Thirty Nights (American Beauty #1)

by Ani Keating

  Benson bolts into the library, Cora on his heels.

  “Benson!” I cry out. “Please, help him! I can’t…I can’t get him to answer!”

  “Elisa, don’t move! Stay very still! Close your eyes!” Benson orders urgently. “Come on, kid. Close your eyes for me.”

  I can’t close them. Aiden’s anguish is so primal that it’s piercing me deeper than his grip.

  “Elisa—Isa, close your eyes,” Benson repeats more loudly while stalking Aiden from behind. In that moment I know what Benson will do. The only way he can release me is if he wraps his arms around Aiden to pull him off. That will trigger another flashback and Benson doesn’t want me to see it.

  “Isa, please!” Cora urges as she reaches me.

  I look at Aiden.

  “I love you,” I say and shut my eyes.

  “Cora, on three,” Benson shouts. “One. Two. Three.”

  I know Benson has wrapped his arms around Aiden because a guttural groan rips through someone’s chest. Roars explode and something clamors with an ear-splitting sound to the ground. Aiden’s grip loosens and I drop. I fling my eyes open.

  Aiden and Benson are locked in a brutal battle, too fast for me to follow. The sounds ripping through them are primal. Two lions in close combat. The reason for Benson’s daunting size is obvious. Aiden in battle is formidable. He moves with lethal grace, as if his mind rehearses the blows before delivering them. His eyes are away. A veritable Achilles with his memory as the heel.

  “Get her out of here,” Benson heaves. Only now do I notice I’m in Cora’s arms. Suddenly, it occurs to me what Benson is doing. He’s buying time for me to get out.

  “No!” I thrash. “No, don’t hurt him! Don’t hurt him. Please, Benson! Help him. Help him. It’s my fault.” I scream myself hoarse but Cora drags me over the books, chanting words I can’t hear, until we’re outside the library.

  The door slams shut behind me and locks. The shattering and clamor inside get louder. I fight Cora’s hold and rattle the knob but it doesn’t give. I call Aiden’s name and slam myself against the door over and over again, kicking it with all my strength.

  “Aiden! Aiden! I love you. Please, let me in! Let me in! Let me in!”

  The door stands locked, unforgiving. I can’t stop because if I stop, I will have given up on him. Aiden. Aiden. Aiden. I don’t know how long I slam against the door but eventually, my body breaks and slumps to the floor. Cora drags me away.

  “Shush, darling. He’ll be okay, dear. Let’s just go to my apartment.” Her words start to have meaning. She props her shoulder under my arm and lifts me. We walk slowly, Cora’s frame an anchor that keeps me from drifting. I see the terrarium of my graduation flowers though my tears as we pass the living room.

  Chapter Forty-Seven

  My All

  Have you ever wondered how many heartbeats are in an hour? Before you multiply the number of beats per minute by sixty, let me stop you. That’s not the right formula. The first question is what kind of hour. There are hours when your heart beats a lifetime. Hours when you’re so alive that you’re not sure if you’re living this life or the next. I’ve had hours like that in Aiden’s arms.

  Then, there are hours when your heart seems not to beat at all. Hours when the only reason you know you’re still alive is a bodiless pain that negates the option of afterlife. This is one of those hours.

  Such hours don’t tell you how long they last. So here, on Cora’s couch, I can’t say whether it’s been minutes or days. Her soft hands change ice pack after ice pack on my arm. Her voice becomes words, words become sentences, and sentences become hope. He’ll be fine, dear. It’s not your fault.

  I listen to her voice, twisting the hem of my new claret dress—Aiden ripped the left side to shreds—and reading Byron’s next lines:

  “A mind at peace with all below,

  A heart whose love is innocent.”

  At last, the door opens. It’s Benson. I jolt from the couch.

  “How is he?” I’m hoarse.

  Benson sits next to me. He is not bruised and his stoic face that usually confounds me, now gives me comfort.

  “Stable. I had to call his psychiatrist and he gave him a sedative. He’ll be out for a while. How are you?”

  “I’m fine. Is he hurt?”

