I realized she suffered from PTSD on the fateful night everything started five years ago. I wondered if she sought treatment for it, or if it grew worse over the years. Combined with the aftermath of her head wound: anxiety or depression, possibly both. I didn’t think I’d ever really get to have her while she didn’t accept it. Not to mention the fact she disassociated herself from the old her on a regular basis.
Sleep eluded me tonight. I sat up, slid my boots on, scribbled my number on the pad by the bed, and slipped out into the cold night. I spent more time at the bar than at home. When I got to my office, all I could see was her. I could even smell her in the air.
I needed to do something to help her, and yet, in this, I felt powerless. None of my medical training revolved around the type of mental illness she dealt with. And I wasn’t stupid enough to think I could force her into getting help. I tapped a pencil on the desk thinking about the few times I’d seen the obvious signs of at least PTSD, and there were more than I wished.
Helping her would take time. Something I could give her, but right now, it wouldn’t help me to keep rolling it all around in my head.
I turned on my laptop and started putting in the last week’s receipts….
When I woke up, the light streamed in my office window, and my face lay flat on the desk in front of my keyboard. My back kinked awkwardly, and pain beat from my neck to my ass. I really needed to stop falling asleep at my desk.
I checked the clock 10 a.m. Mara would probably be awake by now. The sound of steel hitting steel came from the hallway, and I ducked out, rubbing my neck while I searched for the source of the noise.
Mara stood at the stove with a frying pan. “Sorry I woke you up.”
“How did you get in here?”
She put some eggs in the pan and answered without turning. “You left the door unlocked.”
“You should have woken me up when you came over. My back is killing me.”
She flashed a cheeky smile over her shoulder. “I could give you a massage if you want.”
Damn, her touching me in anyway would be wonderful. But going too far felt like taking advantage of her current state of vulnerability. Even if she didn’t realize the danger.
Saint Fucking Murphy.
I backed out the door and went back to my office. It was the name they gave me in school because of all the time I spent volunteering at the local rehab center, and then the name they continued pressing on me when I graduated from nursing school. And even after I quit working for the nursing homes and took over the bar, they still taunted me with the nickname. Too noble for my own good.
I lay down on the couch, and she followed me in. “What’s wrong?”
“You mean besides the fact that both our lives are completely upside down? Nothing.”
She shook her head and braced her hips against the side of my desk. “Not sure what you mean by upside down. I didn’t have much of a life; I guess I still don’t.”
I sat up and scrubbed my hands through my hair. “That’s exactly what I mean. You didn’t have a life before because you were always moving. Then you were gone and disappeared for so long. You say you didn’t have anything then either. Now you’re here, and you are living out of a hotel room.”
“It’s not something I think about.” The look on her face said get to the point.
“You don’t think about the future or what you want to do.”
“I wanted to come here, meet you in person, and I did that.”
“But what’s next, what do you want for yourself? You have to have a dream, an ambition you aspire to reach?”
She shook her head and dropped her gaze from mine. I assumed she did it so I couldn’t read her. “I’ve sort of felt in between. Waiting for my memories to come back I guess. I thought maybe coming here might help.”
“You think being here with me will give you back your memories? I thought you said the doctor told you there was nothing you could do.”
“He did. Because there is nothing he can do for me. The mind can figure itself out, but medically speaking, I’m as healthy as I’m going to get. In fact, he called me lucky to have control of my motor functions. That I got off easy for only losing my memory.”
There was a doctor in Washington I wanted to punch in the teeth right now. “Great bedside manner there.”
She snorted. “I said the same thing. To his face even. He was a Colonel and didn’t care about the opinion of a former enlisted soldier. His job was to make sure I left in basically one piece and no more.”
We barely knew each other. She wasn’t the same woman who left me all those years ago, and her absence had changed me too. The long years made me harder and colder. Now less quick to help those in need for fear it would come back and bite me in the ass like it did so many other times. What I wanted to say next, I debated for a long minute. However, we wouldn’t be able to continue forward unless I did.
“Have you considered therapy?” I pushed out in one quick breath.
She didn’t react or say anything until a timer dinged in the kitchen. Instead of speaking, she left the office. I’d expected her to throw furniture at me or at least the pens in the cup on the desk.
Was it safe to follow her and clarify why I mentioned it? As I worked up the courage, she came back in with eggs on two plates and sat next to me.
“Thanks,” I offered, tilting my head to see I could see her face.
She ate quickly and quietly and took her plate back to the kitchen. I couldn’t touch mine as my gut rolled over. By asking her about therapy, maybe I’d driven her away.
I feared losing her more than anything else. The idea of her gone squeezed my heart in a vice which made it too hard to breathe.
I sat the plate on the desk and went to find her. She stood at the sink in the kitchen, the clean plate on the rack. Her shoulders were hunched, and her hands braced on the edge of the stainless steel.
