by L. A. Witt
Tonight, we were kicked back in bed where we’d been watching some dumb cop drama, and the episode was winding down. They’d figured out who the perp was, and were exchanging wisecracks to kill time before the credits rolled. In a minute or so, we’d have to decide if we’d watch another, or if we’d give in to the clock above the screen that said it was quarter to eleven.
As if on cue, a cop made one last snarky comment, everyone laughed, and the credits came on.
Beside me, Travis sat up. He arched and twisted his back, which popped audibly a couple of times.
I ran the backs of my fingers up his arm. “You all right?”
“Yeah.” He put his hand on my thigh. “Just a little tight from staying in one place too long.” He glanced up at the clock, and I barely kept myself from sighing with preemptive disappointment before he said, “I should probably call it a night.” He kissed me softly. “Early meetings and all that.”
“Yeah. I’ve got a few myself.”
We both rose, and between us, found the various pieces of clothing we’d tossed on the floor. I pulled on a pair of boxers while he got dressed. As we headed for the front door, I was tempted as always to ask him to stay the night, but that wasn’t a good idea quite yet. We were fine in bed when we were both still awake. When it came time to go to sleep, that had the potential to get . . . complicated.
So like we did every time, we paused at the door for a long kiss good night, and then he was gone.
Alone in my bedroom, I lay back on the pillows, hands laced behind my head, and grinned up at the ceiling. A year ago, all I’d been hoping for was some light after two solid years of darkness. Six months ago, I’d been content to make it through the day without losing my mind. No amount of encouragement from my few remaining supporters had helped. It was always darkest before dawn? Fuck you. This won’t last forever? Kiss my ass. You’ll get through this? Fucking prove it.
In all that time, I had never once imagined feeling like this again. Genuine happiness? Affection? Excitement about anything?
Holy shit. There really was some light at the end of all this. Maybe I was finally coming out on the other side.
Nothing would ever be the way it was before, but for the first time in a long time, I could believe that the future had a shot at being a good one.
The next night, after we’d found ourselves in the usual tangle of sheets, it was getting close to that time again. When one of us would have to broach the subject, and another amazing evening would come to an end.
But throughout the night—when I wasn’t balls-deep in his mouth, anyway—a thought had been nagging at me. We’d been doing this for over a month now. Maybe it was time to test the waters.
I pushed myself up on my elbow. “Do you, um . . .” I pretended my heart wasn’t pounding. “Do you want to stay here tonight?”
Travis tensed, avoiding my eyes. “I . . .”
We were in my bed, naked and comfortable, and though I was nervous about the prospect of sleeping beside him, I wasn’t ready for him to leave. Except if he stayed, then there was a good chance he’d see me at my worst.
I cleared my throat. “You can say no.”
“It’s not that I don’t want to.”
“But . . .?”
“I guess it’s just something new.” He laughed halfheartedly. “Something we haven’t done before.”
“True.”
He ran his hand up my bare chest. “I would like to, though. If you’re sure.”
“I am. I . . .” I hesitated. “Listen, in the interest of full disclosure, my PTSD is no joke. I, uh, have the occasional night terror.” Occasional? “They can be kind of . . . um . . .”
“Violent?”
Swallowing hard, I nodded. “Yeah.”
“Me too.”
My heart skipped. “Really?”
“Yeah.”
We held each other’s gaze. Just like when he’d first told me about his PTSD, as much as I would never wish this kind of trauma on anyone, I had to admit I found a hell of a lot of relief in the realization that he knew what it was like to dread going to sleep at night.
“So we both know what can happen,” I said.
Travis nodded. “We do. I’m still in if you are.”
My nerves were slowly subsiding, so I grinned. “I’m in.”
Before long, we were settled in to go to sleep together. It was strange, not watching the clock or trying to force myself to stay awake so I wouldn’t accidentally drift off next to him.
“On the bright side,” he murmured, brushing his lips beneath my ear, “you’ve worn me out enough tonight I’ll probably sleep like the dead.”