  “No, I mostly blocked him but when I first fought him off you, I retriggered his capture flashback. In his mind, he was fighting the insurgents. But he’s not hurt.”

  “Oh, thank God. Thank God.” The room sways so I keep talking. “What about you, Benson? Are you okay?”

  He smiles. “It takes a lot more than that to bring me down. Don’t you worry about me.”

  “Benson, thank you so much. If you hadn’t come…” I can’t finish my sentence. How would it have ended? All because of my stupid mistake.

  “I’m glad I did.” He takes a deep breath. “Elisa, the doc is still here. He wants to talk to you, if you feel up to it. You went through a lot today.” Benson’s voice is gentle. But instead of calming me, it galvanizes me to action. I can help Aiden. I can do something other than sit on this couch, helpless.

  “Of course! Yes. Please. Thank you, Cora.” I start running out of Cora’s door before I finish my sentence, Benson behind me. Cora throws a long cardigan over my shoulders.

  As we pass by the firmly shut library doors, my knees shake.

  “Where is Aiden, Benson?”

  “In your bedroom.”

  I don’t know where it comes from but before I know it, I stop him. His face is something like ordered confusion, if such a thing exists.

  “Thank you.” Gratitude melts my frozen voice into a viscous whisper.

  “For what?”

  “For calling it our bedroom.”

  Benson’s eyes soften until they reveal a vulnerability that must allow him to connect with his tormented boss more than their common military background can.

  “If I may be allowed a personal observation, Elisa. I’ve never seen him happier than when he is with you. I think he loves you very much.” Benson looks uncomfortable. But in my empty chest, I hear my first heartbeat since the library.

  I nod awkwardly, unable to find the words to respond.

  Doctor Corbin is in the living room armchair, scrawling furiously on a yellow notepad. When he sees me, he stands up with a smile. He has a white, trimmed beard, no hair, hazel eyes and a tall, lean frame.

  “You must be Miss Snow. I’m Victor Corbin. It’s a great pleasure to meet you.” He extends his hand.

  “It’s great to meet you as well, Doctor. I wish it were under better circumstances. And please, call me Elisa. May I get you something to drink?”

  Cora appears before Corbin can answer, bringing us drinks and—bless her—Baci. I sink on the couch, attacking the ice water with a thirst that doesn’t come from my body.

  “Elisa, if I may, I’d like to examine you first to make sure you’re not hurt. Then we can discuss what happened.”

  I want to go straight to figuring out a way to help Aiden but Corbin won’t hear it so I let him examine me. Nothing is broken but by tomorrow, I’ll have serious bruises.

  At last, Corbin picks up his fountain pen and notepad. “We can take a break anytime if this gets too hard. But if you can, I’d like to hear what happened. From Benson, I gathered you had a stressful day?”

  I nod, taking a deep breath, and tell him everything except Javier’s name. Corbin scribbles for a long time. I eat a Baci, unable to read the note.

  “Elisa, this must have been terrifying. But you handled it with selflessness and love, and that’s all you could do. This was an accident and you shouldn’t blame yourself. Doctor’s orders.”

  Corbin’s words sound like good grades but I can’t accept them. He repeats that it was not my fault but he didn’t see the terror in Aiden’s ey
es when his memory catapulted him back to his torture. And I triggered it.

  “Doctor, I don’t want to waste a single minute on me. Please tell me what I can do to help.”

  “Very well.” He pauses and takes a deep breath. “This is part of the reason why I wanted to meet you. I’m afraid I need you if we are to help him.”

  “Anything. I’ll do anything for him. What do you need?”

  “I’m skirting the line of the psychotherapist privilege for his safety,” he sighs. “I need your help to get him to accept treatment for his PTSD—and not just accept it, but continue it. Last time he saw me was after he attacked his mother. But after a few sessions, the pain, his vivid memories…were too much. I cannot imagine what this second episode will do to him. But we can’t allow him to drop treatment again.”

  My hands shake so violently that the water splashes out of my glass. “And you think I can convince him?”

  “Yes.” His conviction fills the room.

  “Why?”

