Her Delayed War

by R. J. Nicolson

  “And if I can’t?”

  “Then maybe I’m not the right person to be here for you. And if that’s the case, we will find you someone who I know can help you.” I shake my head, my thoughts are all over the place and his words have my whole body shaking.

  “You want out? I don’t want anybody else, I need you! Please don’t leave me. I can’t do this with anyone else.” My words are pleading with him and when I look into his eyes, I see the indecision there. He’s pained and it’s written all over his face now not just in his eyes. “I’ll try harder, I promise just please don’t leave me.”

  “Ok, I’ll stay.” He finally relents. “Can I grab some pillows and a blanket? I think we both could do with a sleep now.”

  “You can have the spare room.”

  “No here is perfect.” I chew on my lip; he’s watching me with a frown on his face, “Where have you been sleeping?” And I know that he knows exactly where I’ve been falling asleep.

  “Erm… where ever I’ve fallen asleep.”

  “Ok, well tonight you sleep in your bed and know I’m here if you need me.”

  I climb the stairs and Jenson follows me.

  “I just want some bedding for the sofa.” He explains and I nod.

  I’m itching to run back down the stairs and check the door to see if he’s still outside but I know doing so will push Jenson out the door faster than it would take me to quickly look. He follows me down the hall to the spare room where I rip the bedding and pillows from the bed. We don’t speak as I hand them to him and then he turns to leave with nothing but a small thank you. I walk to the bathroom, brush my hair and teeth and then go to my room. I drag the quilt back, climb in and roll myself up in the softness. It’s foreign to me the softness of my bed. The warmth of my quilt but the terror that is always at the forefront of my head has me tossing and turning for hours on end.

  Jenson

  I should have said yes to the spare bed. This sofa was not made for my large frame. My legs keep cramping, my hands have pins and fucking needles and I had no pillow more than I had it. I only said I’d stay down here because if I’d slept in that spare room, I’d have found her by the front door when I woke. I slept like shit; every small sound had me wide awake listening and checking to make sure it was normal.

  My body is still trained to rise early even after all these years and because I can hear Jodi, I know hers is also. It turns me on to think that we are still so attune to our old life and the people around us. I have no doubt that she’s peeking around the closed curtains and checking out outside. When I hear her feet on the stairs, I adjust myself and sit up so I don’t disgrace myself in front of her.

  “Morning Corp,” I say, when she comes into view.

  “You’re awake!” She almost screams at me when she sees me sitting up.

  “Yes I’m up! Are you making coffee?” I know she wanted to check the door; I can see by the guilty look on her face that she wanted me to be sleeping.

  “Yes erm, yeah I was going to make coffee, how do you take it?” I remember her being a shit liar way back when and she still is.

  “Tell me what you really wanted to do, Corp.” I see her face drop and she knows that I know.

  “Why?”

  “Why lie? Why not just admit you slept shit because you were thinking about what was going on behind that door?” She looks me straight in the eye as I’m talking to her.

  “How do you know?”

  “Because I’d have done it myself, you know my story and you know what I went through. I know what’s going on inside your head right now and I know you hate me for taking the power away from you.”

  “I need to check. I need to know I’m safe right now. I haven’t slept and I can’t think straight. I don’t want you to leave me but I need to know if he’s there before my day can start. I need to know I didn’t just let him slip by my radar. You have told me he isn’t there but I see him, I know what I can see is real. I need to do this. I didn’t sleep; I lay in that bed all night thinking that if I did let sleep take me then I’d wake to his Tabuk rifle pointed straight in my face because he would get by you to take me out.”

  “Okay.”

  “Really, just ok?”

  “Yes, go look but there is a catch.” There is always a catch. “I need you to explain it to me in detail; from the moment you lift that catch until the moment you let it drop, you tell me everything you see. We did this already, but today is the first day of the rest of your life. I also didn’t sleep because I knew me sleeping would feed your anxiety and I’m not here to do that, I’m here to help you repair everything. You asked for my help and that’s what I’m going to do.”

  She nods her head in agreement and I stand to follow her, our conversation having killed off my evident arousal.

  “You won’t leave me because I needed to do this?” She asks as I shake my head in denial.

  “Today is the first day of the rest of our lives, I won’t leave you. But I will push you to the max because I know that together we can beat your demons.”

  “You’re not going to leave me to do it alone?”

  “No, I was angry last night but not this morning. I just didn’t want you doing this to yourself. You have to go to meetings, you have to listen to me even if you don’t want to but most importantly you have to look after yourself.” I say to her as she lifts the gold catch on the front door. The rush of breath that leaves her body as the relief of being able to look is so loud, I stare at her and feel the guilt weigh on my shoulders. I shouldn’t have stopped her but I just couldn’t bare to see her suffer more.

  “Ok, coffee.”

  She walks past me to the kitchen and I follow behind like a puppy following his master. I want to fix this; I want to go back to last night before I told her what to do. And when I let her look just now, she was there for mere seconds before she managed to pull herself away from the door. She found some strength within herself to do that.

