Chapter Four
QUINN
I realized when I stepped into the backyard that I’d seen Sawyer before. For the big ‘surprise’ I’d been in the bathroom and hadn’t gotten a chance at seeing the returning soldier. I mulled around getting snacks and a glass of water until finally someone suggested going outside, which, in the cramped room, sounded like a delightful idea. I’d started to wonder if Sawyer was really there at all until I saw him.
A lot of girls from my high school used to fantasize about soldiers. The military was a big deal for people out of my town; I’d been raised in small city just outside of Austin where girls were expected to marry, and men were expected to leave their new wives for the war. JROTC was a big deal, and boys would line up on the days that the army recruited. Us girls used to dream about the perfect man, and ‘soldier’ always fell into that description.
Despite my insistence that I was separate from them, better, more sophisticated—after all, I wanted to go to college—I had a soft spot for the look. When I met Sawyer’s gaze, that only bolstered in my mind. He had a dignified way of carrying himself, a uniform way of looking at things, and I couldn’t pretend not to appreciate his physique. Flawless, really; something I wouldn’t mind getting to know better.
And why couldn’t I? It was his party, after all. I walked towards him, noting that his friend left like he wanted to promote alone time between the two of us.
“Hey. You’re the man of the hour, yeah?” I smiled at him and wondered if this was risqué. I’m hardly trying to get in his pants. I just want to get to know him better.
“I, um…” He offered a small smile and rubbed the back of his neck. “Something like that,” he said. “I don’t think I’ve met you before.”
“No,” I agreed. “I’m Quinn. I’m Janet and Jesse’s niece.”
“Oh! I’ve heard of you,” he said. He smiled a little more easily now. “You went off the beaten path and opened up a psychiatrist’s office.”
“Something like that,” I said. I didn’t really want to pretend I’d ever done a brave thing in my life in front of a Navy SEAL. “Between the two of us, I don’t think I have anything brave to brag about.”
He shook his head. “I’m trying to get away from that, see.”
I raised an eyebrow, intrigued, to say the least. Usually, men yearned for a shot at their ego—it was the second most sensitive place on their body, from what I’d gathered. A soldier fresh from battle wanted to hear about how brave he was, or so I’d presumed. “Oh? What are you aiming to do, then?”
“Start over,” he said. Sawyer pulled his cap down over his head a little more securely, like nervous fidgeting, really. “I went into the Navy to get on track, and I did. Got my life together, I think, or a life together. Now I’m back, and that’s good, but I’m… I don’t know; I just want a fresh start. A second crack at the whole thing.”
I’d expected to hear story after story about how big of a hero he was. This was an incredibly interesting turn of events. “That’s a humble goal,” I pointed out.
He shrugged again. “Maybe. It’s realistic. Or, maybe the least realistic. I’m not sure yet.”
He’d just gotten home that day, after all. I doubted he had any kind of contingency plan for where he was going next or what he was supposed to be up to from here on out. A lot of people coming out of the army had little by way of a plan, some sort of wound, if not physical then mental, and nowhere to go.
“What does starting over look like?” I asked.
“I don’t know yet. Getting a regular job, I guess. Not spending too much time remembering.” He shook his head. “Meeting new people helps.”
To this, I smiled. If there was anything I could help with, I was more than happy to do so. I worried a little about being entirely boring; to someone who had spent six years abroad, surely a woman who’d only been outside the US one time was a terrible bore. “I’d imagine. One of the best ways for people to recover from situations is to form new connections.”
“Really?”
“Yeah, new friendships and new social groups can bring out new parts in people. You expose different parts of yourself to different people, so the more people you talk to, the more you learn about yourself. It’s a pretty big reason why people do group therapy. If they can bounce their experiences off other people, they’ll get more out of it than if they just talk to themselves or to me.” I hadn’t meant to go on a medical tangent and was a little embarrassed to divulge more than I wanted to. I didn’t want to be a nerdy psychologist. I wanted to be a sexy and confident businesswoman.
His focus, though, made it difficult for me to be embarrassed at all. “That’s really interesting,” he said. “It makes sense. When things rattle around in your brain too long, you start to look at them funny.”
“Definitely. People distort their own realities.” I smiled at him and took a sip of water. “I don’t mean to chatter. What’s your game plan, now that you’re back?”
“Like I said, to start over.”
“And that entails?”
“That’s about all I know at this point.” He admitted. “But like I said, meeting new people is a start.”
“Well,” I summoned courage from some part of me that I didn’t know existed, “if you ever want to get dinner and get to know a stranger, let me know. I’m usually free after work.”
Sawyer raised his eyebrows and opened his mouth to answer my question, and at that exact moment, I felt my aunt’s hands come down on my shoulders.
“Oh, good, you two met,” Janet chimed. “I was going to introduce you.”
Jesse came up behind her and smiled. “You two getting along well?”
“Of course,” Sawyer assured them.
“I had a question, Sawyer, about your commanding officer. I think I met a young man from your division the other day,” Jesse said.
