Afraid to Fly

by L. A. Witt

  I couldn’t even put my finger on why I thought she wouldn’t take it well. She wasn’t a homophobe by any means. Her older brother was gay, and he’d come out after being married to a woman for quite a few years, so she’d seen this kind of thing play out before. She hadn’t rejected him or been angry with him. On the other hand, she had made some comments about not being able to imagine being her brother’s now-ex-wife.

  “That must’ve been a kick in the teeth,” she’d said when we’d been alone after hearing the news.

  “Clint?”

  I shook myself, and wondered how long I’d fallen quiet. “Sorry. Sorry. I . . .” I blew out a breath. “Sorry.”

  She tilted her head. “You’re not—”

  “I’m sober. I promise.”

  She studied me, and I didn’t have to ask if she believed me. The fact that I could calmly string together a coherent sentence was a huge point in my favor. My eyes probably weren’t as red as they’d been during my drinking days either.

  She sat back and glanced off-camera. “I should go make sure they aren’t destroying the tree.”

  I forced a quiet laugh. “Okay. Send me some pictures, will you?”

  “Sure.” She nodded. “Take it easy, Clint. Maybe next year, we can . . .” She dropped her gaze.

  “We’ll cross that bridge when we get there. This year’s an improvement. I’ll take it.”

  “Me too. Anyway. Um. Good night. Merry Christmas.”

  “Merry Christmas.”

  We hung up, and I closed my laptop. For a good hour or so, I sat there. Sometimes staring at the photo they’d sent. Sometimes staring into space. The whole time, replaying the conversation. Things were getting better. It was a slow process, but we were getting there. The kids were talking to me. I had a new picture of them for my desk at work.

  And maybe next year . . .

  We’ll cross that bridge when we get there.

  I sighed, not sure if I was drained, relieved, or both.

  A knock at the door pulled my attention from the picture. “It’s open.”

  Travis stepped in. “Hey. I didn’t want to interrupt, but . . .”

  “No, no.” I set the frame on top of my bag. “We hung up a few minutes ago.”

  He sat on the bed beside me and squeezed my shoulder. “So how’d it go?”

  “It went all right. I’m fucking exhausted now, though.”

  “I don’t doubt that at all.”

  I chewed my lip. Then I reached for the photo. “They sent me this.”

  He took the picture from me and smiled. “Wow. They look just like you.”

  “Trust me—the boys look a lot more like their mom.”

  He glanced at me, then at the photo, and shrugged. “Well, I’ve never seen her, but I can sure see the resemblance to you.”

  Setting the frame aside again, I couldn’t help but smile. “Let’s hope for their mother’s sake that they haven’t inherited all of my traits.”

  Travis patted my leg. “You don’t give yourself enough credit.” He kissed my cheek. “But I can imagine you were a handful as a kid, so yeah, let’s hope.”

  “Ass.” I elbowed him, and we both laughed. Then I sighed. “Man. I’m beat.”

  “Me too. I might be about ready to call it a night.” He waved toward the door. “Charlie and Maxine have already gone to bed.”

  “This early?”

  “They’re not night owls like us.”

  “And yet we’re the ones who have to be up at ridiculous hours to go to work.”

  “The gods favor no one, apparently.” He stood and toed off his shoes, but otherwise, left everything on as he lay back on the bed. “Ahh. That feels nice.”

  I joined him on the bed, propping myself up on my elbow and resting a hand on his chest. “How’s your back?”

  “Still attached.” He slid his hand around the back of my neck and drew me down. He kissed me lightly, then met my gaze. A devilish little grin formed on his lips. “Actually, before we hit the hay, I have one more present for you.”

  My stomach curled inward with dread. If this was a holiday-themed come-on, it was going to take a hell of a lot of effort to pretend I was into it right now.

  I smiled, though. “You already gave me too much. You didn’t have to get me anything.”

  “I know. But . . .” He got up, dug through his bag, and then handed me a wrapped package slightly larger than a shoebox. “I thought you’d like this.”

