Water under the Bridge

by Sherryl Hancock

Jet nodded. “Okay, what do you need?”

  Tyler looked at the other woman, her look considering.

  “How well do you know my wife?” Tyler asked.

  Jet raised a black eyebrow. “Not near as well as I think you think I do.”

  Tyler shook her head. “No, I’m sorry, that’s not… I was wrong about that, I know that now. I’m sorry.”

  “Okay,” Jet said, nodding. “Then what did you mean?”

  “Has she told you anything about her depression?” Tyler asked.

  Jet looked surprised, then shook her head slowly. “No.”

  “Well, she’ll probably kill me for telling you if she finds out, but she suffers from depression and sometimes it’s really bad…”

  “How bad?” Jet asked.

  “Bad,” Tyler said.

  Jet grimaced, then blew her breath out. “So what do you need me to do?”

  “I need you to keep an eye on her for me,” Tyler said.

  “What should I watch for?” Jet asked.

  “She gets really quiet, withdrawn… She starts sleeping a lot.”

  Jet nodded, her look worried.

  “Are you working on getting here to be with her?” Jet asked. “Because she needs you Tyler.”

  “I’m trying, but my CO keeps blocking my transfer,” Tyler said, her lips curling in irritation.

  “So what happens if that keeps up?” Jet asked.

  “Well, my re-up date is coming up in a few months, I’ll just quit.”

  “You’d give up the force for her?” Jet asked.

  “I’d give up my life for her,” Tyler said without hesitation.

  Jet smiled. “Good answer.”

  “It’s the truth,” Tyler said.

  “Better answer.”

  Jet drove to a local place and asked for a table outside. After they’d ordered lunch, Jet looked over at Shenin.

  “Are you gonna tell me what happened to your face?” Shenin asked.

  “Let’s just say never try to take a bottle of beer away from a drunk ex-Ranger and leave it at that,” Jet said, grinning.

  She’d been dodging questions all day about the nasty bruise on her cheek, and was praying she wouldn’t run into Kashena, or Sebastian for that matter.

  “So,” Jet said, her tone even. “What’s up with you?”

  “What do you mean?” Shenin asked, on her guard immediately.

  Jet raised an eyebrow at the tension she heard in Shenin’s tone. “I mean, your girl came all the way from Washington, D.C. to see you, and that should have had you walking on cloud nine…” She let her voice trail off, as she canted her head. “But that’s not what I’ve seen…”

  Shenin blew her breath out in a sigh. Her time with Tyler had been a series of ups and downs. They’d had fun in Sacramento and San Francisco, but there’d been a few arguments and some tension. It was something their relationship was never devoid of anymore.

  “There’s just a lot going on,” Shenin said, shaking her head.

  “Like what?” Jet asked, knowing that Shenin was trying to play it off, but seeing that there was lot she wasn’t saying.

  “Well, there’s the distance thing.”

  “Which she bridged to come here…” Jet said, her tone leading, because she sensed it wasn’t what Shenin meant.

  Shenin shook her head, her eyes downcast. “She can be right next to me and there’s still distance between us,” she said sadly.

  Jet nodded. “So is that her, or is that you?” she asked.

  Shenin looked back at Jet, surprised that she was asking, but realizing that Jet saw a lot more than she said most of the time.

  “It’s me, it’s always me…” Shenin said, her tone self-effacing.

  Again Jet nodded. “Okay…” She tilted her head then. “Do you know why?”

  Shenin pressed her lips together, nodding.

  “Do you want to talk to me about it?” Jet asked then, her voice gentle.

  She saw Shenin’s lips tremble, and knew that this woman desperately needed someone to talk to. To Jet’s way of thinking, she should be talking to Tyler, but she assumed there was a reason she couldn’t or wouldn’t talk to her. Leaning forward, Jet put her hand over Shenin’s, her look pained.

  “Dev, you gotta get it out,” she said, her tone still gentle. “Or it’ll eat you alive.”

  Shenin let out a soft sob, and Jet immediately moved to hug her. Shenin let Jet hold her, feeling like she was doing the wrong thing, but also feeling like Jet might be the only person she could talk to at this point. Jet pulled back, looking down at Shenin.

