Kelsey decided not to show up to work tonight. Despite my best efforts of staring at the clock and willing her to walk through that front door, midnight comes and goes with no Kelsey.

I pull double duty behind the bar and try to drown my worry in whiskey.

She’s done this before. And that offers little comfort by way of hoping I know the end of this story.

It’s just that tonight, I know I’m the source of it. And I hate that. I hate knowing that I hurt her again. That I lashed out and slapped at her because I was hurting.

Neither the alcohol nor the questioning looks that Eli keeps shooting in my direction are helping ease the ache in my chest.

Closing time can’t come soon enough. By the time I’m wiping down the bar and prepping to close out the register, I’m wound tight enough to snap and not nearly drunk enough.

There won’t be any sleep tonight. And as much as I want to lash out and blame her, it’s not her fucking fault.

It’s mine.

“Want to tell me what’s going on?” Eli finally asks.

“I wish I knew.” Stacking glasses is suddenly infinitely important.

“Oh, you thought I meant with Kelsey?”

I look over at him sharply. He’s standing there, arms folded across his chest, tattoos flexing menacingly in the shadows. “I meant with you looking like you wanted to stab the customers tonight. But since you brought her up, yes, please share what you suspect about our coworker.”

I stack the last glass then flip the towel over my shoulder. There are limits to what I’ll share with him. Most of what happened between us downrange is…off limits to sharing with anyone. “We’re teaching a class on campus this semester. To cadets in the ROTC program.”

His mouth curls unexpectedly. “Really? What brought that about? You two barely speak to each other. I can’t tell if you need a closed door and some privacy or couples therapy.”

“The universe hates me,” I mumble under my breath.

“It’s been my general experience that the universe tends to put things in our path we can or need to handle.”

I toss back a final shot before I slide the glass into the dishwasher. “That’s a pretty fucked-up way of looking at things. How are you supposed to tell someone who just got raped, for instance, that, well, ‘the universe thinks you can handle this’?”

My words are harsher than they need to be.

“I didn’t say that everyone gets what they deserve.” Eli holds up one hand. “It’s the way I choose to relate to the shit in my life. I would never say that to someone who’d just been through something like that and fuck you for thinking I’m dense enough to do it.”

I snatch my phone off the counter and slide it into my back pocket. “You’re right. My bad.” The apology is bitter on my tongue. I know what he meant. I just don’t care. “Do you have Kelsey’s number? Is she okay?”

He looks at me silently for a long moment. “She’s having a rough night. I was going to swing by but she told me she wasn’t alone. Nalini was with her.”

Relief is a tangible thing crawling over my skin. There isn’t anyone better. “I’ve never met anyone with their shit together like Nalini King.”

His expression relaxes and just like that, we’re back on solid footing. “Yeah, she’s a good egg. One of the best. She was my cadet company commander my plebe year.”

“Oh yeah?”

“She was terrifying then as a twenty-one-year-old future lieutenant. Now that she’s got experience? She’s got the city council eating out of her palm.”

“Apparently she’s got issues with the wellness center on campus.” It’s so much easier talking about the mundane things like bureaucracy than it is to talk about Kelsey. I know he wants to ask. But Eli is too much of a Boy Scout to pressure me into breaking her confidence.

“I’m sure she’ll get it sorted out soon enough.” He slips the iPad we use as a register from its dock.

“Why do you do this? Why do you let her just miss work whenever she wants? I mean, don’t you have a business to run?”

He looks down at the counter. The silence hangs between us for a long time. “I don’t know what it’s like to come back from the things Kelsey is dealing with. And I don’t know the whole story. I can’t fix that for her. The only thing I can do is make sure she has space and time to work on whatever it is that she needs to work on.” He pauses. “I could fire her. Any other boss might do exactly that. But I won’t. Because we look out for our own. And if all that means is I provide something to anchor her while she’s working through whatever she’s working through, then that’s my role here.”

“What’s the difference between that and enabling a guy like Caleb?”

Caleb is a sore subject between us. I don’t like the guy. Never have.

“His story is not for me to tell. And I worry about him, too, in a different way than I worry about Kelsey. About how much I’m enabling versus supporting.” He clears his throat. “Look, whatever is going on between you two, work it out. Don’t run her off. Because we can’t keep an eye on things if she’s gone.”

That right there is why I love this man. He cares so fucking much about the people around him. He didn’t get that from the Army. No, he brought that with him when he showed up on R-Day at West Point. The Army just helped him refine it. Hone it.

Makes him damn good at giving a shit about people.

About us.

About the fucked-up little tribe he’s managed to build here.

“I won’t.” It’s a promise I’m not sure I can keep.

But I’ll go to my grave trying.

I love that Nalini curled up on my couch and watched Deadpool with me. It felt so good to laugh at the raunchy humor and tell terrible stories of life since we left the Army.

But like all good things, it had to end. She went home and I stayed at my apartment. Alone.

I lie in my bed, one palm over my heart, the other on my belly. Breathing. Trying to let my mind wander enough to fall asleep.

Guilt is tight in my chest after the silence of my apartment wraps around me. It’s the silence that gets to me.

