Chapter Twenty-Three
Josh
“I’m not laying down,” I said to the psychologist, Major Henderson, as I shut the door behind me.
“I don’t think I asked you to, but that’s good to know,” he said, looking over his glasses at my file. “I like knowing where we stand, or sit, rather.” He motioned to the armchair across from his, and I took it. “Lieutenant Walker, I presume?”
“Yes, sir.” We both leaned in to shake hands.
“You all look so much younger in civies,” he said, motioning to my cargo shorts and polo shirt.
“I’m on convalescent leave, sir.”
“I figured as much. No judgment, just an observation.”
I leaned back in the chair and stopped before I crossed my right ankle over my left thigh. The staples were out, but that wound was still angry and pink. “Will there be a lot of those here? Observations?”
“Depends on what you want to tell me. Did you bring the questionnaire?”
“Yes, sir.” I pulled the four-page questionnaire from the manila folder I’d brought and handed it to him.
“What will it tell me, Lieutenant?”
“If you’re going to evaluate my mental status, you may as well call me Josh.”
He nodded with a small smile. “Very well, Josh.”
I took a deep breath and settled in. I owed it to Ember to be as truthful as possible, but I knew this system well. There was zero chance I would voluntarily say anything that would end up pulling my wings. No chance in hell.
“Sir, the questionnaire will tell you that this was my second deployment. I was wounded both times, because I guess I’m either the luckiest or unluckiest bastard in the world, depending on how you view it.”
“Noted. Continue.”
“It will tell you that almost a month ago, I was involved in a helicopter crash that killed my copilot, whom I was very fond of, and then I watched a very close friend die protecting me, all in the name of saving my best friend, who was the pilot of the other downed aircraft.”
“That must have been extremely rough on you.”
“Yes, sir, it was.”
He flipped through my questionnaire, scanning the pages. “How would you classify your mental health?”
Tread carefully if you want to fly again.
“I have a little trouble sleeping, and when I do, I have nightmares once a night.” Three, four, five times. Who’s counting?
“How is that affecting your relationship?”
“I’m engaged to a very understanding woman.” Who you don’t deserve. “I’ve had no angry outbursts, especially in her direction. I’m not going to, either.”
“Anything affecting your daytime hours?”
“Besides this very annoying, itchy cast, the laceration on my thigh, and the incision on my chest from the splenectomy?”
He arched an eyebrow in my direction. “In the mental sense.”
“No sir.” Except that one time you tossed Ember off the counter because you thought the garbage man might be packing serious heat.
He scribbled something in my file. “Crowds?”
“I haven’t cared for them much since my first deployment, but things look a lot different from the sky than they do the ground. I’ve gotten better with it since I’m not kicking in doors on raids anymore.”
He nodded. “And what do you generally think about the state of army mental health care?”
“I think we’re both checking a block. You want to make sure I’m not psycho, so you’re not to blame if I go on a murderous rampage and blame PTSD, and I want to make sure you’ll let me fly again. It’s a business relationship.”
He leaned forward, instantly intrigued. Fuck, you need to shut the hell up.
“Do you want to fly again?”
“Yes.”
“Hmm.” More jotting down in the file.
“Is that a problem?”
“No.” More notes. “Sometimes you see pilots a little more skittish after a crash.”
“Yeah, well, back on the horse and everything, right?”
He looked up at me, his eyes seeing things I’d rather they not. “Right. Tell me, Lieutenant, do you think you need ongoing appointments?”
Forgive me, Ember.
“No, sir. I think I’ve been through this before, and I know how to handle it. The nightmares will stop once I’m done processing what happened. The grief will take a hell of a lot longer, but grief isn’t going to keep me from flying.”
“No, it’s not,” he said, tapping his pencil on my file. “What do you plan to use to pull you through this time?”
“If you’re asking me if I’m going to turn into an addict, the answer is no. I haven’t touched alcohol since before I deployed, and I quit pain meds within the week of the crash. I have a very supportive fiancée”—aka, your drug of choice—“and I’m headed to see my mother. Nothing like a few days at home to soothe your soul.”
He turned those assessing eyes on me again, narrowing them through his glasses before writing on my chart again. “True. Well, how about we meet one more time when you’re back?”
He must have heard my sigh of exasperation because he looked up. “Only to clear you, of course. If you’re doing as well as you think you are, I’ll have no problem signing off. Until then, a follow-up isn’t going to affect your schedule, or go on your record.”
He paused, making sure I’d realized what he’d said.
Off the record. He was giving me a way to talk to him that wouldn’t affect my wings. “Thank you, sir. I’ll make sure to follow up, but only to be signed off, of course.”
“Of course.”
We shook hands, and I rose to leave, but he stopped me as I reached the door. “Chamomile tea. That always helps me sleep. Melatonin, if you need it. And while you’re so certain that it’s not affecting the rest of your life, just make sure your fiancée feels the same way. She’ll have some adverse reactions to this, too, so take care of yourself.”
“Yes, sir. Thank you for seeing me.”
“I’ll see you back here in two weeks, Lieutenant Walker.”
I gave him a nod, scheduled with his secretary, and got the hell away from there before he changed his mind. I knew Ember wanted me to pour my heart out to the guy, but he had control over my career, my wings, my life. I wasn’t going to let him take any of those, so I’d given him enough truth to check the important boxes and hid the rest that would check the wrong boxes.