  It had some heft to it, and it was soft. I was definitely curious, and prayed like hell it wasn’t some sort of sex toy he expected to use tonight.

  Please, not tonight.

  As he lay back on the bed again, I tore off the paper, and no, it was not a sex toy. No, it was the brightest, most hideous blanket I’d ever seen. Soft as hell, yes, but the pattern was a bunch of frosted, sprinkle-covered pastries.

  I arched an eyebrow at Travis.

  He didn’t even try to hide his smirk. “I thought it would go with your throw pillow.”

  I burst out laughing. “You dork.”

  “What?” He snickered. “It seemed like your style.”

  “Of course it is.” I leaned over him and kissed him. “Thank you.”

  “You’re welcome.”

  “And, um . . .” I touched his face. “Thank you for bringing me here with you. This beat the hell out of spending Christmas alone.”

  “Even if you had to get on a plane?”

  I suppressed a shudder and smiled. “Yeah. It was worth it.”

  “Glad to hear it.” He slid a hand around the back of my neck and pressed a light kiss to my lips. When we parted again, his brow furrowed. “You okay? You’ve been kind of distant all evening. Stressed about talking to the kids?”

  “Just a bit. And I should feel better now that it’s over, but I . . .” I lay back on the pillows. “I’m exhausted.”

  “I believe it.” He took my hand and squeezed gently.

  I stared at the ceiling. “Looking back, I don’t think the divorce could have been avoided. She was right—I’m a different person now. And I have no idea if she could have coped with my PTSD or not. I still don’t know sometimes if I can.” I closed my eyes. “But of all the ways things could have gone down, I could have handled things so much better. Without hurting her and the kids like that.”

  “You were traumatized and you couldn’t talk about it,” he said. “In hindsight, I can’t imagine many people would blame you for not choosing the healthiest means of coping.”

  “Maybe not. But I sure as fuck do. You’re right about one thing though—I’d have been so much better off if I could have talked about it.”

  He said nothing. Just squeezed my hand.

  “This must sound crazy to you.” I avoided his eyes. “An RAP being so fucked up by something that happened in a safe, comfortable office.”

  “We’ve talked about this,” he said. “It’s not a competition. And even if you’re not in the line of fire, you’re still part of the war. You’re going to be affected by it.”

  “Yeah. That’s for damn sure.” I raked a hand through my hair, then turned to him. “That job killed my marriage, and it almost drowned me in a bottle. And I . . .” My face burned. “Listen, I’m not proud of this. Any of it. But I . . . The thing is, I couldn’t cope with my job. With what happened three years ago. So I dove into a bottle, and . . .” Shame twisted in the pit of my stomach. I couldn’t keep holding his gaze as I whispered, “When I get drunk, I get crazy.”

  “Crazy, how?”

  I forced back the bile in my throat. “Crazy violent.”

  Travis stiffened.

  I quickly added, “I never laid a hand on my wife or kids. I swear. Never did. But I, uh, I had to patch a few walls in the house. I never touched them, but I scared the shit out of them, and I will never forgive myself for that.”

  I fully expected Travis to recoil away from me and give me the same horrified expression the judge and my in-laws and the cops had. The last
thing I expected was a gentle hand over the top of mine, or a reassuring squeeze.

  Without looking at him, I took a deep breath and went on. “The thing is, everything RAPs do is classified. The missions. The recon. The outcomes. No matter what happened, I couldn’t go home and tell my wife about my day. Which was stressful enough. But then when . . .” My skin crawled. “When things got really bad, I couldn’t tell anyone.” Stomach somersaulting and heart pounding, I turned to him and whispered, “All I could do was drink.”

  The understanding in Travis’s eyes almost broke me. No judgment, no disgust—he just nodded, his expression full of genuine empathy. “This job fucks people up. No two ways about it.”

  A lump rose in my throat, and I nodded. “Yeah. But Jesus—they didn’t deserve that.”

  “Neither did you.”

  My shoulders dropped. “You don’t even know what happened.”

  “No, but I know you.” He squeezed my hand again. “War is brutal.”