  “Talk,” she said simply.

  Shenin swallowed convulsively a couple of times, looking down at the table, her fingernails picking at the tablecloth.

  “I have PTSD,” she said simply.

  “Okay…” Jet said. “Tell me what happened.”

  Shenin drew in a deep breath, still picking at the tablecloth. “I was with a team sent to Iraq to set up a post… We were taken hostage by ISIS members…”

  Jet closed her eyes slowly, a cold feeling in the pit of her stomach. Shenin saw Jet’s expression, knowing that Jet knew exactly how that would have felt.

  “Were you hurt?” Jet asked quietly.

  Shenin blinked a couple of times, then she held out her right arm, touching the small scar on her upper arm. “Gunshot to the arm,” she said, shrugging.

  Jet narrowed her eyes, sensing more. “What happened next?”

  “They held us for almost two weeks…” Shenin said, her focus once again on the tablecloth.

  Jet took out a cigarette, lighting it and handing it to Shenin and then lighting one for herself.

  “Okay…” Jet said, waiting for the rest.

  “And they traded us back to the Air Force,” Shenin said.

  “And that’s the story that Ty knows,” Jet said, her tone matter of fact.

  Shenin pressed her lips together and nodded.

  “So what really happened?” Jet asked.

  Shenin bit her lower lip, her eyes down, her body tense.

  “Dev?” Jet queried, waving away the waitress who was approaching the table.

  Shenin started shaking her foot in subdued agitation, but Jet just waited.

  After a long few minutes, Shenin whispered, “Let’s just say that not all of the ISIS members were… ah, gentlemen.”

  Jet closed her eyes, grimacing. “Jesus…” she breathed. Opening them, she looked at Shenin, she could see that Shenin was doing her best not to cry. “You were raped,” she said, her tone even.

  Shenin blew out a jagged breath, nodding her head.

  “And Tyler doesn’t know,” Jet said.

  Shenin shook her head, tears dropping onto her clenched hand sitting in her lap.

  “You have to tell her, Shenin…” Jet told her, her voice hoarse with emotion.

  “I can’t,” Shenin said, shaking her head vehemently.

  “You have to,” Jet said, her tone stronger now.

  Shenin lifted her head, her eyes shining. “You don’t understand,” she said.

  “Tell me what I don’t understand,” Jet said, her voice calmer, sensing that Shenin needed to say everything.

  “Tyler was supposed to go on that mission,” Shenin said, focusing on the lit cigarette in her hand. “She got pulled at the last minute. She already feels like shit that this happened when she was supposed to be there. If I tell her this… it’ll kill her…” She said the last shaking her head.

  “Shenin, not knowing what’s going on inside your head is going to kill her, it’ll just take more time…” Jet said.

  “You think I should just tell her this?” Shenin asked, anger in her voice now.

  “Yeah,” Jet said, her look direct.

  “How would you feel?” Shenin asked then. “If it were Fadiyah?”

  “It was Fadiyah,” Jet said. “One of them was about to rape her when I got there.”

  “Yeah, but you got there,” Shenin snapped. “What if you ha
dn’t? What if you’d been too late?”

  Jet looked back at Shenin, shocked by her sudden anger, but also shocked by what she’d just said. She was right, she’d gotten there in time. This was Tyler’s wife, the woman she loved, who had been violated… And she hadn’t gotten there in time…

  Shenin saw the moment it clicked in Jet’s head, and she saw in Jet’s eyes the devastation she knew she’d see in Tyler’s if she ever told her what had really happened; only it would be ten times worse. Tyler had always felt responsible for Shenin, since the day that they had met at Nellis Air Force Base in Las Vegas. Tyler had looked out for her.

  “Oh my God…” Jet said, her tone reflecting the absolute horror of the situation.

  She looked at Shenin then, seeing more shadows in her eyes.

  “There’s more isn’t there?” Jet asked, feeling slightly sick again and desperately wanting a drink instead of lunch.

  Shenin nodded. “About a month and a half after I got back, I kept feeling sick…”

  Jet grimaced, knowing what she was going to say.

  “I took a test… It was positive… I was pregnant,” Shenin said, looking sick.

