I’d fucked up.
Holy shit—I’d fucked up.
At the time, flipping out at Logan had made sense, but now that I’d had a chance to catch my breath, sleep a little, and clear my head . . . Yeah, I’d seriously fucked up.
And now Logan wouldn’t return my texts or answer my calls. What if he’d gone out drinking? Or crashed his car because he was drunk or just fucked up from the flashback? Or both? In a moment of early-morning panic, I even called Coastal General to see if he’d checked in, but no dice. Which was good, but still left me wondering if he was all right.
So I went out driving. He wasn’t at his apartment. He wasn’t at work. He wasn’t at any of the bars around town. None of the ones I knew of, anyway. Shit. Where the hell was he? If he didn’t want to talk to me, fine, but for God’s sake, I needed to know he was okay.
Please tell me I didn’t send you out to get fucked up or killed.
Eventually, I had to give up searching and get my ass to work. I might’ve called Diego and made some excuse about needing to be late, but since Logan and I worked together, going into the office made sense. If he came in, then I’d know he was okay. If he didn’t . . .
I wasn’t going to think about that. Not now.
So, once I shaved, put on my uniform, and poured some coffee down my throat, I drove back to the base.
Logan’s car still wasn’t in the parking lot.
Oh no.
Oh, no, no, no . . .
Maybe he’d gone to another building to teach a class. Or run to the food court to get some breakfast.
Or maybe he wasn’t here. At all. Because something bad had happened. Because of me.
I hurried to the door, punched my code into the cipher lock, and took the stairs as fast as my stupid leg could handle. By the time I reached the top, my leg was throbbing like crazy, enough to make my eyes water with every step, but that was why God had given us Motrin. I could deal.
When I walked—well, limped—into the office, Logan’s cube was empty. There was no sign he’d been here today at all. His computer was off. His chair was still tucked in. Nothing had moved.
I spun around and faced Sarah. “Where’s Logan?” My voice shook with the panic that had been coursing through me since before the sun had come up.
Sarah eyed me like I’d lost my mind. “He’ll be in late. Called and said he had an appointment or something.” She cocked her head. “Why? You think he got abducted by aliens or something?”
“No. No.” I shook my head, trying to hide how insanely relieved I was that someone had heard from him. “Just . . . hadn’t heard . . .”
“Honey, relax.” She winked at me. “You can go a few hours without hearing from your man. Don’t worry.”
I forced a smile. “Yeah, I know. Just . . .” There was no point in even trying to make excuses, so I didn’t bother.
Logan had called in, so at least that meant he hadn’t gotten himself killed. That wasn’t enough to quiet my conscience, though. I needed to do something.
Except how? I could apologize until I was blue in the face for throwing him out last night, but how could I assure him something like that wouldn’t happen again? How could I assure myself I wouldn’t fly off the handle like that again? I couldn’t even figure out why I’d gone so fucking batshit over it in the first place.
Maybe I needed some advice.
I chewed my lip, then said to Sarah, “My first class isn’t until 1100. I’ll be back in a few.”
She didn’t question me, and I left the office, leg aching miserably as I headed back down the hall. I probably should have taken a Motrin, but that could wait until I’d done something about everything inside my head.
My stomach roiling with guilt and my heart pounding with nerves, I tapped on the doorframe of Commander Fraser’s office. “Do you have a minute, sir?”
He looked up from his computer screen and nodded. “Sure, GM2. Come on in.” As I did, he added, “What can I do for you?”
“I . . .” I toed the door shut behind me before taking a seat in front of his desk. “Look, I know you don’t know me from Adam, sir, but I need to talk about something off the record. Something personal.”
Fraser studied me. “Logan?”
I flinched. “Yes, sir.”
“Let’s kill the formalities for a bit.” He waved his hand. “We’re just a couple of guys talking, all right?”
That relaxed me a little, but not much.
Fraser’s eyebrows rose. “So what happened?”
I inhaled slowly through my nose, and then told him everything.
When I was done, Fraser whistled quietly and sat back. “Shit.”
“Yeah. And I guess . . . now I’m terrified to talk to him about it because I’m afraid I’ll make it worse somehow. Because I’m not even sure how to explain it, you know?”
Fraser inclined his head a little. “Which part? You lost your shit at him after he had a flashback, and you realized you were wrong.” He shrugged. “Seems pretty straightforward to me.” There was a faint note of irritation in his voice, like he couldn’t believe I was this dense.
Yeah, join the club.