  “Yeah. I just . . . I wish I could talk about it. But the details are . . .”

  “Classified?”

  “Very.” I paused. “And . . .” I released a long, heavy breath and sat up. “You know what? Fuck this. I shouldn’t . . . but, I mean, you have secret clearance, right?”

  He straightened. “Of course I do, but this shit’s on a need-to-know basis.”

  Heart thumping, I laced our fingers together. “I think this qualifies, to be honest.”

  His eyebrows jumped. “Why’s that?”

  “Because one of the reasons I drank myself stupid and fucked up my marriage was that I couldn’t tell anyone what happened. I . . .” I gulped. “I’m completely fucked up, Travis. And if we’re going to do this—or hell, if I’m going to stay fucking sane—I need you to know what happened.”

  Travis’s eyes widened. He brought our hands up and softly kissed the backs of my fingers. For a moment, I was sure he was going to tell me he wished he could help, but that was a line he couldn’t cross. And if he’d said that, I wouldn’t have blamed him.

  Instead, he whispered, “Nothing leaves this room. I promise.”

  I held his gaze. My heart was going even faster now—after keeping this all bottled up for so long, under strict orders to never breathe a word of it, I wasn’t even sure I had the vocabulary to talk about it.

  Acid burned my throat. “It was . . .” I closed my eyes and pushed out a ragged breath. “It was about three years ago now. We’d been monitoring this target for months. By the time we got the green light to strike, we knew every inch of that building and who was occupying it. When they came and went, when and where they shit, what they ate, what websites they were using . . .” I looked at Travis. “There was nothing about those guys we didn’t know.”

  He nodded slowly, a silent go on.

  “So we got the order—take out the building and everyone in it. Everything went smoothly. The ground crew over there turned the drone’s controls over to me. We flew in, we bombed the shit out of it, and flew it back. Handed the controls back, and we were done.” The acid in my throat burned hotter. I swallowed, trying to tamp down some of the queasiness.

  Travis put a hand over my forearm, but he didn’t speak.

  I tamped down the nausea. “It wasn’t until the next day that we knew something had gone wrong.” I leaned against the headboard. Staring up at the ceiling, I went on. “I don’t know how the enemy knew, or if they did, or if it was just horrible luck. All I know is, when I took out that building I had every reason to believe it was full of high-ranking enemy combatants . . .” My mouth went dry. I combed a shaky hand through my damp hair. “The only bodies they found afterward were civilians.”

  Travis’s breath hitched.

  “Fifty-seven civilians. Mostly women and kids.” I forced back a fresh wave of nausea. “They didn’t recover a single combatant, but even if they had, I mean . . . fifty-seven civilians.”

  “Jesus.” He gripped my hand even tighter.

  I coughed to get my breath moving. “My command tried to hem up everyone involved, but after the investigation, it was obvious we had no way of knowing. They combed through every shred of intel, and agreed we had every reason to believe beyond a shadow of a doubt that our targets were in that building.” I rolled my stiffening shoulders. “So, after that, we went back to work. And the next time I tried to fly a mission, I choked. I couldn’t do it.”

  “Is that why you came to Adams?”

  “Not . . .” I closed my eyes. “Not right away. They moved me into an admin position. Kind of like what I’m doing now. It was supposed to be temporary. Something to keep me working—first while they investigated me for wrongdoing, and then while I recovered from the trauma.” Even queasier than before, I met Travis’s gaze. “But recovering . . . I mean, how the fuck was I supposed to recover from something like that?”

  He traced his thumb alongside my hand. “I don’t guess you had a lot of people you could talk to.”

  “There was no one. Absolutely no one.” I moistened my lips. “The crew involved in the incident didn’t want to talk about it.” Rubbing my eyes, I sighed. “During the debrief, we had to sign even more nondisclosure forms than we’d already signed, and our chain of command reminded us a hundred times that even chaplains and therapists were off-limits, no matter their clearance.”

  “Is that . . . is that legal?”