  “Because he’s in love. He emailed me yesterday with a brief recap of the last few years to prepare for our meeting. He said he’s doing this for you. Your name was in almost every paragraph. He has a reason to fight this time.”

  How could I refuse? I’d give my life if that would heal him. “I’ll do everything I can, Doctor—until my last second here.”

  I notice his shoulders sink a fraction, and I realize he cares about Aiden.

  “Can you tell me your opinion on Aiden’s prognosis? He seems to think this is a life sentence.”

  “As long as Aiden doesn’t want to heal, there is no hope. But if he allows it, there’s an option even for someone with his severity and memory.”

  “What is it?”

  “In vivo exposure therapy. It means he’d be exposed to similar traumatic situations over and over again until he becomes desensitized. It’s been highly effective with PTSD. It can work with his general symptoms but also with his startle reflex. But he’d have to endure being startled as many times as it takes—thousands—until he acclimatizes to it.”

  Suddenly, I wish his mother were here. If anyone knows how this feels, it’s she.

  “Is there anything else I can do to help?”

  “Well, he’ll feel profoundly guilty when he wakes up and realizes what happened. Let’s wait for clues from Aiden on how to handle it.”

  “How will he be when he wakes up?”

  “The drug I gave him—Versed—represses memories. He won’t remember anything after the drug, but he will remember everything before. It’s hard to predict how he’ll wake up. Sometimes, men are violent. For others, it exaggerates their real traits, like they lose their inhibitions. Often, they’ll be confused and frightened. We’ll see where Aiden falls.”

  We debate back and forth and settle on a plan.

  “Now if you don’t have any other questions, Elisa, may I suggest you get some sleep? I can prescribe something if you wish.”

  “No, I’m fine, thank you. May I see Aiden now? May I touch him?”

  “Yes. Nothing will wake him until Versed wears off.”

  I sprint to the bedroom—feet fast, brain slow. The door is ajar. Benson is in the chair in the corner but my eyes are riveted on the bed. I lean against the wall, my legs unable to support me at the sight.

  Aiden is on his back, his hands resting on his abs. His lips are parted. His chest rises almost imperceptibly—the only sign of life. The rest of him is inert. That vibrant life force he wields is absent.

  Tears spring in my eyes, and I kneel by our bed. I place my hand over his heart. He doesn’t move. But his heartbeat is thudding at its regular, vital rhythm. It brings some air to my lungs. I explore his skin with my fingers. I kiss his forehead, nose, cheeks, chin, throat, saving his lips for last. When I kiss them, his weak breath caresses my mouth.

  His skin is sticky and slightly cool. I can’t allow it. I take off his clothes, vaguely aware of Benson’s unobtrusive help. We don’t talk. I soak a washcloth in warm water and wipe off Aiden’s body. I dry him off and we dress him in his favorite navy pajamas and T-shirt. I don’t want him to wake up naked and exposed or in the same clothes he wore when he attacked me. Either will make him hate himself even more. When we finish, Benson puts his hand on my shoulder.

  “I’ll give you a moment, Elisa,” he says, and slips out on the patio.

  I leave the glass door open for air and sit at the foot of the bed. What will Aiden be like when he wakes up? Is he still going to want to fight for us? Or will he exile me like his mum? My stomach throbs more sharply than my arm. Mad for movement but unable to be away from him, I trudge to his closet where his scent is the strongest.

  As always, my eyes find the beautiful wooden box on the tall armoire. Light shines upon it again, except it’s closer to the edge this time, as if someone looked at it recently. I rise on my tiptoes and pull and prod until I have it in my grip. Without breathing, I run my fingers over the ornate carving and open the burnished copper clasp.

  Oh!

  Tucked deep inside the navy velvet folds, are Aiden’s dog tag, his Purple Heart and a stack of yellowed, sealed envelopes. No marks, no dates, no stamps, not even an inkblot. Their paper is rough, gritty. Strange—the flap on the first envelope is torn open.