“Me too.” I wanted to believe that so badly.
Please, God, don’t let my past fuck it up. Give us a few good nights first.
Travis draped his arm over me, and we lay like that for a while. Eventually, though, it got a bit hot with both our body heat and the covers. I was on my side. He was on his back. We weren’t touching anymore, but I still loved having him here. I’d hated sleeping alone ever since my ex had kicked me out of the house.
Now if we could get to sleep, we’d be in good shape.
From his breathing, he was still awake. Maybe he was staring into the darkness like I was, or maybe he’d closed his eyes and was patiently waiting for sleep to take over. And it could show up and take over any time. Any minute. Any fucking time now. Tonight, preferably. Please?
Maybe this was a bad idea. It had seemed like an okay idea, but putting it into practice was . . . not so much.
It had been fine with Logan. Most of the time, he’d slept right through any episodes that rattled me awake. Slept? More like stayed passed-out drunk. When he’d been sober enough to wake up with me, he didn’t mind. As far as he was concerned, if both of us were awake, that was an opportunity for some more sex. I went with it every time because that was easier and less embarrassing than focusing on the nightmare that had woken us both up. And as much as I hated to admit it, the sex did help me slip back off to sleep afterward.
I wasn’t in the mood for sex with Travis. I was too nervous. Too freaked out about freaking out. About him seeing me freak out. Every time I came close to drifting off, I imagined myself thrashing out of a dream and startling the hell out of him. Or, worse, smacking him with a hand or an elbow. That was what had driven my ex-wife into the guest room a few weeks before she’d kicked me out. Even she had understood it had been a dream, that I’d been completely unconscious when it had happened, but could I blame her for not wanting to sleep next to someone who’d flailed hard enough to bruise her arm?
He was still awake too. Every move I made, he’d hear it. If I breathed, snored, murmured—he’d hear it. Which would’ve been fine, except a few exes had mentioned that I muttered in my sleep sometimes. Usually right before I freaked out and woke up panicking and convinced I was somewhere other than here. As long as I stayed awake, I wouldn’t freak out.
It occurred to me that Travis had PTSD too. He’d mentioned he had night terrors like mine. So what if he had one, and I was sound asleep and couldn’t try to rouse him from the nightmare? Or what if we had one at the same time? Would we make each other’s worse?
And what difference did it make if we were both so goddamned worried that we couldn’t sleep?
This was a mistake. We should’ve stuck with going back to our respective houses after we’d fooled around. What were we thinking?
That night was one of the longest I’d had in recent memory. I drifted in and out of sleep. Never far enough to dream, and definitely never far enough to get any rest. When the birds started chirping and the morning light knifed its way through the edges of the downturned blinds, I was both frustrated and relieved. I hadn’t had nearly enough sleep, but there hadn’t been any night terror disasters. So . . . kind of a win? Not a complete loss?
Travis must’ve finally fallen asleep, and he was still out, so I quietly got out of bed and went downstairs to put on the coffee.
He wasn’t far behind, shuffling into the kitchen in his boxers as I was taking my first desperately needed sip.
“Morning,” I said.
“Morning.” He rubbed his hand over his unshaven jaw. “I smell coffee, right? I’m not hallucinating?”
“Nope. Not hallucinating.” I pushed a mug toward him on the counter. “Help yourself.”
“Thanks.”
As he poured his coffee, I asked, “You get any sleep?”
Travis yawned, shaking his head. “I’d be lying if I said I did.”
Awkward silence elbowed its way in between us. We sipped our coffee, but didn’t look at each other and didn’t speak until I finally couldn’t take any more.
“Listen.” I set my coffee cup down. “Maybe we should get this out in the open.”
Travis swallowed. “Okay?”
“We know we both have PTSD. And that it apparently comes out when we sleep.”
He nodded, suppressing a shudder. “Yeah. It does. Do you get flashbacks during the day? Anything like that?”