  “I don’t even know anymore. Anyone I asked just told me to keep my mouth shut.” I dropped my hand and met Travis’s gaze. “I couldn’t tell a shrink. I couldn’t tell my wife. I couldn’t tell anyone. And it was eating at me. One of the guys I worked with, he said it was like an invisible cancer. It’s there, and it’s killing you, but you can’t tell anyone about it. Not even a doctor. You just have to sit there and pretend it doesn’t exist until it finally finishes you off.”

  “Shit,” he said. “That’s unreal.”

  “And I shouldn’t have even told you.” I made myself meet his gaze, and damn my voice for shaking as I whispered, “But I can’t carry this by myself anymore.”

  “You shouldn’t have to.”

  “Not that I have much choice.” I pushed back some fresh nausea. “I’m telling you, I never knew there could be such a fine line between collateral damage and a war crime. And when you’re the guy pulling the trigger . . .” I shook my head. “I don’t think that line really exists. Or if it does, it doesn’t matter.”

  Travis ran his thumb back and forth along mine again, but said nothing.

  When the silence started getting unbearable, I went on. “It was like a switch was flipped. One day I had this job that was stressful and taxing, but it was doable. And the next . . . the next I was all kinds of fucked up. After that, I hid in a bottle. I’d walk in the door after work, and I wouldn’t even change out of my uniform before I was pouring something.” I rubbed the back of my sweaty neck. “And things went downhill from there.”

  “I can’t even imagine,” he breathed.

  Except he could. After what he’d gone through, crashing into the carrier and being pulled from the water, I didn’t think anyone would begrudge him if he spent some time in a bottle. That was a level of danger RAPs never had to worry about.

  “And yes, people think . . .” I paused. “They can’t see how this job fucks people up. They don’t get it. Being thousands of miles away from the war zone doesn’t make it less traumatic to fire the weapon.”

  He tipped up my chin and kissed me softly. “War is our job. It’s going to affect all of us, even if we’re not right there at the front lines.”

  “I know. But it . . .” I stared at my wringing hands. “We’re working with people who are close to the front lines. Drone warfare keeps our guys out of harm’s way, but not all of them. There’s a ground crew over there. They’re not right in the middle of the shit that’s going down, but they’re a hell of a lot closer than the RAPs.” I turned to Travis. “How do you tell one of those guys you’re as fucked up as he is when he had to
sleep in a tent or a shipping container in hundred-degree heat, knowing he could get bombed during the night?”

  “Clint.” He covered my hands with his and stilled them. “Even if somebody is more affected than you, like to the point they can’t even function, it doesn’t negate what happened to you.”

  I exhaled hard. “Thank you. And it’s . . . it’s a load off my mind just to be able to talk about it.”

  “I believe it. You shouldn’t have to hold on to that by yourself.”

  “It’s hell,” I whispered.

  He pulled me in for another kiss. “I don’t doubt that at all. I’m sorry you have to deal with it.”

  I didn’t speak. Just talking about the incident and its fallout had left me numb, but looking in Travis’s eyes woke up some feelings. It was this bizarre sensation, like talking about it for the first time had been a way of reliving it, and when I was done, I was still alive. My life wasn’t in the chaos and shambles it had been after the real thing had gone down.

  I was alive. I was here. I was sober.

  And Travis was still looking at me the way he always did.

  “You know, to be honest . . .” I moistened my parched lips. “Now that it’s off my chest, I don’t really want to think about it anymore tonight.”

  “What do you want to think about?”

  I didn’t answer right away. I wasn’t exactly sure how. What did I want to think about tonight?

  Then, heart thumping, I touched his face. “You.”

  Travis said nothing. He wrapped his arm around me, tilted his head, and pressed his lips to mine.

  And all I thought about after that was him.

  I hadn’t been in the mood all day, but now that he was pressed up against me, heat radiating through our clothes while our lips frantically moved together, my whole body responded. If Clint wanted something else to think about, that was one thing I could definitely do for him. I couldn’t erase what had happened to him, or the way it had all but destroyed his life, but I could make damn sure he felt good tonight.