Chapter 11
Fisher’s Therapy Journal
Memory Date: February 25, 2014
I’m a monster.
If there was a stronger word to describe the person I’ve become, I would use it, but this will have to do until I can come up with something better.
I shouldn’t have turned the light on. I should’ve remained in the dark and tried to convince myself that what happened tonight wasn’t real, but lying here with the soft glow of the bedside lamp illuminating the room, I can’t take my eyes off of the evidence of my disgusting behavior.
Not even an impromptu dip in the ocean after Lucy went upstairs to get ready for bed could clear the horrible images from my mind. As soon as she left the kitchen, I walked right out the back door, down the steps to the beach and into the ocean, still wearing my military hiking boots and camo pants. I dropped down into the water, fully clothed, and wished for the water to wash away the shit I’d just done to my wife.
For the first time, my head is filled with the horror of what I did to Lucy instead of what I did overseas, and I want to scream until my throat is raw.
Lucy sleeps peacefully next to me on her stomach and I gently trail my hands down her naked back, stopping when I get to her hips.
The hips that are covered in bruises roughly the size and shape of my fingers.
Jesus, I left marks on her. My beautiful, perfect girl and I marked her with my anger and the need that consumed me so completely when I walked in the door and saw her standing there that I couldn’t control it. The entire plane ride home, all I could think about was wrapping her in my arms and letting her skin and her soft touch wash away all the dark and evil things I saw the past year. I didn’t even stop off at a hotel like I usually do to change into civilian clothes. I didn’t shower, I didn’t shave; it was all I could do to get to her as fast as possible before my mind ripped in half.
I walked through that door and saw her standing there in a pair of drawstring pants that hugged her hips and legs and a tight tank top with no bra and all I could think about was being inside of her. All I could concentrate on was burying myself in her so deep that all the bad thoughts went away. I charged at her like an animal and I took her against the wall like a rabid beast. I was punishing her for being so soft and sweet and beautiful when all I’d known for the last year was hard and awful and ugly. I don’t deserve her. I don’t deserve to have her sitting here waiting for me, day after day, month after month. I don’t deserve to come home to someone like her who loves me so completely, even when my body and my mind take me away from her and make me forget how good I have it.
I try to swallow past the lump in my throat as I gently run my fingers over the bruises on her hips, but it’s no use. The tears pool in my eyes and fall down my face. I love her so much and all I’m doing is hurting her. The one person in my life who never lets me down and all I keep doing is breaking her apart. I let her down every time I leave, I let her down every time she has to handle something alone, I let her down when I come home and I’m not myself because I’m still stuck in a place halfway across the world and I let her down by touching her with anything other than loving hands and worshipful kisses.
I never even got a chance to say her name or tell her I love her or how much I missed her. I didn’t say a word to her tonight, so afraid that I would scream and cry and break down right in front of her if I opened my mouth. She puts up with so much from me, I can’t add that to the mix, as well. She would want to fix me, to put her life on hold to help me, and I can’t allow that. She’s already sacrificed so much. How can I continue doing this to her? How can I continue putting her though this when I’m not sure the bullshit in my head will ever go away? In the past, a few months between me and a combat zone and my Lucy were all it took to battle the demons that crawled into my head, but this go-round, the nightmares are getting worse instead of better with each mile I put between myself and the war. I won’t be going on another deployment thanks to the shrapnel I took to the back of my shoulder and the resulting nerve damage, but that doesn’t mean I’ll start to forget. It doesn’t mean the horrors I’ve witnessed all these years will just suddenly disappear from my mind.
I choke back sobs as I lean forward and press my lips against the bruised skin of her hip. Lucy sighs in her sleep and I hold perfectly still, not wanting to wake her. I came up to bed after sitting in the water, stripped out of my wet clothes and curled up against her, willing sleep to come, but it never did. I just held onto her sleeping body and tried to forget about what I’d done until it was too much to take and I had to turn on the light to make sure it really happened.
I wish she had screamed at me when I took her like that against the wall. I wish she’d told me to stop, pushed me away, forced me to look into her eyes and see her and realize what I was doing to her. I’m consumed with so much guilt that I don’t even know how to breathe. My chest feels tight and my heart rate starts picking up, feelings I’ve come to recognize as the beginning of a panic attack.
Moving as quietly as I can out of bed so I don’t disturb her, I try to slow my quickening breaths as I hurry out into the hallway and to the bathroom. My hands shake so hard that I can barely get the door closed and locked behind me. I flip on the light and take huge, gulping breaths as my heart beats faster and faster until it feels like it’s going to explode out of my chest. I run cold water and cup it in my hands, counting to a hundred in my head as I repeatedly splash my face. I glance up into the mirror and, instead of seeing just my own reflection with water dripping down my face, I see a man standing next to me wearing a white and black checkered scarf over his head, nose and mouth with a machine gun pointed right at my skull.
I let out a panicked shout as I whirl around and throw my hands up over my head to protect myself from the enemy. When I turn, I’m met with nothing but an empty bathroom behind me. Sobbing, I drop to my knees on the cold, tile floor. With my head in my hands, I rock back and forth, making a vow to never again allow Lucy to suffer because of my demons. I can’t do this to her anymore. I can’t trust myself around her and I refuse to hurt her again like I did tonight. God only knows what will happen if things get worse, and I do feel like they’re getting worse. It’s too hard to distinguish reality from fantasy. I’ve already hurt her countless times in the middle of the night with nightmares I can’t control, and I continue to hurt her every time she tries to help me and I push her away. She is my heart, my soul, my everything and I know it’s only a matter of time before I do something that could possibly kill her. The tears come fast and hard at the thought that my beautiful, amazing wife could be taken from this earth by my own hands. I won’t let that happen. I won’t let her fall down this hole with me. If I have to fall, I’m going to do it on my own where I won’t hurt anyone, especially her. I know she’ll never leave me on her own. She loves me too much to turn her back on me when she knows I’m hurting, so I’ll have to push her away.
I have to make her leave so that I can never hurt her again.