I could tell that they were looking for a longer conversation with Sawyer, so I smiled and waved a little goodbye to give them space. I certainly didn’t want to take up all of their time with incessant flirting—honestly, I felt a little bad that I’d done it at all. It wasn’t like me to put myself out there. I’d spent plenty of my life in a room studying and not caring at all for the company of other people. Men, women, or otherwise. I’d had a few boyfriends, but really only because it was something I felt like I was supposed to do.
But I wanted to talk to Sawyer. Not only that, but talking to him proved to be easy. Even though it had only been a few moments, I got the feeling that we could have talked for hours if we hadn’t been interrupted. And Jesus, those eyes.
This was inappropriate. It had to be, right? I wasn’t supposed to look at this returning soldier as some sort of personal conquest. Still, I didn’t think that that’s what I was doing. It would be a lie to say that I wasn’t physically attracted to him, but in all fairness, it was probably a good idea for me to get to know him better. Especially considering how highly my aunt and uncle spoke of him.
“Quinn? Hey, Quinn.” Sawyer’s mother, Kimberly, waved me over.
I hadn’t spoken to her yet. I’d come with Janet and Jesse rather as a plus one, without any interaction with Sawyer’s mother. I hadn’t heard anything good or bad about her, either. She knew who I was, though, and I knew who she was.
“Hey,” I said. “Thanks for letting me over, Kimberly. It’s been really nice.”
“Oh, we’re happy to have you. Any friendly face is good to have around,” Kimberly said. I wondered, briefly, where her husband was—or were they still married? I hadn’t seen him here at the party, and the party was being held at the place that he lived, so to avoid it he would have had to have gone out of his way. That spoke volumes about the situation, but I was leaping to conclusions.
“Well, I’m happy to help,” I said, a little sarcastically. It was hardly biting the bullet to come over and have some free food and sit outside with friendly people. Even if I didn’t know everyone here, everyone here was perfectly friendly. Even Pete seemed friendly enough, with his missing front tooth and battered baseball cap.
“Do you think he’s different?” Kimberly asked me.
I was a bit confused and surprised by her question. “Beg pardon?”
“You’re a psychologist, right? Do you think he’s different than he was?” Kimberly asked.
I glanced at Sawyer, still talking to Janet and Jesse. “I couldn’t say, really. I didn’t know him very well before he left. Don’t think I ever met him.”
“I think he’s different,” Kimberly said. She pressed her lips into a thin line. “He’s still my baby boy; he’s still sweet as can be. Hasn’t said a rotten word since I picked him up at the airport this morning. But there’s something a little different about him. I expected him to be different, to be a little stiffer, being that the military does that to most people. But he’s got something behind his eyes now.”
I didn’t know what to say to that exactly. I supposed it was my status as a psychologist that gave me license to be privy to this information at all. “A lot of veterans get loaded down with experiences when they go overseas. PTSD’s pretty common in ex-military because of it. He’s seeing a therapist, right?”
“I don’t think so,” Kimberly replied. She fidgeted with one of the rings on her finger, a silver cross that extended from knucklebone to knucklebone. “Do you think he needs to see a psychiatrist?”
“Well, some kind of psychologist,” I said. “For sure. I don’t know if he needs to be taking medication, but it would be a psychiatrist that would sort that out.”
Kimberly thought about that for a moment. “You know, I don’t think he would go for it. I tried to get him to talk to somebody when he was overseas, and he told me was going to see the psychiatrist on site. But he said all that fellow did was push medicine over the counter, and it was too much for him.”
“Medication should be a last resort,” I agreed.
“And it interfered with his thinking, so he quit going,” Kimberly said. “And you know, I don’t think he’d spring for it. He’s always been a terribly somber fellow. Even before the military, he kept everything to himself.”
I felt like maybe I shouldn’t be listening to all this private information, but I wasn’t about to depart from the conversation. “Getting him in to see someone wouldn’t be a bad idea,” I reiterated. I did believe firmly in psychotherapy, after all, because of its obvious effects. And veterans often needed extensive, prolonged treatment. The longer their issues went untreated, the worse they got. It was like a physical wound that way. If it was a left to fester, it would fester, and infect the whole body.
I saw Janet and Jesse waving at me from across the yard. Sawyer wasn’t with them anymore, and I could hear my aunt calling, ‘We need to leave!’ I smiled at Kimberly and said, “I hope everything goes well.”
“Oh, I’m sure it will. Thanks for lending an ear, doll.” Kimberly squeezed my hand and took off to go and attend to some other partygoer.
I walked back over to my aunt and uncle. “Are y’all ready to head out?”
“Yeah, just about.” Jesse put his hands in his pockets.
Sawyer was walking back outside; he’d gone inside for a beer, it seemed. I wondered if I might get another chance to talk to him. Before I could bring it up, though, my aunt squeezed my shoulder.
“Well, let’s get out of their hair. I’ve got a casserole in the oven, and I’d imagine Sawyer wants a little quiet.”