13 Everleigh Forgot Your Roots—Buffalo Traffic Jam #2
“We had this big, grand fireplace in my parents’ home when I was a child.” I study the flames wistfully. “My mother had it torn out when she renovated. Replaced with this ugly electric monstrosity.”
His shoulders shake, moving with suppressed laughter.
“Yeah, I didn’t like her choice either. My father would’ve been rolling in his grave. She never had much regard for comfort when all her focus was on dressing to impress. The house included.”
A bubble of grief and loneliness rises in my chest cavity, catching me defenceless. It isn’t often that I allow myself to remember my childhood or what became of the family I thought I had. The same ache reflects on Fletcher’s lifeless expression.
“She lives in Dubai now,” I reveal. “Married some filthy-rich, private equity asshole who’s half her age and left the country to start fresh. I haven’t spoken to her in years.”
The last time I saw her was a couple of weeks after my wedding—a flash diamond planted on her ring finger and one-way plane tickets purchased. She sold all my father’s possessions and the family home, then never returned. The sporadic phone calls stopped shortly after.
“I guess you don’t know what you have until it’s gone sometimes.” My voice grows thick with unshed emotion. “I still miss my father even though he died when I was a teenager.”
Fletcher listens to me ramble, his expression neutral.
“Do you miss being able to talk?” I dare to ask.
He considers me for a moment, lips sealed tight.
“You don’t have to answer. I’m not trying to pry or be insensitive. Just . . . You’re not alone. I want you to know that.”
Picking up his phone again, I watch Fletcher hesitantly tap out a message, then turn the screen to face me.
I don’t mourn what can never be recovered.
“But you have a speech therapist, right?”
He types another reply. I don’t bother going.
“Why not?”
Scowling, he makes it clear how futile he finds the suggestion.
“I’m not an expert, but I don’t think they would offer you treatment if there were no chance of rehabilitation. Isn’t it worth a shot?”
My latest set of scans still show no improvement. Too much damage. No point trying.
“No improvement because it’s futile or because you haven’t tried?”
Fletcher simply stares at me.
“Sorry,” I add. “Just trying to help.”
He shrugs. Great. The man hates me along with the rest of the world.
“Do you talk to anyone about this? Like, professionally?”
Watching his thumbs hammer the screen, I’m secretly pleased to see Fletcher come alive. It’s not hard to see how the others have no choice but to disregard his existence when he’s unresponsive.
If you’re going to lecture me about seeing a shrink like the others do, warn me so I can leave now.
Laughter spills out of me, making him startle.
“I don’t understand my own mind, Fletch.” I wave off his sarcasm. “Glass houses and all. So I have zero right to lecture anyone on how they deal with their demons.”
Seeing a half smile touch his lips is the most exhilarating reward. When he smiles, Fletcher’s whole being comes alive. Even his glacial orbs seem to sparkle with tiny ice skates twirling on a frozen lake-bed, offering a glimpse of the man he once was.
“But I do know a thing or two about loneliness,” I explain honestly. “So if you want someone to talk to who isn’t your best friend or roommate, I’m here. I’ll listen and will never repeat a single word.”
He arches a dark-brown brow.
“Promise.” My finger crosses over my breastbone, making his mouth curve again. “You don’t have to do this on your own.”
Fletcher types, deletes, and retypes a message to me several times. He seems to make his peace with whatever he’s written and moves to sit at the end of the sofa, allowing the fresh scent of pine and juniper to drift over to me.
There’s no point in treatment or talking to anyone about my so-called fucking trauma. I shouldn’t be alive. No cure for that.
Heart twinging, I watch him squeeze the back of his neck to massage a knot of gnarly scar tissue. He tries to conceal his wince, but it’s evident in the creased lines that mar his brow.
“Can I ask what happened?”
The assessment he gives me is contemplative.
“If you want someone to listen, that is.”
His eyes narrow on me, and I hold firm without flinching. No matter what he believes, his darkness doesn’t scare me. I won’t let him use that as an excuse to isolate himself further.
Fletcher takes his time to tap out a long paragraph, rereading the words several times. My stomach flip-flops when he passes the phone to me instead of rotating the screen, his gaze averted.
Deployed overseas in active combat—pilot of a military helicopter carrying a diplomat to safety. Flight shot down in the desert. Dragged my guy out first, leaving teammates trapped.
“Jesus,” I mutter.
Retaking the phone, he continues recounting the tale.
I had no choice. The fuel caught alight, fire everywhere. Just got him out when the copter exploded and knocked me out. Woke up with third-degree burns and no voice. Medically discharged the next day.
“Oh, my. Fletch . . . I can’t even imagine.”
Distant ghosts haunt his expression. He wordlessly takes the phone back from me to type more.
We were the sole survivors. The rest of my team died.
Seeing his hands quake on the phone cracks my soul clean in half with a chainsaw.
I still see their faces as they burned alive whenever I shut my eyes.
“It wasn’t your fault. You did your duty.”
Grimacing, he stabs out another response.
Tell that to the families of those I swore to protect. My friends. We were a team, and I failed to save them.
“There’s another family out there who got to welcome their loved one home because of you,” I say thickly. “Surviving long enough to do your job doesn’t make you guilty.”
It should, he types angrily. Why did I live and not them?
His self-loathing is suffocating. I can see it consuming him from the inside out. Expanding, infesting, eating away at new cell growth before it has the chance to heal his wounds.
This is why he’s withdrawn from the world. I doubt either of the guys have got this much out of him since he came home. His survivor’s guilt has convinced him that a living death is all he deserves.
Taking the phone from him, I toss it aside, then shuck off the blanket to shuffle closer to him on the sofa. My knees touch his legs, bringing us flush together. Fletcher watches me with widened eyes, his disfigured neck pulling taut with each inhale.
“Please listen to me.”
He arches a brow, his mistrust obvious.
“What you did was incredibly courageous, and you’ve paid an extremely heavy price for it. Their deaths are a tragedy, but that doesn’t make it your fault.”
In the dim light cast by the fireplace, I watch his fragile act fail. A spider-web crack appears in the glass that keeps him enclosed, the splinters spreading until a whole system failure ensues.
Fletcher’s quaking fingers tug mine to pull my hand closer, resting tangled on his leg. I suck in deep when he flips my palm over to study the littered slices, crusted with blood from my midnight panic attack.
The question in his ice-fall eyes is clear.
“I understand guilt,” I whisper unsteadily.
His index finger strokes over a scabbed gash where a splinter caught my skin. Brows scrunched together in a frown, he glares at the mark like he can make it disappear with willpower alone.