I should have gone to work. Should have sought the noise and the chaos and the thumping music. Anything to escape the creeping quiet of the dark.

But I know my patterns. And tonight, I was walking on cracking ice, the fissures spreading out beneath my feet, threatening to shatter and drop me into the cold water of nightmares and memories.

And I know how I would react if that happens again. How I always do.

With too much alcohol. And too many bad decisions.

I’d meant to go to yoga and then go to work.

But the sutra tonight…the sutra had hit a little too close to home. Nalini had spoken about prisoners and the prison guards. About how they were both inside the same structure but the guards saw the walls as an opportunity, whereas the prisoners saw it only as restraint.

Her point was that if we believe we are trapped, then so we are.

And it hit me hard, like a wall of truth crashing over me. That I was trapped, still stuck in the past, letting my fear and my nightmares control my present.

It sounds so easy, so fucking simple. Just change the way you are looking at things and voila! The prison becomes a castle.

I continue to breathe in, out. Making my inhale match my exhale.

After class, I couldn’t lift myself from savasana. And Nalini had come and sat by me, talking to me until the tears started flowing down my cheeks and running into my hair.

She stayed.

And she never asked me to talk about it. She just kept talking about the way the body stores our memories and how we release them through asana practice. And I listened as I tried to let go, a little bit at a time.

I don’t know if I drift to sleep or not. It doesn’t feel like it but before I realize it, the sun is piercing the veil between the curtain and the wall, reminding me that it’s time to get up and face the day.

It’s so easy to drag my corpse out of bed and to yoga. I don’t even have to argue with myself about whether or not I’m going. It’s the one thing in my life that’s simple. Even when it isn’t.

I can’t point to the moment I decided to commit to making a yoga practice a part of my daily life. It just kind of happened. I walk into Arjuna Yoga, inhaling the warm scent of sandalwood and patchouli and fruity teas. It’s a light scent that wraps around me, helping my mind shake off the sleepless night.

Every day is a struggle to find balance. To try to let go of the things I can’t control. To not hold on to the past.

To try and stop blaming myself for everything that went wrong, no matter how good my intentions had been.

It’s more difficult these days because every day, I’m around the person that represents everything I ran from when my life in the Army ended.

Deacon.

Being around him is a subtle type of self-harm. How close to the vein can I get? How hard can I push up against the flesh before I bleed again? Can I inhale the scent of him as he walks by and not beg him to touch me? Can I brush against his arm and not remember how it felt to feel it wrapped around my stomach, holding me close as he pushed into me, fast and hard, the way I wanted him then.

The way I want him still.

But the flip side of the harm is the rush, the endorphins of surviving another encounter. Another moment of proving to myself that I’m still alive. That the pain and the fear and the alcohol-drenched return home are only a memory.

That my past is not my future.

My mind is fuzzy, despite sweating on the mat in class as Cricket, one of the new instructors, calls out chair pose.

Sometimes that happens. Sometimes, I’m able to disappear into the space and simply be in the poses and the movement. Other times, I can’t connect, can’t release and lose myself in the flow.

It’s not the end of the world. I’ve had days like this before and I will have days like this again.

But it’s weird that today when things go sideways, I have a text from Deacon asking if we can meet for coffee to discuss class with the cadets.

I suppose I have to say yes. If cadets are anything like privates, they can figure out when the platoon sergeant and platoon leader don’t like each other. And all sorts of shenanigans can ensue from that.

I know. I took plenty of advantage of those situations when I was a junior enlisted soldier.

We agree to meet downtown, a block or so away from The Pint. I love the downtown Durham area, especially the old tobacco district that has been converted and is now chic and trendy and new mixed in with the historic brick and ancient paver stones. Maybe I’m supposed to be too cool for all that but I love the way the old brick buildings make me feel connected.

This town is a lot like me, I guess. Trying to wrestle with its own past while trying not to lose its present in a violent shit show. I guess maybe that’s why this fits so much better than central Texas for me. Texas was more Army, more old Kelsey. This is more…civilian Kelsey. Like Durham, I guess I’m still working on figuring out who that is.

The Pint is nestled between several restaurants. Around the corner is a coffee shop that’s been converted from an old garage called Espresso and Fizz. I have no idea how they decided on the name of the place but I love the espresso chocolate blend they offer. I’m skeptical of Deacon’s choosing this as the place to meet because it’s almost always packed.

Today, though, he’s waiting in a corner, having snagged a large couch and wide flat table. He’s got two cups of coffee in front of him.

“Nalini told me you like the chocolate one. Hope I got it right,” he says, handing it to me as he slides over and makes room on the couch.

The moment hangs between us.

I’ve never done well with guilt. Since I walked into the bar six months ago, I’ve kept him at arm’s length. I’ve deliberately been standoffish and distant.

It hurts. It hurts me every time I turn away from the concern in his eyes.

It hurts every time I see him flirting with someone else.

It hurts because I know that if I dare to take what he’s offering, even if only for a night, I risk backsliding into every bad habit I’m trying to unlearn.

“I’m only offering coffee. Not marriage,” he says when I hesitate. His words are lighter than I think he meant. They crash into me, though—a wave of simplicity captured in those simple sentences.

