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Chapter 2
Cameron
Seeing the burns on her arm brought me back to a painful time in my life. The fire explored the deepest recesses of my memories. It exposed what had been hiding in plain sight waiting for the right time to jump out of my damaged psyche.
She sat there on the marble white counter in the bathroom dangling her feet over the side. The only thing separating me from seeing her naked body was the thin fabric of her white robe. Her legs were delicious, looking in desperate need of a man’s touch to bring some joy into her life.
“I don’t need your help," she protested without any conviction behind her words.
“You don’t have to be a martyr for me. Let me help you. You don’t have to be strong all the time,” I said while administering first-aid.
“The one thing nobody is going to accuse me of is being a martyr for anybody. I’ve taken a lot of crap in my life from people that I trusted. The one thing I have learned is that everybody is capable of betrayal. It hurts more than you know to accept that everybody is going to eventually disappoint you," she stated forlornly, obviously thinking about something to predicate this response.
“Nobody has the right to take the innocence from your eyes. Everybody is human and capable of making some horrible mistakes. I’m no different in this regard. I wish that I could say I have no regrets. but I would be lying through my teeth. My life has been a never-ending list of people that deserved more from me,” I recalled those memories in a flash that almost crippled me.
Most of them were from my time overseas fighting the good fight. It wasn’t limited to when I enlisted in a mistaken belief that I could make some kind of difference in the world. People deserved the benefit of the doubt until they proved to be a liability.
“There are moments that can never be taken back. Some people don’t know how their words can hurt more than actions. I should be able to let it go. It’s not right to give those memories power over me," she said with a swallow.
“Forgiveness isn’t easy, but I have learned the hard way that it’s necessary for good mental health. We all do what we have to do to make it in this life. Some people may influence you into making some bad decisions. That is inevitable,” I thought about how my life changed dramatically on one fateful night when I decided to let peer pressure get the best of me.
It was wrong to throw her under the bus when she was only trying to help. Friendship was more important than being accepted into the inner circle. It was always a problem with me. That didn’t change in the military. They considered me a leader, but I was happy to follow until that mantle of responsibility was put on my shoulders.
“It does make sense when you think about it. Everybody has that one moment in their life they want to take back. Some people get caught up in the act of vengeance. It drives their every decision until they can’t see straight," she commented with this faraway look in her eyes.
Somebody had wronged her and that was pretty damn clear from the way that she was biting her bottom lip. Her eyes conveyed this fire of revenge. It was my primary goal to make this house her castle and refuge from the rest of the world.
The acts of depravity were a bonus to take my breath away. We had this inexplicable chemistry that couldn’t be contained for very long. The siren song of her desire was an unspoken hunger that could be heard in the middle of the night all the way to my room.
I removed the bandages with extreme care. It wasn’t my first time dealing with burns. She was a good patient and didn’t scream bloody murder even when I was hurting her. The blisters of her skin had me fighting that natural urge to remember. It was there in the back of my mind threatening to expose my cowardice. Most people wouldn’t see it that way, but they weren’t in my shoes.
They would say there was nothing I could do. My therapist told me the same thing, but I still felt that things could have been different if I had chosen another path. It was stupid to wring my hands in worry over past misdeeds. Guilt had a funny way of manifesting itself in a physical form.
“You have a good bedside manner. Those you have cared for in the past have been lucky to have you in their corner. I’m one of them. I wish I could take away your pain with the snap of my fingers. It’s not right for you to carry around this burden of responsibility. War has casualties and sometimes there are civilians in the line of fire," she explained something I already knew but it was nice to hear somebody else say it.
She pointed to the medicine cabinet and I found the supplies she had brought home from the hospital. The doctor’s instructions were written down on a piece of paper taped to the box of bandages. Nobody was born a healer, and it took somebody with a strong stomach to see blood on a daily basis.
“We need to apply this antibiotic ointment to the burns before we put the bandages back on..” I looked in the medicine cabinet again and found a pair of clean, disposable gloves. “You might want to consider biting down on something. I expect however gently I try to do it, it’s going to hurt ” She looked at me and then down at my impressive endowment stretching down the left side of my leg. “I don’t mean that. Get your mind out of the gutter,” I chastised playfully with a wide grin.
With gentle persistence, I took a hold of her arm, brought it near and gently began to daub the salve onto it, attempting to cover it thoroughly without pressing into the burn. It was painful in a way that made her teeth clench, and her eyes stare at me widely.
I removed all doubt that I was looking to hurt her when I turned her head in my direction so that we didn’t break eye contact.
“It’s perfectly natural to cry out. Pain should be embraced. It’s not an easy concept for most people to understand without military training. Strict discipline and hard work go hand in hand. It is drilled into us during boot camp to accept the unavoidable. Pain is a weapon to be used against the enemy,” I continued with thoughts of my comrades coming out to play their part.
She wasn’t paying attention to what I was doing with her arm. Constance was hanging on my every word. It was easy to weave a tale when I could rely on past memories. This wasn’t fiction. There was nothing fake about the emotions behind the story I was telling her.
“I’ve seen my fair share of movies, but I doubt they even compare to reality. You have to be something extraordinary to face that kind of trouble. Nobody should fire a gun in anger. We have enough problems that we shouldn’t be trying to kill one another. Loss of control is something we try to avoid at all costs," she said, obviously thinking about something unique to her own experiences.
I was in the process of re-bandaging the wound. A piece of tape secured it when I turned my attention to her other arm. This time I had to make her move by shifting her weight in the opposite direction. Constance never tried to stop me from uncovering the seeping wound with white bubbles. This was the arm that had received the worst burns. It required a delicate touch and soft soothing words of encouragement.
“Killing should never come easy. Holding a gun and firing it at a target pales in comparison to the real thing. The courage we have at the beginning declines dramatically when we are thrown into the deep end after only a few weeks of training. Life changes in an instant but never more so than in the military,” I spoke with reverence about a time that I would’ve given anything to walk away from before it was too late.
“A living and breathing target is far different than a paper one. I don’t have any direct comparison and I can only imagine the way you felt. It probably doesn’t even come close to what you had to deal with. They say that karma is a bitch. Did you do something in the past that would be construed as unforgivable?” she asked with her words cutting through me like a knife.
It made my left eye twitch but I was able to rub it to keep her from seeing the emotional scars. There were times in my life that I followed the path of least resistance against my better judgment. I looked back at the man I had been, and I shivered at the notion that I could be that blatant and reckless with my words.
The pubescent little puke didn’t know any better. If I could go back in time and change things, I would shake some sense into that arrogate prick. Being a role model meant that I was supposed to be above reproach. Playing football was my way of escaping to the cheers of the crowd waiting on the edge of their seats to see what I was going to do next.
