The Bob Show went about as well as my agent could have hoped. People are much more interested in the book now than before. They’re buying up the copies like hot cakes, and my agent said he got word that the publishing house is expecting to put out another print run. And this time they’re going to print even more books than they did for the first run.

“That’s incredible news,” he says to me, on the phone today. “But you didn’t seem excited about it when I first told you, and you don’t seem excited about it today either.”

“No,” I say. “I mean, it’s great.”

“Then what’s going on with you?” says Dan.

“Nothing,” I say.

“Ah,” says Dan. “Say no more. I know what’s up. Women problems, eh?”

The way he says it bothers me. That kind of phrasing has always bothered me, as if men simply have issues with all women. Even worse, it makes it sound as if all women are interchangeable. But I know that there’s no one in the world who can replace Hana.

No one.

“I’m going to hang up now,” I say.

“Don’t be like that,” says Dan. “Come, I’ve got you another gig.”

“Another talk show?” I say, completely unenthused.

Dan laughs. “Hold your horses. That’s coming. Don’t worry. I’ve got my eye on a couple. You did really well on the Bob Show. Ratings were way up. But that was lucky. Normally it takes time to arrange these things. Don’t worry.”

“So what is it?” I say.

“Another book signing, and a talk.”

“Where?”

“Right there in LA.”

I groan.

It’s not that I don’t like LA. It’s an interesting city. But I’ve already been here too long in my book. I don’t feel comfortable here. Everything is too fancy. Too nice. Everything is… strange. I don’t know quite how to describe it.

It’s as if everyone here is kind of fake in some way. Maybe that’s because so many of them are in show business.

I met Bob after the show, and he was a completely different guy. He wasn’t anything like he was on the show. He didn’t stare off into space and ask off beat questions, the way he does on the show. That’s all just an act. But it’s not as if he was being real, in the back after the show. On the contrary, it was just another face that he put on, just another personality that he wore for a brief period, the one he uses to chat with other people in the biz after the show.

“You don’t like LA?”

“It’s fine,” I say, not wanting to get into a whole conversation with Dan about it. He’s based in New York but he apparently loves LA. Sometimes during our conversations he just won’t shut up about it.

“Well, I rearranged your schedule. After LA, you’re hitting San Francisco and Oregon. There’s going to eat this up in Oregon. Trust me. And then on to Washington.”

“Great,” I say.

I’m finally able to say goodbye and hang up the phone.

I’m alone in yet another hotel room.

I’ve already been to the gym. I don’t feel like watching TV. Maybe it was because my dad was always watching TV, but I really don’t feel like wasting my time with it. But I feel like I’m wasting my time without Hana.

I haven’t heard from her.

I drop to the floor and do a set of 50 pushups. I sit up, breathing hard, resting only for a few seconds, before dropping down again and doing another 50. But I don’t stop there. I push myself, banging out another 30 without a break.

I get up and sit down on the edge of the bed. I’m breathing hard. Pushups can be as tough of an exercise as you want to make them. And I was going hard, doing them as fast as I possibly could. I’m exhausted and my muscles are screaming out. But I need a distraction from thinking about Hana, so I drop to the floor and do another 50.

Now I’m sweating and my muscles are burning. But it feels good. Muscles don’t lie. You can either do the pushup or you can’t. There’s nothing in between. There’s no middle ground. And I like that, because it feels as if my life has gotten strange. Everything seems to be somewhere in the middle.

I don’t know where I stand with Hana.

Well, I can hypothesize. She thinks I’m completely fucked up or something. She thinks I’ve got PTSD and wouldn’t be fit to be a dad.

But that makes me a little angry. I mean, I just had one bad dream.

I know I’ve thought about this before. My thoughts keep going around in circles.

I’ve been up since 4 in the morning, when I woke up covered in sweat again, reaching for the gun that’s never there.

In my dream, I watched Hana being carried away by a horde of dangerous looking masked men. There was nothing I could do to stop them. I ran after them, but they laughed in my face. In real life, in the military, it was never like that. But there were times when I felt powerless. When comrades and friends got injuries that would impact them for the rest of their lives, I couldn’t do anything about it. I couldn’t undo what had happened. The best I could do was call for medical attention, apply a tourniquet, and shoot them up with pain killers.

I don’t like the idea of hanging around the hotel room all day. It’s still early in the afternoon, so I take a shower, get into some clean clothes, and head out.

My hotel is one of the tall buildings downtown. I find myself just wandering around, looking at the people here. There are some attractive women in LA, but I don’t even give them a second glance. They’re not Hana. They’re nothing like her. There’s just something different about Hana. And she’s real. The women here are all walking around like they think they’re movie stars or something, as if they’re hoping the paparazzi will pop out from around the next corner and make them famous by putting their picture in the magazines.

I wander around all day under the hot sun and the palm trees. LA isn’t for me. That’s what I realize.

I’m not sure this whole show business thing is for me, actually. Everything here is about appearances and how to get what you want out of life. It’s all about self-promotion. It’s all about making a quick buck and then selling out.

That’s not what I got into the book writing business for. I wasn’t expecting some mega blockbuster book. No, I was expecting a couple thousand readers who would slowly buy the book throughout the years. I wasn’t sure it would be enough to live on.

But when has that ever been a problem before? It’s not like I had much money in the military.

Sure, the royalty checks coming into my bank account are nice.

But what good are they if I don’t have her? If I don’t have Hana?

No good at all. That’s what they’ll do for me.

And I’m tired of hotels. I’m tired of not knowing where I am when I wake up. I’m tired of waking up in a new city all the time. I’m tired of this lifestyle. I haven’t had a home since I left my hometown and joined the Seals. They were always shipping us all over the world. I was in Afghanistan. Kuwait. Iraq. But there wasn’t ever a permanent base that I was stationed at. I mean, sure, maybe for a few weeks…

The old man’s words from the hotel flash through my mind. I was telling him that I definitely don’t have PTSD.

But…

I mean, Hana’s not an unreasonable person. She’s got a good head on her shoulders. She really knows what she’s doing with things. And she seems to think I have some sort of problem.

So who am I to say that I don’t? After all, I am always waking up reaching for my gun. The gun that’s not there. I say it all the time to myself. This phrase works its way through my head like some refrain to a horrible song.

But maybe it doesn’t need to be that way.

I pull out my phone and check out VA centers in the nearby area.

It’s a sort of snap decision that I don’t even think about as I do it. My fingers move automatically on the phone.

I’ve always shied away from support groups. Stuff like that wasn’t encouraged in my house, to say the least. But honestly, looking back on it all, my dad probably could have benefited from something like that. If he had someone to go talk to, maybe he wouldn’t have sat in front of the television his entire life. Maybe he could have gotten out and actually done something. Instead, he let everything slip by… his whole life.

I don’t want to be like him.

There happens to be some kind of talk therapy group just around the block. It’s not exactly an official VA center. I’m not sure what it is. But maybe it would help.

Who would have thought that LA would have a ton of veterans.

My feet seem to move automatically.

Before I know it, I’m standing outside the building.

It’s a plain, squat building that looks out of place among the huge buildings around here.

There’s just a little sign on the front that says “Veterans,” which is vague.

What the hell.

Am I scared of a little talking?

That doesn’t sound like me. That doesn’t sound like the Seal who was awarded over and over again for exemplary bravery on the battlefield.

I push open the door.

I have the feeling that my world is about to change.

For the better?