I take the coffee and sit next to him on the couch. “Thank you. This is perfect.” The coffee here is never burnt. Never scalded.

“Glad I got the right one.” His body is angled toward me, his elbow resting on the back of the couch.

The world falls away. His eyes are warm, a physical caress as I sit, surrounded by his energy and the warmth of simply being near him. He’s close. Closer than he’s been. I think it’s the stillness. Behind the bar, we’re both always moving, always crashing into each other and moving quickly away, like waves being drawn back into the ocean after slamming into the rocky beach.

Now, I’m still. Warm. Drawn closer to the heat, to the promise of his touch.

It’s such a human thing to want to be touched. To be loved.

We had that.

And then it ended.

Because neither of us was capable of handling it.

Me most of all.

It’s tempting to lean closer, to see if she will let me penetrate the boundaries she’s erected.

But I can’t do that. Not if I want to win the war.

I have to be strategic. Deliberate.

At least, that’s what I think I have to do. I’m pretty much winging this.

No matter how much I want to stay, I move away, giving her space.

It’s a small thing but the flash of awareness in her eyes tells me I’m not doing too shabbily right now.

“The required discussions are pretty straightforward.” It’s easy to talk shop, to talk about the cadets and the classroom.

“I didn’t really get a chance to do too much digging into it.” She turns toward the paper copy of the syllabus I have spread across the table. “I get the impression Professor Blake wants us to do more talking and less focusing on the reading.”

“I had the same impression.” It’s amazing how this neutral territory is so easy to navigate with her. Nothing personal. No real connection.

But no animosity either. She’s not actively working on keeping the boundaries up between us.

I suppose that’s good, right?

“I guess I’d start with what do we want them to know? When we think back about our lieutenants, what do we wish they’d done differently?”

She sips her drink, nodding after a moment, before she reaches for her pen. “I think there’s so much going on, we need to really push them beyond what they think they’re going to be doing.”

I smile. “Eli told me when he graduated from West Point, he thought he’d be kicking in doors every day. Turns out he was doing a lot of paperwork and dealing with marital infidelity and soldier pay problems.”

“I had a platoon leader that was so bitter that he had women in his platoon,” she says with a smile.

“That doesn’t seem to be the kind of memory that would make you smile.” I’m curious about her reaction. We weren’t in the same company downrange, just the same battalion.

“Well, when he tried to trade his female private and me for two dudes, First Sergeant told him to get the fuck out of his office and if he ever tried any stupid shit like that again, he’d make sure the old man relieved him and ended his military career before it started.” She takes a sip of her coffee. “I loved working for First Sarn’t Sorren.”

“It helped that he had a teenage daughter so that kind of attitude didn’t play well,” I say. “I wonder what he’s up to these days?”

“I don’t know. I lost touch with him when I left Texas.”

I glance down at my phone. “I still have his number. I wonder what he’d say about this teaching-the-cadets thing.”

She leans back into the couch. The movement is relaxed and comfortable. Easy.

I could get used to this. Just being around her.

Enjoying her.

Enjoying each other.

Like we used to.

“I think maybe we should tackle some of their stereotypes? Like maybe we should talk about women in combat and try to get them to talk about all the things they’re going to do in their job that doesn’t involve shooting people,” she says mildly.

“That’s a really good idea.” It’s exactly what I want her to do. Lead this thing. Lead them. I know she’s capable of it. I’ve seen her lead and dear lord in heaven she is phenomenal when she’s in front of soldiers. “I imagine he’d want us to be realistic and honest with them. Set their expectations to normal, you know?” I watch her reaction to my words, watching for any sign that I tripped across a line.

She lost some of that downrange. And I didn’t notice it was gone until it was far too late.

I look down at my coffee. At the espresso and dark chocolate blend swirling in my cup.

“Why did you get upset the other day when I told the cadets about your bronze star?” I ask quietly. I’m afraid to look, terrified that if I do, I’ll see that I’ve crossed the line once more.

I finally dare to glance up at her. Expecting anger. Defensiveness.

Color me surprised when she’s merely swirling her drink in the mug in front of her

But the coffee must have a magical property in it. She’s not angry. She’s not even pulling away. “Every time the Army comes up, I feel like I’m always trying not to be that guy that’s telling everyone how he was such a badass when he was some PowerPoint slide-making coffee bitch.”

I lift one eyebrow and try really hard not to smile. “You mean like Caleb?”

She smiles sadly. “He’s not nearly as bad as some guys I’ve met.” There’s a strange sympathy in her voice, one that highlights the lack of compassion in my own when it comes to Caleb.

“He annoys you, doesn’t he?” she says after a moment.

I don’t deny it. “He brags about things he didn’t do. You…you don’t even admit to things you did do.” I swallow. Fear grips my throat, fear that I am dancing too close to the edge. But I have to press on. Have to ask the question. “Why? What are you afraid of?”

She stares into the coffee cup. Her chocolate brown eyes distant and…sad. Finally, she looks up at me. For once there’s no anger. No boundaries. Only a field of emotion looking back at me, a thousand emotions I cannot name but feel just the same.

“Breaking.”