”
“Soulmate.”
“That works.”
“You’re my angel.” He squeezed her hand.
She just smiled, sitting in the darkness with him, holding his hand.
“I couldn’t save him.”
“That’s hard.”
“I–I tried. He had a dog. His mother wouldn’t let him keep it. We were fighting and he begged me to help him. Then I had to assist a woman with a baby and the dog got loose and the boy–there was an explosion. I went flying and–” He let out a grunt, nausea taking over.
“You tried but couldn’t save him.”
“Yeah.”
“Oh, Dennis.” Her arms went around him, her body curled against his side. One knee came up, tucked along his thigh, her belly heavy against his hip. “I’m here. You’re here. You’re not back there.”
“I know that. Some part of my brain doesn’t. And that part is an asshole.”
“That part needs help.” She looked up at him. “Is that why you retired? That incident?”
“Yeah. There’s more to it, but–yes.”
“Any specific triggers?”
“Well, like I said, watching a kid get hurt.”
She nodded against his chest. “Like the little boy at the Indian restaurant when I was in Luview?”
“Mmm hmm. And sometimes, my niece.”
“Harriet?”
“Yeah. If she gets hurt, it–it’s hard. She’s around the same age as the boy.”
“So when we met, in the hotel alley, the boy with the cat–that’s why you had a flashback?”
“Probably.”
“That makes sense.”
“Does it? Because nothing about this makes sense to me.”
Exhaustion poured through him, sudden and harsh. Her touch, her understanding, her gentle presence kept a part of him feeling good.
The rest of him wanted to fade out.
A yawn escaped him, then another, and she caught it.
“You want to know how I knew you were special back in January?” he asked, the question rhetorical.
“Of course.”
“I could sleep with you.”
“We definitely slept together.” She laughed. “Three times.”
“Not the sex. The sleep. I slept so well I didn’t even wake up when you snuck out. You relaxed me, Ana. Made me feel safe. That’s my job. Making other people safe. You flipped the script on me. That’s when I knew.”
“Oh,” she said softly, looking at him with such care. “I’m so glad I could give that to you. And that you could receive it.”
“Me, too.”
“Sleepy,” she said, yawning again, snuggling in closer. “You make an incredible body pillow.”
“A what?”
She waved vaguely toward a chair in the corner of her bedroom. “My body pillow. It helps me sleep. Positions my belly to take weight off my joints.”
“I will be your human body pillow forever. Put any part of you on any part of me.” Another yawn took over and soon, he was in a hazy zone, locked in her arms.
Grounded by her.