  “What’s wrong?” She asks as she hits the switch on the kettle.

  “What just happened there?”

  “You said I could check so I checked.”

  “But then you walked away. I don’t understand it.”

  “Let me make coffee before you make my mind wander.” I look at her like she has grown two heads. One of us has that’s for sure. She sticks my cup in front of me with the milk and sugar jar; I ignore both and go to sit at the table, wrap my hands around the cup and watch her quietly, contemplating everything. What it would be like to grab her and kiss her full lips, lay her on the table top while I do the things my imagination has had me dreaming of forever. As she approaches the table I shake my head of the thoughts but when she sits across from me and places her hand over mine on the table my whole body flushes.

  “Jenson, I just asked you a question.”

  “What? What did you ask, Corp?” Her face scrunches up at the name I call her.

  “Where do I start?” She says ignoring it.

  Holy shit, did I speak my dreams out loud? At my silence she continues.

  “You said I needed to get help, where do I start?” I look at her while I take in her words, realising I need to get my head in the game; she isn’t my girlfriend or partner. I had no right at all to be as harsh as I was.

  “I’m sorry for the things I said last night, I shouldn’t have done that to you; I don’t even have a good excuse for it. It’s just everything was going so well and then it flipped. I had no right and I’m sorry.” I can’t even look at her. “Tell me what you saw when you looked just now.”

  “He’s out there. I knew he would be but I just needed to be sure. It scares me that he has control over my life but the one thing I can control right now is that I can go to that door and check. The impulses are always there and the need to look is always strong. I want to beat him but I don’t know how to.”

  “You know it’s not real, right?”

  “So you all say, but if I can see him here and at the meeting someone el
se has to be able to see him. I asked for your help, not for you to judge me Jenson.”

  “I’m not judging you ba… Corp, I’m just telling you.”

  “Right, well I get it ok? Stop saying it.” She sucks in a large breath, “I want everyone to just stop; stop telling me it’s not real because it’s real to me; it’s happening to me. No one understands what I’m going through and no one wants to understand because all they see is what they see. I need your help but if you can’t do it without fucking making me feel bad then don’t do it. Stop fucking calling me Corp, I’m not your Corp now; I’m just fucking Jodi, alright?” My face flames at the telling off I receive, but not entirely because she’s scolding me more, because her feistiness is a god damn turn on.

  Chapter 15

  Jodi

  It’s been three months since I raged at Jenson. He is still here and he’s never left, he has taken me to group sessions but he still calls me Corp like he doesn’t know my real name, but won’t say why he calls me it. But most importantly for all, I can see his frustrations at the fact I still need to check the little gold catch on my door, even if it’s just a few times a day. He’s still here counselling me, supporting me, keeping me company and filling my wine glass whenever I want.

  We tried to shop a few days after that first night, well Jenson tried to shop but I raced us out of the shop with only wine and bread. We ordered takeaway that night but we also did an online grocery shop so we had food. Jenson cooks actual real meals but I barely eat it; I push it around the plate with my fork and nibble on tiny bits. He’s cooking steak tonight and it smells divine but I know I won’t eat much.

  “You all ready for group tomorrow? Have you thought about what you’re going to say?” Jenson shouts from the kitchen.

  “Say about what?”

  “I told you last week that it’s time to talk. There is a therapist from the Army coming in to talk about the different treatments they find that help while still in training. I’ve been on their asses for years and because we have more ex-service men and woman now, they think it’s the right time.” He pops his head around the door and looks at me.

  “Oh, I didn’t realise that was tomorrow. Do I have to talk? Won’t it be ok to just sit and listen?”

  “No, I need your help with this; I need everyone to give a little if we hope to get anything out of it. Plus this is to help you also.” He walks over and sits next to me, turning his body so he’s facing me. “I’m failing here Corp; I’m not helping you at all. I feel like every time there is a little shift you revert back to the person I saw walk into that reunion. I know there’s no quick fix but I feel like you’re just giving up. How long has it been since you called your parents? How long has it been since you went to work?”

  “You’re not failing Jenson, I feel better.” I say, but turn my face from him.

  “You feel better? You don’t eat, you still check that damn door, we never leave this house and it’s a struggle to get you to group. You’re not getting better; I just gave you a crutch when I promised to be here for you.”

  “You’re not my father, Jenson. Don’t talk to me that way.”

  “I’m not trying to be your dad, I want to be… erm never mind.” He says as he stands and walks back to the kitchen. “Dinner will be ready in five but try to think of what you might say tomorrow, please.”

  He says things like that often, I don’t think he wants to be here anymore but he doesn’t want to admit it. I feel like I have him trapped; he doesn’t date and he doesn’t socialise with friends except at group. He’s right about the crutch thing though, he’s been an absolute tower of strength for me these last few months. I won’t admit to myself what is screaming inside my head because I know if I do there will be no way to keep the tiny amount of recovery I have achieved in check; everything will just crumble around me until I’m nothing but another statistic. Emily’s words from the first night I met her scream in my head, ‘Cory won’t allow it.’