Ember would have to understand…or rather, never know.
“Pink?” I asked Jagger that Sunday as we sat stretched out, our legs elevated by his coffee table. His new full-leg casts were so bright they were nearly radioactive.
He glanced down and shrugged. “It takes a real man to pull off hot pink.” He nodded to the racing game on Xbox. “Besides, I’m still kicking your ass.”
“I’m just taking it easy on you and those non-weight-bearing casts.”
“My hands aren’t broken.” He shook the remote with a grin. “Hell, I could probably still beat you if they were.”
I flipped my baseball cap backward. “Challenge accepted.”
“You looking forward to heading home?” he asked, cutting off my car.
I gunned it and flew by him on the left. “Yeah, it’ll be good to see my mom, tune up my Ducati.” My lips tilted into a small smile. “I ordered a full set of hot-weather gear for Ember as a surprise. She’s never ridden that bike.”
His car was back on my rear. “I didn’t think Ember was a big fan of motorcycles.”
“Everyone likes Ducatis.”
He scoffed.
“Okay, maybe I’m hoping she’ll like the Ducati.” The last time she’d seen it she’d simply shaken her head and walked away. My eyes flicked to the clock. The girls had been gone twenty minutes. “How is Paisley handling all of this?”
He didn’t look away from the screen. “She’s a little bit of everything. Strong, stubborn, relieved…heartbroken. She refuses to complain, not even about us sleeping on the fold-out down here until I can get up the stairs. She needs to take her beautiful, pregnant ass up to our room and sleep in a decent bed, but she refuses. She takes care of everything. The house, laundry, groceries, getting me to therapy and doc appointments, dealing with the stupid fucking wheelchair… Hell, I almost wish she would complain. It’s like she’s scared to let me know she’s hurting.”
“Will?” Guilt slammed into me, ripping apart what little peace I’d gained since the funeral. I shouldn’t have taken those last shots. I should have conserved more ammo during the firefight, should have had his back. But a million “shoulds” wouldn’t bring him back. How can Paisley…Ember even look at me?
Jagger sighed and dropped the remote as the race ended. “Yeah. It’s always worse after she calls to check on Morgan. She puts on a brave face, but it’s not like I can’t see it in her eyes, hear it in the words she’s not saying. What about Ember?”
I absently rubbed the skin near the healing, raw, pink line of the laceration on my thigh. “The notification wasn’t easy on her. Losing Will, the funeral, all the shit I’m putting her through… Fuck, you should have seen her face when I asked about an up-slip.”
Jagger’s head snapped toward mine. “You already asked about an up-slip?”
I nodded. “I have to know if I’ll be able to do it.”
He whistled low. “I’d have kicked your ass if I was Ember. You just get home after nearly dying, and you’re asking to get right back in the death machine?”
“You don’t want to get up there?”
“Hell yeah, I do. When my legs are ready, when I’m ready, but also when Paisley is ready. But I’m looking at six months before that’s even a remote possibility, and I know she needs this time just as much as I do. This has been pretty damn rough on her.”
Images of Ember played through my head. Burying her father, burning the West Point shirt, pinning my bars…my wings. The look on her face when I’d told her I was deploying, her tears that morning, the desperate way she’d clung to me, knowing almost better than anyone what could happen over there. Her soft sighs when she curled up next to me in Landstuhl, the slight way she trembled at Will’s funeral. But it was the look of shock when I’d thrown us to the floor last week that stuck with me.
She deserved so much better.
“Do you ever think that they’d have been better off if we’d just stayed away from them? Ember would have been. I know that.” The words slipped from my mouth before I could stop them.
“What. The. Actual. Fuck. Where the hell is your head at? Don’t even think things like that.”
“This life—what we do—it’s going to destroy her. I knew it back in college, and I should have stayed away, but I was too selfish. I wanted her too badly, and look what that’s brought—”
The door opened, and my mouth shut.
“We’re here!” Ember sang as she danced through the door, three boxes of pizza in her hands.
“Hey, babe.” I forced a smile for her, and she winked as she passed.
“Don’t get up, I’ll grab you a couple slices,” she ordered, taking the boxes to the dining room with Paisley following after she bent to kiss Jagger’s forehead.
Jagger looked at me, narrowing his eyes.
I shook my head and ran my hands over my face as the Skype app rang on Jagger’s television and he answered it. Stop voicing thoughts you shouldn’t even have.
“Sunday night dinner?” Sam asked from their dining room table in Colorado.
“You bet!” Jagger answered, saluting with the plate of pizza Paisley handed him.
“Pizza? Really? I thought we agreed on chicken cacciatore?” Grayson glared. “Italian, remember?”
“Pizza is Italian,” Jagger answered, his mouth full.
“There are no words for you,” Grayson said, shaking his head. We caught up on the week, as close as we could be with the eleven hundred miles that separated us.
Ember sat next to me and handed over two pieces of perfection with a beautiful smile. She was so damn happy lately that I’d gone to see Dr. Henderson. “Thank you,” I whispered and kissed her lightly. Thank you for loving me. Thank you for staying when you could so easily walk away.
I shoved my earlier thoughts to the back of my head, the dark corners where monsters, regret, and truth lurked, and coped how I did best—I locked it away.
But not before I realized how crowded it was getting back there.