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“My brother is coming to visit for the Fourth of July. Can I bring him to the clubhouse so he can meet you guys?” Sam asked, taking a sip from her beer.
“Sure. That’d be great,” Blaze said. “Is he staying with you?”
“I don’t know yet. He can have the couch, I guess.” Sam shrugged. “He’s slept in worse places.”
Her friends laughed, but Aero stiffened beside her.
“You okay?” Sam whispered, glancing up at him and tightening her hold on his hand.
He nodded, but he didn’t meet her eyes. He felt the oppressive desert heat pressing in on him from all sides, the grit of sand in the air as he tried to breathe. He coughed.
“Let’s get some air,” Sam suggested, and Aero nodded.
“Excuse us.” Sam smiled at Blaze and Evie as she followed Aero out of the booth toward the door. They nodded in understanding, watching the pair go.
“That’s incredible,” Evie said as they disappeared out the side door.
“I know. She’s good for him,” Blaze agreed, taking a sip of his drink.
Outside the bar, Sam and Aero leaned against the brick wall while he caught his breath. The cool evening breeze whipped around them in the open parking lot, chilling his body and calming his heart rate.
“Wanna talk about it?” she prompted. He swallowed hard.
“Um, yeah. You said your brother has slept in some awful places. I have too,” Aero rasped, straightening and stretching, trying to loosen his tense muscles.
“I’m sure you have, love.”
“The desert sucks,” Aero said, and she chuckled at his bluntness. “It’s dry, and everything always feels dirty because of the sand. There’s snakes and scorpions; you’re always thirsty; it’s just awful.”
Sam smiled. Not because she enjoyed his description of the desert, but because he was sharing it with her. “Where’d you sleep?”
“In a tent,” he rasped. “We had racks, but there were ten or twelve other guys crammed in there with me, all our gear; it was tight quarters.”
“When I was in college, I shared a dorm with three other girls. There were two bedrooms, with a living area in the middle. It was always disgusting. They must’ve been from families where they never had to clean up after themselves, or maybe they just didn’t care. I ended up buying paper plates and plastic forks in bulk so they could throw everything away instead of leaving dirty dishes all over.” Sam chuckled.
To an outsider, it would have sounded like Sam was diminishing Aero’s experience overseas, that she was saying her experience was the same as his, but that was not the case. They had discovered that when Aero struggled and was sharing something difficult, he liked for Sam to share something with him, too, even if it was a simple, mundane memory or thought. It helped ground him, reminded him of a normal life, and made him feel safe. If Sam was talking to him, projecting images of her own life and experiences, Aero found it easier not to fall into an episode and shut down.
They’d been in bed, watching a movie together. In the film, a character suddenly died after being struck by a vehicle, the scene catching them both off guard.
Aero had panicked, going as far as to slide out of bed and sit against the wall, wedging himself between the mattress and nightstand, tears burning his eyes. He saw Nora’s little face, felt the stab of a serrated blade carving out his heart upon her death, and heard the sound of Sarah’s irritated voice speaking his name on the night they died. He could taste the bile of vomit climbing up his throat. Feeling like his heart was about to claw its way out of his chest, he asked Sam to talk to him, read something, tell him a story—anything to distract him.
Sam, who watched on from the bed in her own agony as Aero suffered right before her, picked a random memory and started babbling about a time when she and Anthony had gone to the zoo. Their parents had taken them when they were children, and she described in vivid detail seeing a lion for the first time and being surprised by its size, feeding the deer, their soft noses tickling her hands, and getting to see the monkeys swing around through their enclosure while the baby monkeys held onto them. By the time she told him about getting to ride an actual elephant, Aero stood to shaking legs and crawled back into bed, snuggling himself up against her and resting his head on her chest.
“Thank you,” he said gruffly, wiping at his eyes and listening to her steady heartbeat.
“Anytime, love,” Sam cooed, rubbing his tense shoulders and continuing her tale.
Having caught his breath and grounded himself, Aero reached out and squeezed her hand.
“You good?” Sam asked, and he nodded.
“Let’s go back in.” Aero kissed her forehead. “Thank you.”
“No problem, love.” Sam hugged him around the middle and let him lead her back into the bar.
They found Blaze and Evie where they’d left them; only now they were kissing each other desperately, almost trying to climb each other in the booth.
Sam cleared her throat dramatically.