  If he left me I’d kill myself because I know that anything is better than living this hell. Waking up to this shit and trying to go about a daily routine, being terrified to leave your own home and having the constant doubt from your nearest and dearest thrown at you from every angle leaves it the only option for me. I don’t want to talk at group. I don’t want to let everyone in further than they are already, I don’t fucking want to depend on one person, even if that one person has made my whole world kind of tilt the right way these last few months. I do want to depend on him because I don’t want to burden others with all of this. But I want him and obviously this is the only way I will have him. Life isn’t always fair, my life definitely isn’t but Jenson didn’t ask to be in this situation with me; I made him come help me and made him promise he would stay with me.

  I don’t feel bad, I feel evil. I feel like the evil step mother in Cinderella but one who has serious remorse. I feel like the whole world is piled on my shoulders to stop it, but how do you stop something which has become a major part of your life. The dread, anxiety, terror and whole wrongness that seeps within the very bones of me is strangling the Jodi Emery who existed before all of this. Not only is it strangling me but it’s drowning me and dragging me into a pit of despair and hatred. Is this life really worth it?

  Jenson

  I roll my eyes as I greet the two men as they come through the door. I know them both vaguely; Lance more than Sebastian. Lance and I clash but I know that this is for my group and not me so I just brush it under the carpet as I usher them in, before I grab everyone’s attention.

  “Ok, is everyone ready? We have some very important visitors with us tonight. I know not all of us are military but everyone here has a story and Sergeant Ford and Major Ivy are here to help us, listen to our stories and instruct us on methods that they find are the best ways to help.”

  “So you think that these men can help me get over my burns?” Emily asks. I should have known she would pipe up first.

  “Maybe, maybe not, but they will have things that can help you deal better with the way you now have to live your life.”

  “What about us who didn’t suffer the way you did? My brother was killed at war, there is a massive difference between what happened to you there and what happened to me because he was there. How am I supposed to associate my trauma with yours? They are on two different ends of any scale.” Alison almost screams at me.

  “I didn’t say any of that Alison, I said that I know we are not all military but they might have different methods which could be useful, there isn’t just you who suffered the disgraceful act you did but there will be things you can take out of this and maybe use to your advantage.” I look around the room until my eyes land on the beauty in the farthest corner.

  “Has everyone got their questions sorted? Jodi?” If looks could kill then I’d be dead. She isn’t sitting with the group she’s at the window where she always stands during group meetings. It makes my heart hurt, Emily looks between me and Corp then stands and walks to her. I can see their lips moving in their silent conversation and I really want to be part of it even though I know I cant.

  I turn my attention back to the group but not before the whispers start, everyone can read my feelings here except the one person I really want to notice them.

  “Over to you.” I say with the sweep of my arm as the Major and Sergeant take my place at the centre of the stage.

  “As we were previously introduced, I am Major Lance Ivy and this is my colleague Sergeant Sebastian Ford who heads up the Post Traumatic Stress Disorder team within the British Army. He normally only deals with active servicemen but we have been informed about this group and think our advice and his training will be beneficial to some if not all of you.”

  “You think you can help us all?” Alison is always straight to the point.

  “Well we would like to, if not, we would like to give you something that can help you help yourself. Why don’t you start? Tell us your story and then we can judge for ourselves if you
have a case that we can’t do anything about.”

  “Ok, my brother was killed serving our country, serving in your army. He wasn’t just my brother, he was my twin and even though I lost that connection he screams at me hourly, telling me what happened it’s like I’m living out the war for him, I never wanted him to join up to start with. Why should I fucking suffer this shit now? Why must I relive his missions as if it’s on some crazy loop spinning in my brain?”

  They whisper among themselves before writing in the notepad they brought with them.

  “We have seen this before, erm can you give us your name please?”

  “Alison.”

  “And your Twin?”

  “My brother is… I mean his name was Greg and he was killed while on active duty in Iraq.” Alison’s voice trembles; she doesn’t often speak about her twin but we all know the story. She’s been here since almost the beginning. She walked in here about three weeks after the first session and sat right at the front owning her diagnosis and telling her story like she had told it a million times before.

  “Ok Alison, before we go over each story individually can we grab each main point then we will begin working to help you all?” Alison sits back down and Terry stands.

  “My daughter Lilly was murdered by her boyfriend when she was seventeen.”

  “My boyfriend battered me all over and left me for dead.” Kim says.

  “I’m Cheryl, my daughter was kidnapped at eight, we have never found her. Her name is Sarah.”

  “I’m Lew; I was serving in the gulf war when we were attacked. I received multiple wounds covering 90% of my body.” They whisper among themselves before nodding for the next person to stand.

  “I’m Jimmy, my brother Paul was killed in Afghanistan while serving his Queen.”