“It’s not just that. It’s . . .” I struggled to find the words. “The thing is, with most people, I get annoyed when they do the whole ‘you dodged a bullet’ thing. I know they mean well, and I just kind of grit my teeth and try not to let it get under my skin. But with Logan, it pisses me off. And it shouldn’t—not like that—but it does and I . . . I don’t know how to explain that to him because I don’t understand it myself.”
Fraser was quiet for a moment, pressing his elbow into the armrest and idly stroking his jaw as he stared at the desk between us. “Have you had anyone else with combat experience tell you that you should be glad you didn’t become a SEAL?”
I thought about it for a moment. “I’m not even sure. Some people are just other Sailors, so I don’t know what kind of experience they’ve had.”
“But you know Logan’s been to combat.”
I nodded.
“Did it bother you this much the first time he made a comment about it? When you’d just met him?”
“No. It was the same as everyone else. But after we’d been seeing each other for a while, and especially after I’d seen what the PTSD does to him, it was like . . .” I sighed. “I guess part of it was from watching him have one of those nightmares, and I started thinking, ‘Fuck, how does someone live like that,’ you know?”
Fraser flinched subtly. “It’s a tough thing to watch. My husband and I both have it, so I get it.”
“And I don’t,” I said quietly. “Because I’ve never been to combat.” I swallowed. “Because I dodged that bullet.”
The commander nodded slowly, eyes locked on mine. His expression was chilly, and I wondered if our uniforms were the only thing keeping him from letting me know how he really felt about what I’d done to Logan. After a moment, though, his features softened, as did his tone. “I think I might understand why you lashed out at him so hard.”
I sat up. “Yeah?”
“Well, from everything you just told me, becoming a SEAL was pretty much the core of your identity all your life, and that was taken away from you. Ever since, you’ve been trying to figure out who you are now.” He paused, tilting his head a little and staring at me as if he were reading the words off my forehead. “And maybe when Logan’s PTSD episodes make you wonder if you could live like that, they’re actually making you question whether you really could have been a SEAL.”
I blinked, struggling to take in the words despite the fact that they made perfect sense.
“So maybe . . .” Fraser sat up, folding his hands on the desk. “You resent Logan for holding up a mirror to something you’ve been trying to avoid seeing.”
“I . . .” Couldn’t argue. At all. He was . . . Christ, now that he’d said it out loud, I felt like an idiot for not putting the pieces together myself. Exhaling hard, I dropped back against the chair. “Fuck.”
He was quiet for a moment. “Does all that make sense?”
“Oh yeah,” I said. “It makes a lot of sense. But . . . what do I do now? To fix this shit with Logan? I mean”—I winced—“I booted him out in the middle of the night after he’d had a flashback.”
Some brief tightness in Fraser’s features suggested—again—that he was holding back a comment about exactly how much of a dick I’d been, but when he spoke again, he was gentle. “All you can do is talk to him.”
“No shit.” I squirmed in the chair.
“No one said it would be easy.” Fraser paused. “And even after you talk to him, you guys have to figure out a way to strike a balance. He’s got his shit to deal with, and you’ve got yours. If you’re not careful, something like this is going to happen again.”
“How do we do that?”
“Can’t really tell you,” he said with a shrug. “That’s for you guys to work out.”
Which sounded so simple, and yet it was so fucking daunting.
My stomach threatened to kick back my coffee. God, I really had been such a dick to Logan. If he wasn’t interested in my reasons or my apologies, I didn’t think I could blame him. I exhaled. “You’re right. Assuming he’ll even hear me out, I guess we’ll . . . we’ll have to figure out . . .” I waved a hand and sighed heavily. “I’ll figure it out. One way or another. Thanks for the advice.”
Fraser nodded. “Anytime.”
We exchanged smiles, and I got up to leave his office. I didn’t feel a hell of a lot better on my way back to the training department, but at least I had a plan now. Maybe there was some hope of undoing the damage I’d done last night, but it would be a few hours before I could do anything.
And in the meantime, Logan and I had to work in the same office.
He still wasn’t there, but Diego and Sarah didn’t seem too concerned with his absence. They both kept giving me uneasy looks, though, as if they knew something. I doubted Logan had told them what was going on. Commander Fraser didn’t seem like the type to spread that sort of thing around.
Maybe it was me. Maybe I was radiating something that told them everything was wrong. Did they think I was crazy?
Was I crazy?
I tapped my pen beside my keyboard, staring at my screen without actually seeing anything. Crazy probably wasn’t the right word, but there was something wrong in my head. Ever since I’d washed out of BUD/S, I’d avoided a therapist because I didn’t think there was any reason to see one. I’d lost my dream of becoming a SEAL, and that pissed me off—what more was there to say?
A lot, apparently.
Maybe it was time.