Avoiding his eyes, I fidgeted. “Sometimes. Nightmares more than anything.” I paused. “The nightmares are almost constant, but it takes a lot—like some really bad stress—to set off a flashback.”
“Almost constant?” He shifted his weight. “Like, every night?”
I nodded, face burning as if it were something to be ashamed of. “Sometimes more than once.”
“Jesus. That must be hard to live with.”
“That’s why I usually don’t ask anyone else to live with it.”
Travis came closer and put his forearms on my shoulders. “I meant it must be hard for you to live with. You’re the one who has the nightmares.”
“I know.” I dropped my gaze again. “But you have them too.”
“And does that make you any less inclined to stay the night with me?”
“No.”
He smiled. “Same here. So, I think we’ll be all right.”
I rested my hands on his waist. “Nightmares are kind of a regular thing for me, though. But sometimes they’re . . .”
“Really bad?”
“Really bad.”
He grimaced. “Yeah. Mine too. Doesn’t happen often, but it does happen.” He reached up and touched my face. “So it’s out in the open. We know it’s bound to happen sooner or later. Eventually, one of us is going to have a really bad episode and the other’s going to be there for it.”
I shuddered. “Can’t wait.”
“Yeah. I know. Me too. But I mean, if and when it does happen, we both know what it is. It’s nothing to be embarrassed about.”
I chewed my lip. “True.”
“We can ease into it if you want. Maybe start on the weekends. Couple of nights here and there. See how it goes.”
I mulled it over for a moment. “Or we can start with tonight and go from there.”
Travis smiled. “I’m good with that.”
“Okay. We can try.”
“For what it’s worth,” he said, “it’s nothing to worry about. I promise. You’re not going to scare me off by having the same damn thing I’ve lived with for eight years.”
“Thanks. I’ll, um, keep that in mind.” I finally managed to return the smile. “For next time.”
One of us and eventually turned out to be me and less than a week later.
Once we’d had our conversation about PTSD episodes, Clint and I had relaxed enough to actually sleep next to each other, so most nights, we did. We both had the odd nightmare that jostled the other, but nothing severe. At least, not severe by our standards. If he started thrashing, I’d put a hand on his arm to keep him from smacking me, and talk to him gently until he woke up. Then I’d wrap my arm around him and we’d both fall back to sleep. He’d do the same for me. Every time it happened and wasn’t a big deal, I swore we both slept better afterward.
Thursday, though. Thursday, I was fucked, and I knew it. The deck was stacked against me as soon as I walked in that morning.
At nine o’clock, I accompanied the CO and XO to the base pool to watch a demonstration by the newly minted class of search-and-rescue swimmers. At first, I didn’t think anything of it. I’d swum in that pool myself, and overseen swim tests from time to time. That chlorine-scented building with its cavernous echo was as familiar as my own office.
Sitting with the other officers in the bleachers, though, I started to get a creepy feeling at the base of my spine when the team of swimmers walked in carrying their fins, masks, and snorkels. Even then, I didn’t expect the demonstration to trigger anything. After all, I had no memory of when the SAR swimmers had pulled me out of the Atlantic. The last thing I remembered was hitting the back of the ship. I didn’t remember skidding across the flight deck. I didn’t remember the split-second decision to eject just before the jet careened off the side. I sure as fuck didn’t remember landing in the storm-tossed ocean or being pulled—bleeding and unconscious—from the same.
Maybe that was the problem. I couldn’t remember how everything had gone down, so it was a giant question mark in my head. A series of events that had meant the difference between me living or dying—whether by drowning or bleeding out—and it had been completely out of my control. One wrong move could have paralyzed me like my RIO. A line could have snapped. A machine could have failed. One of the violent waves could have pulled us under or slammed us into the ship’s hull or smacked someone with a piece of debris from the aircraft. A goddamned shark could have followed the scent of all that blood in the water, especially after one of the swimmers got a little too well acquainted with a jagged piece of metal and had to be rescued herself.
