Like he was bracing for something, like he was trying to stop his body from fleeing or springing into action—I couldn’t tell. But his rigid body, the way it looked like he couldn’t keep up with the thoughts circling in his brain, made it look like he was in pain, and that the pain was unbearable.
“My PTSD,” he starts, grabbing one of my hands with his as he turns to lean back on my car next to me, interlacing our fingers together between us. He does it so naturally, as if he’s been doing it for years. “It’s made it hard to be around fire, of any size. When I was staying at my grandfather’s cabin the last year and a half, I couldn’t even strike a match without my heart rate speeding up. Seeing you with the Zippo and then the flame of the candle so close to Evee?—”
He shakes his head, and I squeeze his hand in reassurance.
It takes a second, but he squeezes back then continues. “I thought that time away would help me, I don’t know, heal?” He says it as a question, his head shaking. “Then, I came back, and even the gas stove burning at the station still threatened to send me into a full-blown panic. I thought I would just get over it. That I could bury what happened that night until it went away, but then—” He stops again. His hand tightens around mine, his body leaning more into mine as our arms rest against each other.
“Then it all became too much?” I ask, my other hand coming to hold onto his arm. I look up at him, his face hardened as he stares at the concrete just beyond our feet. The sun is gettinglower, casting a warm glow over us, turning his green eyes into flecks of gold-laced emerald.
Finally, Jack nods, and I wait for him to continue.
“I had a panic attack in the field. I hadn’t had one in almost a year.”
The thought hurts my heart, thinking about how scared he must have been.
I’ve learned through my own trauma that our responses all differ. While some fight, others flee. While some flee, other’s freeze. Our body’s natural reactions take over, and we are left grappling for any sense of protection, any ounce of safety.
“It was a contained fire in a barn, no danger to us or to the owners, but seeing it sent me back to the night Bennett died, something that hadn’t happened in months,” Jack explains. “I completely froze.”
I lean my head against his shoulder, knowing the feeling of freezing all too well.
The first time I remember my dad hitting me, I was so stunned, too scared to move. He slapped me against the cheek, cutting me in the lip with his wedding ring, and I don’t even remember what I did to make him so mad.
I ended up standing in that same spot in our kitchen long enough for the afternoon sun to set—all while my dad drank himself to sleep in front of the TV, my mom having already left him without taking me with her.
I was six years old.
“The station chief, Chief Sanders, made therapy sessions mandatory for me when he gave me my job back. I put them off until it was almost too late.” Jack lets out a sigh. “Freezing like that was scarier than any nightmare I could imagine, even scarier than the night Bennett died.”
“How come?” I ask.
“The night Bennett died, my whole team had to hold me back from running in after him. I can see now how that wouldn't have helped, how that’s not why he died—it was Bennett’s decision to go back in against orders—but I didn’t freeze.” He pauses for a moment, thinking about his words. “What if something like that happens again?” A look passes over his features, one I can’t quite read—it’s a knowing look. Like he already knows from experience what the answer is. “What if I froze when someone else I love—” he stops, shaking his head. “I wouldn’t be able to live with myself if I froze when someone could be saved.”
“And today, with the lighter?” I ask, trying to give him space to talk about what happened, how he handled it, how he’s feeling about it.
Jack lets go of my hand and reaches his arm behind me, his big hand coming to my hip and pulling me closer to him as we both lean back on the trunk of my car. “I don’t know what today was. There was a moment I felt that panic turning into an attack, but I kept trying to tell myself that you and Evee weren’t in any danger. But it was different than when I’m out in the field because it was you two.”
“What do you mean?” The awareness of how close, how warm, his body is against mine clouds my brain, and it’s hard to keep my thoughts straight. I try to focus on our conversation, needing to know what he’s about to say.
“In the field, there’s no one in the burning house or building. And if there is, I have to trust my team to get them out. There’s no one I care about within miles of the fire. But today?” He angles his head to look down to me, using a finger to tilt my chin up to meet his eyes. “Today, it felt like two people I care about were in harm’s way, and I was so scared of freezing.” His jade eyes bore into me, feeling new and familiar at the same time. Like I’ve looked into them so many times before but not like this.Not with clouds of emotion making it hard to see his green irises or the gold flecks that only appear in certain light.
“W-we were okay,” I manage to say, my mouth feeling dry all of a sudden.
“Logically, rationally, I know that—knewthat,” he answers, his finger still just below my chin, his face so close to mine; it would only take each of us to move forward just an inch for there to be no space left. “But my PTSD clouds my judgement, making me think of any and all irrational, catastrophized outcomes, like that tiny flame turning into an unmanageable one, the alarms or sprinklers not working, Luke not having a goddamn fire extinguisher, the fire burning you or Evee before I could do anything to stop it. It’s not probable or rational, but it was all I could think while the candle was burning.”
“I’m sorry.” I don’t know what else to say while he looks at me like this, so much raw emotion that I feel my own eyes pooling with tears that threaten to fall.
Jack gives me a small smile. It’s not like the ones he usually gives me, the ones that curve to one side of his face. This one is sad—and a sad smile is the most bittersweet one of all. “What did I tell you about apologizing for things that aren’t your fault, pretty girl?”
I grab his hand that’s just under my chin, holding it with both of mine as I bring it to my chest. “I’m not apologizing for what happened to you. I’m apologizing because I don’t like seeing you hurting.”
Jack sighs, and I feel his grip on my hip tighten. “I think I’ve been hurting for a while now. There’s so many pieces of me that broke when Bennett died, but I just kept stomping on them while pretending I would be able to forget and move on. ”
“Sometimes it’s easier to pretend,” I tell him, and my own experiences come to mind. “It’s easier to pretend that things aren’t so bad, or that they’ll get better.” I think of all the timesI told myself that if I just got through the day doing what my father wanted me to do, I could make it to my bedroom without having a new cut or bruise to hide the next day.
I told myself that once I had the baby, Trevor would stop. I just had to get through this pregnancy, and he would never lay a hand on me again.
“But it’s just wishful thinking.” The words are for both me and Jack. “In the end, until we actually confront our grief and our trauma, we’re just hurting ourselves more.” I look out toward the skyline, the parking lot of Hey Honey’s basically empty, giving us a perfect view of the sun just starting its slow descent. “I’m sorry you’re hurting, Jack. And I’m here for you while you put yourself back together.”