“Look, I’m so…”
“Don’t. You don’t have anything to apologize for. I came back here to find you but also to see if my memories would come back. I don’t think they will now, and facing the reality with you staring at me on the other side hurts.”
She spun to face me, her fist pressed between her breasts. “I can’t breathe.”
Her legs knocked together, and I lurched forward to catch her in my arms before she hit the floor. “It’s okay,” I whispered as she shook in my grasp. “Just take slow easy breathes.”
It took a few minutes for her panting to get under control, and I cradled her in my lap until she finally stopped quaking. How could the world break such a woman? And if it did, how did I have any chance of making it?
All I could do was rock her back and forth until both our hearts started beating normally again. It hit me right under the chin, how close I’d been to losing her, and how I’d barely been living in the years I thought I had.
I tilted her chin up and prayed she couldn’t see the sheen in my eyes. “We will figure this out together. I’m here.”
She leaned up and pressed her lips to mine. Barely a brush against mine, and I felt like, for the first time, maybe we were on the same page.
“You’re right. Maybe some sort of therapy could help. At least let me figure out where I want to go from here. How I should proceed with my life after a chunk of it was taken from me.”
“Does that mean you’re going to stop pushing me to sleep with you?” I half-joked.
She swatted at my chest. “You like it, admit it. If I wasn’t insane, you might even be persuaded to give it up.”
“I do, and I will. But once we go down that road, there is no backing out. You’ll be mine, and I won’t give you up easily.”
She swallowed heavily. I could hear it before she nodded. “I understand why you’re hesitant, and I see no amount of professing my ability to make the choice myself is going to change your mind. If I go to therapy, do you think we can take the next step?”
I ignored the way my heart tightened up
and shot into my throat. “It’s not just about therapy. I want you to want me because you want me, not because you wanted me five years ago and assume this version of you would want me too. I know you’re not the same woman, and I’m not the same man who wrote those emails to you.”
“I know that. I can see me being gone took its toll on you too.”
I pulled her neck in and braced my forehead against her, savoring the way she fit so perfectly in my arms. Her breath smelled like cheese, and I didn’t mind in the least.
“So what now?” she whispered.
So what now?
The question had zipped through my head every five minutes since she walked through my door. She wanted to stay, and I needed her here more than I could admit out loud to her or myself. The intensity of it burned through me until she mumbled an ouch, and I realized I’d pulled her hair in my need to hold her tighter.
“You’ll stay, and we will take one thing at a time. But I do think we need to find you an apartment first.”
“What about your place?”
“You might want your own space. Especially if you try therapy. It can be hard for two people who know everything about each other to live together, and we are mostly strangers.”
She cleared her throat and sat up between my legs. “I like mint chocolate chip ice cream. I don’t read the news because it makes me depressed. I like sticky notes, the Beatles, and light roast coffee.”
I chuckled and held out my hand. She shook it firmly and held tight long past when we should have separated. “Nice to meet you, Mara,”
“What about you?”
“I hate light roast coffee, ice cream in general, and the Beatles.” I laughed at the absurdity of it.
She clutched her chest in a mock wounding. “How could I have fallen in love with a man who hates the Beatles?”
Mental Health
Mara
When I made the appointment at the local rehab center, they did not mention anything about a group. I couldn’t talk about my feelings to myself, let alone a group of randos with their own laundry list of issues. Not that I’m judging anyone for their illness or vices. I don’t take well to sharing. Never have. It’s been hard enough with Murphy.
I could not believe I said what I said. The second it came out, I backpedaled as fast as possible, but the words were out. He smiled with teeth even, and I couldn’t deny it in the face of all that. Instead, I did what I always do: evade and change the subject.
I spent another sexless night alone and woke up early to get to the clinic fifteen minutes earlier than I should have been there. Thank you Army brainwashing. It would seem even if my entire military career had been wiped away with one little bullet, the muscle memory and anxiety about being on time stayed ingrained.
The taxi driver forced me out of his car after I made him stay parked in front of the building for ten minutes, dreading walking in the door. Hospitals still scared me. The smell always reminded me of the operations, the pain, the loneliness. I hoped this place didn’t have a plastic chemical aroma which sticks to the back of my throat.
When I needed to force myself into something, I created steps in my mind. Step one: enter the damn building. Step two: sign in and find out where to go. When I made it to step three and they pointed me toward group therapy for wounded vets, I wanted to run.
Murphy’s words came back to me. Telling me in no uncertain terms I would never get laid, or truly be with him, until I tackled this. I knew he held back from me, and not just the sex stuff. All of it. The high school memories were still intact, and even back then, he’d always looked out for everyone else before himself. Something so fundamental to a person wouldn’t change with adulthood.
So basically, he wouldn’t sleep with me out of some respect for my mental state. Which, I’ll grant him, is pretty jacked up no matter how much I tried to deny it to others.
I stepped into the room and found a pot of coffee and water bottles to one side and seven chairs in a circle at the center of the room.