I never did find out how many swimmers were in the water to save Charlie and me. How many more could have been injured like the one who’d torn her leg open? By the grace of God, though, everyone—the wounded swimmer, Charlie, the rest of the SAR swimmers, and myself—had made it out of those storm-tossed seas and onto the ship. Ultimately, we’d all survived.
And today, in the safety of a calm indoor swimming pool on the other side of the world, I couldn’t breathe. I had no memory of ever believing I was going to drown, but right then, my lungs were filling up with saltwater. My eyes and sinuses burned. Did I smell jet fuel? I couldn’t—
“Commander?” Captain Rodriguez’s voice jarred me back into the present. When I turned to her, she cocked her head. “You all right?”
I nodded, absently wiping the sweat off my forehead and trying not to appear too relieved that the cold saltwater had vanished. “Yeah. Sorry.” I cleared my throat, which didn’t taste like the ocean or blood or fear. “The chlorine gets to me sometimes.”
Her eyes narrowed a bit, skepticism etched across her features.
And suddenly I realized everyone was staring. At us. At me. Christ—how obvious had I been?
The master chief putting on the demonstration muffled a cough, drawing everyone’s attention back to him, and continued his introduction. Cool relief and hot embarrassment both rushed over me. I didn’t hear a word the man said, but at least I was back in the here and now. I concentrated on staying here. Breathing slowly. Being consciously aware of the chlorine instead of salt and jet fuel.
After the demonstration, I left as soon as I could do so without drawing attention to myself. I calmed down in my office and shifted my focus to my work, but I was still rattled. It blew my mind that something as simple as a SAR demonstration could bring so much shit bubbling up from my subconscious from years ago. For the rest of the day, my skin was crawling.
So I knew damn well that if I stayed at Clint’s tonight, I was asking for it. His place was familiar, but not familiar enough to calm down my fucked-up psyche if—when—I woke up in the middle of an episode.
But I also didn’t want to sleep alone. Which was weird. I slept alone more often than not, and having an episode with someone else beside me had always been embarrassing as hell.
For some reason, though, I wanted Clint there tonight. Maybe b
ecause I wanted to see if he knew what he was getting into when we’d agreed that something like this would happen eventually. If I was going to scare him off, I might as well do it sooner than later.
Around noon, he poked his head into my office and gently knocked on my open door. “You busy?”
I smiled as I pushed a binder aside. “Not really, no.”
“Want to go grab lunch?”
Lunch. Food. My stomach lurched just thinking about it.
And my response must not have been all that subtle, because Clint’s eyebrows rose. Then he stepped in and shut the door behind him. “You all right?”
“Yeah, I . . .” I rubbed a hand over my face. Then I got up and came around the desk, mostly because I was suddenly full of nervous energy and needed to move. I leaned against the desk and drummed my nails rapidly on its edge. “Listen, um . . .” I shrugged away a shudder. “This morning was . . . sketchy.” I tapped my temple. “Some triggery shit that’s still kind of under my skin.”
Clint nodded. “Understood.”
“Tonight’s going to be rough. If you don’t want—”
“Travis.” He put a hand on my waist and kissed me lightly. “It’s fine.”
“I’m serious. Nightmares are one thing. When something has me this rattled during the day, the night is going to suck.”
He nodded again. “Believe me, I know how it goes.”
“I know you do.” I wrapped my arms around him. “But it’s not pleasant. So if you don’t want to be there for it, I’ll understand.”
“I want to be there for you.” His cheeks colored. “Okay, that sounded a lot cheesier than it did in my head, but seriously—it sucks to go through, and it’s worse to go through it alone.”
“True.” I released a breath. “All right. We can give it a shot, I guess.” Funny how it was so much easier to assure him it’d be no big deal when his PTSD took over than it was to stomach the idea of him being there when mine did.
“Maybe it would be better at your place tonight.” He paused. “I mean, if it’s not too weird, me staying there while your daughter is home. Just, you know, being in a familiar setting might be better for you.”