  I lift the flap and fish out a scrap of paper folded in half. A trickle of sand spills from the fold onto my palm—different than other sand I’ve seen. Reddish, darker, coarser. I swirl it with my finger, forming a vortex like the one spiraling in my chest, and tip it back into the empty envelope. Then I open the letter. And I sink on the closet floor.

  April 13, 2003

  My All,

  I thought I’d feel idiotic writing to an imaginary woman. I was right. And wrong. To whom else does a man write on a night like this? Not to his mother—she would only weep. Not to a friend—he already knows. He writes to his woman—because she forgives.

  It’s done, love. Baghdad is razed to the ground. No bridges. No library. No zoo. I don’t know how many men, women or children are dead, or how many of them from my hand.

  Marshall asks God and Jasmine for forgiveness, but I don’t do well with God, so I’m creating you. You walk in beauty like the night…(even Byron doesn’t do you justice).

  In a different letter, I’ll tell you what I’d rather do with you instead of writing. But—real or not—a man has manners. I’ll save that for our second date. For tonight, I only ask one favor, love. If you could just lie next to me and breathe—I want to synchronize my lungs to yours. Until I smell your skin instead of gunpowder, hear your sighs instead of sirens, hold your body and not my rifle.

  All right, maybe we will do it on our first date (which is a real feat given my current position in a sand ditch, wearing a groin protector). After all, you are mine and no one else’s. Your body rises and trembles in my hands. Your breathing changes—fast, gusty like the shamals. Then it stops! And it becomes a single word. My name. That’s how you come. That’s how you go. With my name on your lips, blindly and for me alone.

  As you fall asleep on my chest, your breathing slows. Deepens. I listen to it and drift. Finally calm.

  Yours,

  Aiden

  I know I have felt déjà vu, but I never knew what it means to be it. But now that I read his assertive handwriting—and see us in every word—I have an odd sense of self, looking back at me.

  I bring the letter to my lips and kiss it. It doesn’t fill Aiden’s absence, so I take out his dog tag and put it around my neck. Then I throw on one of his T-shirts and my sweatpants—ignoring the first patches of mauve on my skin. I stumble to our bed and lie next to Aiden, resting my head on his chest. The terror of the last two days overpowers me and I fall asleep.

  Chapter Forty-Eight

  Allies

  A change wakes me. Aiden’s breathing is faster against my cheek.
It’s time. In minutes, his lashes flutter. Corbin and Benson wait out of Aiden’s line of sight. I take the chair Benson must have put at the foot of the bed. The sapphire eyes open.

  He comes to slowly. He opens and shuts his eyes with heavy lids. The deep V folds between his eyebrows. He tries to lift his head but it lolls back. He looks around like he doesn’t recognize how he got here. His breathing speeds up and his eyes widen. He moans. Then he sees me. Fear disappears instantly, and his eyes become vernal. The clearest turquoise. He looks like he is having a pleasant dream.

  “My love.” His first words are soft and slow. I scoot closer. He tries to lift his hand to touch me but it won’t obey. He panics and tests his body for control but it doesn’t respond so he searches for my eyes. Instantly, peace floods his face.

  “I know you.” He smiles. “You are my life.”

  “You’re mine too.”

  “Why are you crying, love?”

  “Because I love you.”

  “You’re my life.”

  I remember Corbin’s words about how some wake up from Versed. Here is Aiden’s essence, uninhibited.

  “No tears, love. I live for your smile.” His words are garbled. He reaches for me, too weak against his inert body mass. Before fear assaults him again, I place my hand in his. He sighs like he does when we make love.

  “I love you,” he slurs. “I love you. I love you. I love you.”

  “I love you too.”

  He fades in and out several times, going from confusion and panic to peace when he sees me. The more he wakes, the more loopy his grin. I lean in slowly and kiss his lips. He watches me in bliss.

  But slowly, his eyes start to change and recede. And then I see them: the tectonic plates start shifting. Something is trying to break through.

  “Aiden, stay with me. Please.”

  The moment I say please, anguish twists his face. His body contorts in the fetal position, as if in physical pain. He shuts his eyes and starts shuddering. A guttural groan builds in his chest until it changes into broken words.