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Because Lord knows that’s all I want to do – just sleep, and maybe not wake up.
“Millie?” I say her name when she doesn’t respond to my apathetic request. Chancing the harsh fluorescents blinding me, I remove my arm and squint an eye open to find I’m alone in the dark hospital room. Guess she got fed up with my bullshit. On a normal day I wouldn’t be able to blame her, but right now… I’ve been hurt so bad I don’t seem to give a shit how I make anyone else feel.
Something’s different… and I still don’t know what as I drift back off into my own personal hell.
* * *
The most soothingsensation brings me slowly and gently out of my sleep this time, like an angel is rescuing me and pulling me out of the darkness with her touch like delicate feathers sweeping against the side of my cheek. Just that gesture alone seems to ease the stiffness that’s trying to keep my body on lockdown, and while it doesn’t dissolve the storm clouds in my mind, it breaks them up a bit. It’s like a high better than the pain meds I’m on.
“K,” a familiar voice coaxes me further out of the fog. Cracking an eyelid open, I tilt my face in the direction of the voice and see a blurry view of light olive skin and brown hair come into focus.
“Lu,” my voice is hoarse, but she gives me a faint smile when I acknowledge her.
Fuck, I’ve thought of nothing but coming home to her for the last eight months. Stayed strong and positive for her, just to have my resolve literally blown away. In the blink of an eye, I’m not the man that left her all those months ago. I’m nothing but his charred and hardened remains. I’m wondering if she’s seeing that too right now with the way she’s looking at me. It’s like she doesn’t know what to do with the man in front of her.
“Hey,” she whispers back at me, and while her sweet voice still soothes my inner fire, something feels off. Is there a darkness in her eyes? She almost looks afraid, though not of me. I know it, even as I reach for her. I love her, God, how I love her… but something’s different.
Nevertheless, I take hold of the side of her neck and pull her in until her forehead is resting against mine, and she lets me. Without me needing to say a word, she allows me this moment of peace where we simply connect in a way we haven’t been able to for the better part of the last year. For just this moment, any uncertainty I feel disappears, and we’re the us I remember.
When we finally pull away, I feel a little more awake as I take her in. She’s trying so hard to light up for me, but something is missing in those brown eyes. A certain radiant light I remember, that gold ring that has always surround her pupils is gone, or it’s slimmed down so much I can’t see it. My heart slams in my chest as hard as it ever has for her… and I know this is Luna, but… it’s like it’s someone else. Like a different soul has come along and assumed her human form. Someone reserved, quiet, and a little scared.
“I told you I never turn down a dare,” I mumble, reminding her of the day I left.
“You came home,” she affirms in a whisper, nodding sweetly.
I reach for one of the back strands of her hair and run it between my fingers to examine it. The purple flare is all but gone, barely detectable.
As if to detract me from what I’m noticing, she takes my hand from her hair and threads it with her own, just as our moment of privacy comes to an end.
“Corporal Shane,” the doctor says as he walks in, looking way too cheerful and casual for my taste. “Let’s get your discharge paperwork going so we can send you home with your wife.”
My home.
My wife.
The two things I’ve been fantasizing about all this time. So why the fuck does it feel so awkward now? Why on God’s earth do I want to crawl back into nothingness?
* * *
Luna
While I waitedto hear more updates on Kaleb’s return, I drove myself crazy by doing internet searches, joining online forums for Army wives with spouses in active duty, and pacing the floors. I admit I fell down a God-awful rabbit hole, reading horror stories of husbands coming home and never being the same again. Wives have walked on eggshells to keep a new level of anger at bay, managing PTSD episodes, and panic attacks.
By the time I reached the point of feeling my brain threatening to implode, I had a truckful of information, yet I learned nothing.
It’s been so long since I’d seen Kaleb, and so much has happened in that length of time. I didn’t know what to expect – besides the obvious injured leg and him being physically weak and sore. Would he look different? Would he be happy to see me?
And now, even that I have seen him, I don’t know what I’m actually seeing, or how to act. It’s still Kaleb behind those eyes, but so much else resides in them now, blocking my ability to see what I remember of him. I wonder if he’ll try to push through all those new, overbearing memories and experiences and come back to me, or if he’ll succumb to them, letting it be all he sees for the rest of his life.
Fuck, now’s not the time to be selfish, I remind myself for the umpteenth time as I pull the rented caravan up to the curb.
Kaleb’s commander had told me in updates leading up to today that it hurts Kaleb to sit and have his leg bent for extended periods of time. Neither my car nor his truck was conducive to that, and plus I wanted to save time, so I flew to Maryland and rented a van once I had a better idea what I was dealing with.
Our reunion went better than I thought. From all the insane things I read, I wasn’t sure if I’d be a welcome sight or if he’d be cold and unfeeling towards me. I just did my best to act natural, the way I remembered things between us, and let him take the rest of the lead. It wasn’t how I’d been fantasizing over the last year – obviously – but there were notes of sweetness and love in there, and they weren’t forced.
It’s not long after I put the van in park that I catch movement in my peripheral and see Kaleb in a wheelchair, being pushed by a nurse in blue scrubs. His left leg is extended in front of him by one of the pedals, and he holds a pair of crutches over his shoulder. I scurry around to the front to meet him as he stands, getting situated on the crutches.
“I wanted something with options,” I tell him when I see him curiously eyeballing my vehicle choice.