  “What did you do?” Jet asked, knowing the answer.

  “Well, I’d just been assigned here, so when I got here I went down to Mexico and took care of it.”

  “In Mexico?” Jet asked, shocked.

  “I didn’t want the Air Force to have record of it.”

  “But… Mexico?” Jet asked, imagining all kinds of unsanitary back alleys where things like abortions were performed.

  Shenin shrugged. “I just wanted it out.”

  Jet winced at her words, shaking her head.

  “How are you dealing with all of this?” Jet asked.

  Shenin held up the cigarette in her hand.

  “Are you talking to anyone?” Jet asked then.

  “I’m seeing a PTSD counselor,” Shenin said evenly.

  “But you haven’t told the counselor this, have you?” Jet asked, knowing the answer.

  “She’d tell the Air Force,” Shenin said.

  Jet drew in a deep breath. “And what happens if this ruins your marriage?”

  Shenin shook her head. “If it’s going to, it’s going to. I’m not going to add to Tyler’s guilt.”

  “She loves you, Shenin,” Jet said.

  “I know,” she said, “and that’s why I can’t do this to her. It’s bad enough that she wasn’t there. I can’t tell her this… I can’t.”

  “So you’d let her think that you stopped loving her?” Jet asked.

  “If that’s what it takes,” Shenin said. “But I’m really hoping I can just get past it at some point and we can get back to being good.”

  “How’s that going?” Jet asked, her look pointed.

  “Shut it, Jet,” Shenin said, giving her a narrowed look.

  “Uh-huh,” Jet said, nodding.

  Later that evening, Jet was sitting in her backyard, smoking and drinking a beer.

  “You managed to avoid me all day…” Sebastian said, standing in the doorway of the rear sliding door.

  Jet blew her breath out, shaking her head.

  Sebastian walked over to her, seeing the dark bruise on her cheek and grimacing. He hadn’t been responsible for a mark on a woman like that since he and Kashena had their first meeting. That had been a fair fight, however, this had not.

  He reached out to touch Jet’s cheek and she quickly yanked her head away from him.

  “Don’t!” she snapped, her eyes narrowed.

  Sebastian looked at her, his look pained. Blowing his breath out, he moved to sit down in the chair across from her.

  “Jet, I’m sorry.” Jet didn’t look at him, she simply nodded, her knee moving in agitation.

  “You know I didn’t mean to do that,” he said, his tone still apologetic.

  “Yeah,” Jet said, still not raising her eyes to his.

  “But I was pissed at you,” he said.

  Jet nodded, her eyes finally meeting his, the look in them hurt.

  Sebastian closed his eyes slowly, he’d let his jealousy over Ashley damage his relationship with Jet and he had no idea how to fix it. Jet was a convoluted mass of contradictions; he couldn’t read her like he could Kashena. When he thought he knew something about this girl, he was wrong. Worst of all, he really cared for her, but had no idea what to do with those feelings. He’d expressed them by following her to Iraq and covering her. Now, back in the real world, he had no idea what to do. And now they were farther apart than ever and there didn’t seem to be an easy path back.

  In the end he left the house feeling no better than when he’d arrived, in fact he felt worse having seen the damage he’d done both internally and externally. Back at the apartment, Ashley was waiting for him.

  She was sitting on his bed, reading a book. He walked in, kicked off his shoes and climbed onto the bed. Lying on his stomach and putting his head in her lap, he wrapped his arms around her.

  Ashley set her book aside, her look surprised by his action. She put her hands in his hair, stroking it and looking down at him.

  “It went that badly?” she asked him, having known where he was going.

  He nodded, looking miserable.

  “She wouldn’t talk to you?”

  “What little she did say was enough,” he said.

  Ashley grimaced, she knew that Jet was really hurt by the whole incident with Sebastian and she felt bad, because she knew it was all her fault. She decided to try and talk to Jet about it.

  ***

  “You’ll be fine, babe…” Jet said, looking over at Fadiyah who was wringing her hands nervously in the passenger seat.

  They were driving through the local college campus. It was Fadiyah’s first day in college and she was terrified.

  “I could start next semester,” Fadiyah said, her tone hopeful.

