AllFreeNovel
Share Us
“Can I trust you to keep this between us? Not Mav, or Duncan, or your mom, or anybody?”
“I don’t know,” she said flatly. “Canyou trust me? Are you capable of it?”
“I’m sorry, Kelse. What I did earlier, it was out of line.” It was crazy, in fact. Psycho.
“Yes, it was. You said you wanted to explain. I’m listening. And I’m not going to tell anybody. You have to decide if you can trust me about that. Or anything else.”
“Do you remember when I told you I have PTSD, and you assumed it was from combat?” When she nodded, he continued, “There’s shit that went down over there that, yeah, I struggle with. But those are new demons. I’ve had demons living in my head as long as I can remember. I don’t talk about this, there’s a lot that not even any shrink I’ve ever sat with knows, but you need to. It’ll help me to get through it if I can just get through it. Do you think you can sit and let me get it all out? Then I’ll answer any question you have. And if you still want to be with me after that, you’ll really know what that means.”
She studied him for a long, increasingly uncomfortable moment. “Okay. I’ll be quiet and let you talk.”
“Thank you.”
He could have used a glass or two of vodka, frankly, but he didn’t want Kelsey drinking more right now. Tipsy was okay for this talk. Maybe it was even better; she seemed to be more assertive in this state. But truly drunk could wipe out her memory of his story, or at least its impact, and that was counterproductive.
So, stone cold sober, his heart pounding in his ears, Dex told Kelsey the story of his childhood.
~oOo~
By the time he was finished, she was sitting right beside him, her hand on his thigh. True to her word, she hadn’t spoken, but she’d reacted plenty. With compassion and sympathy. He thought she’d sobered up, too.
He’d stopped short of sharing his war stories; the shit that darkened his head from those years was either the same as every other marine, soldier, sailor, or airman who’d seen combat in the Middle East, or it was so very much different it had no place outside of where it had happened, where he’d done what he’d done. She knew enough to know enough: that he’d been a Raider, that he’d been Charlie’s handler, and that they’d been in a counter-terrorism unit. It was the shit he’d lived beforehand he’d needed her to understand. If she understood that, maybe she could understand him.
And now she had that story. Time would tell if she understood him better for it.
“So … that’s my story,” he said when too many seconds had passed in quiet. “Do you have questions?”
“I don’t—I don’t know. I’m bowled over.”
“Sorry.”
“Don’t be sorry. I’m glad you told me. And I’m so sorry that was your life. It breaks my heart.”
He cupped her cheek. “I’m okay, for the most part. But … yeah, there’s shit in my head that gets the best of me sometimes.”
“I do have a question. But I’m afraid it’s insulting.”
He couldn’t imagine her saying something that would truly offend him, but he dropped his hand and prepared himself. “Go ahead.”
“The Raiders—that’s like the Marines version of the SEALs, or the Green Berets, right? The elite force of the Marines.”
“Right.”
“I’ve heard it’s really hard to get accepted to those programs, and even harder to pass them.”
“It is. It’s pretty grueling, physically, intellectually—” He knew where she was going, and he wasn’t offended. “And yeah, I had a psych eval. I passed it. The crazy shit didn’t happen until I was already a Raider.”
“The second helping of PTSD was too much, I guess.”
He smiled at her phrasing. “Yeah, I guess so. Never go back for seconds.”
She smiled back. “I have one more question, and it might be insulting, too.”
“The first one didn’t hurt. Go ahead.”
“Why aren’t you in therapy anymore?”
That didn’t hurt, either. “You should know the answer to that, Kelse. It’s not a good look for the SAA of the Bulls to be spilling his guts to a shrink on the regular.”