A tall man with a slight limp in his mid to late thirties approached with a wide smile and high top haircut. He held out his hand, and I caught the good ol’ boy charm radiating from the man. “You must be Williams. Or if you prefer, Mara?”
I shook his hand and sized him up. At least over six foot tall. His jeans bunched up around his knee, and I’d bet a prosthetic fit to his thigh. And to be honest, I envied him for a second.
Mental wounds didn’t show themselves to others like missing limbs or torn up flesh. While I had the scar on my temple, my hair covered it most of the time, so whenever anyone saw my records and noted a purple heart, I got the once over as if they asked what the hell for. I braced myself for more judgment from this group too.
I’d let my mind wander, and tall and tight was waiting for me to respond to his greeting. “You can call me Mara. That’s fine.”
He nodded once and ushered me to the refreshment table. I took a bottle of water more out of something to have in my hands, maybe to hide behind if need be. “You can call me Parker. Is this your first group meeting?”
Something released in my chest when he didn’t say therapy. “Yes, my first time.”
“And what brought you out.”
My maybe boyfriend won’t have sex with me until I get help didn’t seem like the answer he wanted. “A friend suggested I might benefit from talking about things.”
He nodded his head and braced his hands on his hips. “Well, we talk about things here so you’re in the right place.”
Guy missed his calling as a TV personality. How had he survived the military with his demeanor intact?
“Well, pick a seat. We are going to get started in about ten minutes.”
I turned and tried not to walk too fast to my chair. I settled into the hard plastic and waited for this nightmare to be over. I’d be having words with whomever booked my appointment about specifying group versus individual therapy. Not that I’d be more forthcoming in a one on one setting.
A black man with a prosthetic arm entered, spotted Parker, and headed straight for him. They hugged like old friends before the man came over, tossed his backpack on the ground, and took a seat. He smiled ear to ear at me but didn’t say anything.
Why was everyone here so far smiling so much? Maybe they turned their patients into Stepford Vets. A scary prospect.
A minute passed of me trying to avoid new guy’s eye when a couple others filtered in, took seats, and then Parker took the last one. I focused on keeping my hands and knees still while I waited for the inevitable.
He opened the group and gave everyone a nod but then locked his eyes on me. “Now Mara, you’re the only new person here. If you don’t mind, we can skip the introductions and let people introduce themselves as they share. Did you want to go first?” His hopeful, eager, too nice guy eyes buckled my resolve. Damn men and those looks.
I didn’t stand up. In fact, I tried to sink further into my chair and didn’t meet anyone’s eyes. A childish move, but the only thing keeping me from running at the moment.
“I’m Mara Williams. I was in the Army…” A couple guys interrupted with a low pitched “hooah.” I didn’t look at them either and launched back in. “I was injured in Afghanistan, took a bullet to the head, without the Kevlar.” A few sucked in breaths stopped me this time. It took a second to get back on track. “I lost all my memories from my time in service, and that’s it.”
I finally glanced up to meet their eyes, and everyone wore the same “well, shit” expression. Parker recovered first. “Thanks for sharing, Mara. If you have more you want to say later, you are more than welcome to join back in.”
He faced the black man next to him. “Fields, you want to go?”
The man—Fields—glanced at me first to make sure I didn’t want to share anymore and then launched into a story about his son and how he had a panic attack when a car backfired in his neighborhood. His son apparently had been learning about his symptoms, and they discussed why
Fields reacted in certain ways to things.
How very healthy.
Unkind, but envy at how very adapted all these men seemed to be cut through me to my already raw core. The meeting couldn’t be over fast enough. Parker said goodbye to everyone and made a straight shot to me as I almost tripped over the chair in an attempt to flee.
“Mara, you’re welcome back to the next meeting.” He whipped out a card from somewhere and gave it to me. “Or if you find you need to talk to someone, you can call me directly.” His offer of help seemed sincere, and I gave him a nod before running out of there. The taxi I ordered as they wrapped things up waited on the curb. I made it to Murphy’s bar and slammed in with a huff.
The entire ride I stewed over why I had to attend such a shit show. None of them talked about waking up in cold sweats, none of them talked about being unable to drive themselves around for the rest of their lives because of some fucking head wound. None of them lost years of their lives, leaving an empty void filled to bursting with questions.
And every single one of them knew who they were.
I hated them for that the most. Murphy took one look at me entering and turned over a shot glass, poured it to the rim, and pushed it forward to the edge of the bar.
A tightness in me eased at seeing him. I was still angry. My hands shook as I grasped the glass and tossed it back. It burned its way down, eating through some of the fury.
“Another one, Barman, and keep them coming.”
He poured another shot. “That bad, huh?”
I tossed the shot back and leveled him a glare. “It was fucking in a group.”
He sucked air between his teeth. “I take it you didn’t know it was a group thing when you called and signed up.”
Make Me Forget Page 7