  “Babe, it’s only a student visa if you’re using it, and if they find out you’re not in school they could deport you immediately.”

  “Okay,” Fadiyah said, nodding. They’d discussed this at length a few times, but she was very nervous about going to an American college.

  Jet reached across the console and held Fadiyah’s hand, squeezing it gently. “It’ll be okay, babe, I promise.”

  Jet parked in the visitor lot and walked around the car to open Fadiyah’s door, glancing around as she did. She could see various curious looks at her car. She knew the Maserati always drew attention, she was used to it. Fadiyah got out of the car, putting her trembling hand in Jet’s to get out. Feeling bad about how nervous she was, Jet pulled Fadiyah to her, hugging her close.

  “It will be okay,” she said again, into Fadiyah’s ear.

  Fadiyah nodded, taking a deep breath, inhaling Jet’s scent and trying to hold onto her very essence to get her through this first day. Jet pulled back, looking down at Fadiyah.

  “You okay?” she asked.

  Fadiyah nodded again.

  They walked toward where Fadiyah’s first class was located. Jet noted a man, very obviously Middle Eastern, looking at Fadiyah. His eyes first looking at her face, then dropping to her hand clasped in Jet’s, then he looked at Jet. He was obviously very displeased with what he was seeing.

  “He is Iraqi,” Fadiyah said, her tone tremulous.

  “And that’s his problem,” Jet said quietly to Fadiyah.

  “He is angry,” Fadiyah said then, surprised by the look on the man’s face.

  “Madha tafeal?” the man asked harshly in Arabic. “'Ant ear eayilatuk!” He was asking her what she was doing, and exclaiming that she shames her family.

  He stepped menacingly toward Fadiyah, and Jet immediately pulled Fadiyah behind her, stepping in front of her and between her and the man.

  “I’m going to tell you once to back up,” Jet said to the man, her tone all cop.

  “You are not Iraqi! You should not be with her, you are a filthy creature!”

  “See, now you’re just
pissing me off,” Jet said, narrowing her eyes. “Hi taht himayat baladi,” she told him, telling him that Fadiyah was under her protection. “Now back the fuck off…”

  The man looked shocked at her perfectly accented Arabic, but it was a momentary pause. He actually had the temerity to raise his hand as if he was going to hit Jet. He didn’t even have half a chance to finish whatever thought he was doing before Jet had him on the ground, with the hand he’d raised up behind his back and her knee on the back of his shoulder.

  “Oh, I’m sorry, did I forget to mention that I’m a cop and it’s never wise to threaten one?” Jet asked, her tone mild.

  “I have rights…” the man gritted out.

  Leaning down, Jet spoke into the man’s ear. “So does she you dumb fucker…” she growled. “Violate them again, and I’ll throw your ass in jail. Are we clear?”

  The man tried to fight against Jet’s hold. She lifted his arm higher on his back, making him subside quickly.

  “Are… we… clear?” Jet asked him again.

  “Yes!” he yelped.

  “Good,” Jet said, letting go of his arm and moving to stand.

  She glanced around noting that a lot of people were staring. She felt Fadiyah’s hand in hers immediately, and felt the girl standing close behind her. The man got up off the ground and quickly walked away. Jet watched him go, and continued watching until he was out of sight. Then she turned to look at Fadiyah.

  “Well, that was fun,” She said, beaming.

  “You have a strange sense of fun,” Fadiyah said, giving her an odd look.

  Jet grinned. “Yeah, I know. Come on, let’s find your class.”

  With Fadiyah safely in class, Jet made her way into the office, only to find Ashley waiting for her. It had been a week since Ashley had moved in with Sebastian.

  “Hey,” Jet said, moving to hug Ashley. “What’s up?”

  Ashley looked cautiously at Jet for a long moment, which immediately put Jet on alert.

  “What?” Jet asked when Ashley didn’t say anything.

  “I want to talk to you about Sebastian.”

  “Why?” Jet asked, moving to hook up her phone to her computer so she could turn her music on.

  “Because I want this fixed between you two,” Ashley said.

  Jet looked over at Ashley, her look unreadable. “Why?” she asked again.