Forty-three
FORTY-THREE
Bea
S unday night went by and all of Monday. Tuesday morning was upon us, my bags were packed, and we had the rental Prius ready to go. I’d seen tiny evidences of Tag, like a tea bag in the trash bin when I woke up, but he was completely elusive. I’d caught glimpses of him and had a few awkward conversations, but Jesse was right. I would know when he was back.
He wasn’t yet.
His gaze was still asleep, no fire or presence behind his gray irises.
Since Sunday, I’d become an expert in post-traumatic stress disorder. I read articles, ran Google searches, and watched pros talk on YouTube until my phone screen blurred and my eyes felt swollen from crying. I learned so many things I never wanted to learn and read personal testimonies that made my heart feel like solid lead in my chest. My new knowledge couldn’t diagnose Tag, but it did bring me some understanding of what happened in the truck.
I was pretty sure he did something called dissociating .
Meaning, he essentially lost touch with reality, stuck partially or fully between a painful then and the present now. It was the brain’s very normal response to stimuli that was too terrifying to cope with. The brain sent him “offline” to get him through the moment.
And sometimes, when that happened, it took people a while to find their way back into the present.
Up until my research spree, I had no idea how complex PTSD was. Tag’s dissociative experience was just one of the many, many ways severe trauma could manifest.
My insides had been twisted inside out as one question rolled through my mind on agonizing, gutting repeat. Why? Why? Why?
The things I knew about the abuse in his childhood wrapped around me until I choked with grief. Something happened to him. The possibilities sent bile up my throat.
That night under the stars, there was a sentence he never finished…and it was haunting me.
“When you were fast asleep, I was…”
I prayed, begged God, that the end of the sentence wasn’t something absolutely horrifying. Internally, I raged against the mother who never loved him, the father who never sought him, the grandma who simply needed him, the brother who used him, and the people who only saw an antisocial guy.
I raged that the world didn’t know the tender man inside—the man who craved a friend, the man who could write his heart like a poet, the man who rescued horses because he thought they were worth a second chance, the man who knew how to braid hair.
I raged against his rain story. He’d never told me about it. The trauma had to be about the rain—had to be. Whatever it was, whatever broke his spirit, I hated it. I hated the person responsible and hated the universe for standing silent while my best friend was hurt.
My thoughts spiraled as I stood next to the Prius, loath to get in. How could I say goodbye with so many questions? I asked Jesse if I should stay and he told me to go home and let Tag be Tag. Relinquishing control was like holding back an instinctive impulse. As painful as igniting my own heart and watching it burn to the ground.
Jackie stood next to me in the gravel driveway. “Did he text back?”
I tapped my phone screen for the hundredth time. “No.”
She sighed. “I’m sorry, Bea. ”
“Me too.”
She rubbed the back of my shoulder. “We have to go.”
“I know.”
I exchanged quiet goodbyes with Cade and Jesse. Then blindly, numbly, I buckled myself into the passenger’s seat.
As Jackie bumped down the gravel driveway, I saw Tag in pasture five. He was digging something out of the ground.
“Stop the car!” I shrieked.
Before the tires came to a full stop, I flew out the door, running for the fence. I climbed and jumped off it in a relatively smooth motion. “Tag!”
When he heard my voice, he looked up.
“Tag!” I jogged for a few moments until I stood breathlessly before him. Oxygen filled my tight lungs in frantic pulls. After a few steadying breaths, my greeting sounded lame. “Hey.”
“Hey.” He walked away a few paces and plunged the shovel into the ground again.
“What are you digging up?”
“These weeds’ll make the horses sick.”
“Oh.”
The soil scraped against the metal shovel, roots snapping as he pulled it up. He tossed the plant into the wheelbarrow beside him.
“We have to leave.”
Finally, he glanced at me. “Yeah. I know.”
I drew in a sharp breath, fighting against the urge to cry.
The sun was back in full force today, already burning the back of my neck and shoulders. I lifted a hand to shield my eyes from the scorching rays. “I’m going to miss you, Tag.”
He rammed the tip of the shovel into the ground and stomped it with his boot so it stood upright out of the earth. He turned to me. My eyes devoured him, committing every detail to memory. And I cataloged a new one…his right arm. Where he’d scratched his skin had a light rash, like he’d accidentally taken the soothing action too far.
He caught my gaze, following it to his arm. He shoved his hands in his pockets, turning the red rash out of sight. “I’m gonna miss you, too. ”
“Can—can you call me or something?” Emotions choked my tone.
“Of course. Yeah, we’ll keep in touch.”
Keep in touch.
Like two old friends who pick up where they left off.
I swallowed the tears back, nodding.
“Okay. Can I hug you goodbye?”
He smiled, fake and forced. Tag was a terrible actor. He took a step toward me and opened his arms. I led myself into them, but his chest was a tree trunk—stiff, not enfolding me as before. We hugged, quick and formal, the way slight acquaintances would. Not like two people who had held each other and bore their souls.
When I pulled away, his gray gaze found mine. “Travel safe.”
I nodded, incapable of speech.
What was going to happen to us? My future loomed before me, dark with impending storms. Two days ago, I had everything I wanted. Now, it was stripped away, hopelessness and uncertainty jammed into the gaping hole in my heart.
A flushed, sticky feeling swept over my face and neck.
“Bye.” I whispered over my shoulder.
I wove back through the pasture, my feet shuffling and catching in the high grass. At the fence, I waited. At any moment, I expected him to call me back, to hear the shovel get tossed to the ground, to feel his hand on my shoulder stopping me.
But the shovel just dug into the earth again and again.
Soil scraped. Roots ripped. My heart shattered.
I stumbled onto the gravel driveway and groped for the handle of the Prius, deep breathing against the sobs traveling up my throat, squinting to see through the onslaught of tears.
When the Prius door slammed behind me, my strength dissolved.