Olivia
POP. POP. POP.
I jolt awake and sit upright in bed, my heart hammering and sweat pouring off my body. I’d been dreaming I was back in the trailer I shared with my mamma. The screen door was slamming with the wind that howled up against the thin aluminum walls, and the afternoon sky outside was the burnt amber of a sunset through steel gray hurricane clouds. I glance around the room, which is lit up by the brightly colored starbursts in the sky. Though the fireworks from the parade are long since finished, just about every man and his dog sets those suckers off on the Fourth of July. Clearly, Magnolia Springs doesn’t like to be outdone because some fool is letting off a whole bunch in the field not too far from us, if the explosions over our roof are anything to go by.
A man cusses outside my door, and I throw on a floral kimono robe that falls down to my ankles, and step out onto the balcony. At first I think I’m alone but then, as another bright starburst illuminates the sky, it also lights up the man bent at the waist, leaning his big body over the railing. His hair is mussed and his head sags between his heavily muscled arms. The sharp staccato beat of the fireworks continues to pop all around us. More colors explode in the sky, and August’s whole body quakes with every bang that rings out like gunfire.
“August?” I ask quietly, so as not to startle the man. “What are you doing out here?”
All six-foot-something of him turns to me with wide pleading eyes. He’s shaking like a leaf, but I don’t dare touch him. I just lean up against the railing alongside him. “Every year I think I’m gonna get used to it.”
“The sound reminds you of war.” This isn’t a question—I can already tell from the sheen of sweat on his brow and the way his whole body trembles that he isn’t here on this balcony with me right now, but is right back there in that desert.
“Everything reminds me of war,” he whispers.
I inch closer, but I’m afraid to reach out and eliminate the distance between us. I’m frightened he’ll reject me. Instead, I lean my weight back against the railing and watch the colors explode in the sky and illuminate his face. I could easily slip beneath his arm and find myself pinned between the railing and all that thick rigid muscle, and for a moment I contemplate doing that very thing, but I don’t touch him. We stand in deafening silence, too afraid to show one another all the things that make us vulnerable. Just when I think he’s going to walk away, leave and sever this fragile new truce, he looks directly at me. He studies my face in the bursts of light.
“Every day I wake up and expect that I’ll be a new man,” he whispers. “Every day I lie to myself because I know I ain’t ever changing, but I still need to tell myself that to make it through.” August shakes his head and lets it fall between his arms again. “Jesus. I don’t know why I’m tellin’ you this.”
“Because telling me is therapeutic. Talking is good for the soul, August.”
“You tryin’ to shrink my head?”
I give him a coy smile. “No, just stating a fact.”
“You can’t fix me. No one can.”
I lean my weight on the railing behind me, my hand just inches from his, so close the heat burns me like a brand. “I want to help you, give you the tools you need to make it through everyday obstacles like this.”
He laughs, but there’s no humor to it. “That’s the really screwed up thing; it’s just a bunch of fireworks.”
“It is, but to a Marine who was stationed in Sangin, it’s as if you’re right back there.”
His gaze snaps to mine. “How’d you know where I was stationed?”
“Call it a hunch.” It wasn’t a hunch. Greyson Cotton had told me what little details he knew about his son’s deployment, but Sangin in the Helmand Province was arguably the most dangerous province in the country, and those that made it out of there alive had some of the worst cases of PTSD I’d ever seen.
“Sangin was like being posted in the very jaws of hell. Every day was a firefight, another IED, another post hit. You know when you put a shell against your ear and you can hear the ocean?” he asks, and I nod. “Now imagine that sound is an RPG going off in your head, your buddy’s screaming as hot metal tears through his flesh, blood bubbling up his throat to choke him, the smell of burnt fur sticking to the inside of your nose, and debris is raining down all around you, only you don’t need no shell to hear it. The sounds of war never leave you.”
We fall silent after that, because what can I say that makes any of it okay? Nothing, but as the fireworks die out and the sulfur and thick smoke waft by on the tepid Alabama breeze, I realize I have to say more. Though our stories are vastly different, the end is the same. August and I are like everyone else walking this Earth: we hurt, and we bleed and stumble through each day alone, seeking salvation in things: shoes, booze, drugs, lingerie, or in his case, solitude. “You’re not the only one who lies to make it through.”
“What?”
“Every day I tell myself I’m brave, I’m strong, that the past does not dictate who I am or the woman I’ve become. I keep hoping that one day it’ll stick.”
“Ain’t we a perfect pair then?” he says snidely. “Just a couple of liars.”
“Maybe one day we can tell each other these things until we start to believe them.” I turn to him. “What’s that they say? That the more people hear something the more they start to believe it? Can’t hurt, can it?”
August straightens and walks away from me, toward his room. “Good night, Olivia.”
“Night, August,” I say with a sigh when he’s out of earshot. For a long time, I stand there, listening to the crickets humming in the long grass, ignoring the weariness in my bones with a sleepy smile tugging at my lips. While I’d give anything not to have a veteran cower and tremble that way, he made great strides tonight. Of course, tomorrow is a new day and I’d wager that as the sun rises so too will his disdain for me again, but tonight he opened to me. For a moment, I saw a hint of the man beneath the wall, and even if it kills me, I’ll find a way to sneak a glimpse of that August again. I’ll make sure he doesn’t stay buried for long.