Everything Changes

by Melanie Hansen

  “Talk to me.”

  Jase shook his head. “I can’t.”

  Carey tried again. “How about I go make some tea and—”

  “I don’t want any tea.” Abruptly pushing to his feet, Jase grunted, “I’m going for a run.”

  He disappeared into the bedroom, and by the time Carey crutched in after him, he was already dressed in some running shorts and lacing up his sneakers. He flicked a glance at Carey. “Don’t wait up, okay?”

  And then he was gone.

  Carey headed for the kitchen, a leaden sadness taking root in his chest, the tentative hope that’d flared to life on the way back from L.A. slowly dimming, then dying altogether. He started a pot of coffee, then sat slumped at the table, his tired eyes burning.

  Numbly, he waited, his mind carefully blank. An hour ticked slowly by, and at last came the sound of the front door opening. Jase appeared in the entryway, breathing hard and dripping with sweat. He glanced at Carey, a wariness in his eyes that brought a renewed lump to Carey’s throat.

  Jase’s walls were back up, and firmly in place.

  “You didn’t have to wait for me,” he said. “I’m fine.”

  “I wanted to be sure you were safe.” Carey gave a half-shrug. “I wouldn’t have been able to go back to sleep anyway.”

  “Not after that, for sure.” Lifting his chin at the coffee mug clasped in Carey’s hands, Jase sprawled out in the chair across from him. “I’m sorry for snapping at you earlier.”

  Carey didn’t reply.

  “Those nightmares, I don’t get them that often.”

  “How often?”

  “Once or twice a month, maybe. Sometimes more.” Jase gave an impatient gesture. “They’re annoying, mostly. No big deal.”

  The memory of Jase’s retching, his sobs, made Carey clench his fists. “No big deal,” he repeated. “Okay.”

  Stretching, Jase clasped his fingers behind his head. “I’m serious. They’re just something I have to live with.” He searched Carey’s face with narrowed eyes. “Why are you so upset? I’m fine.”

  “I get it. You’re fine.”

  Pushing his coffee away, Carey struggled to his feet and crutched away, Jase’s sharp, “Where are you going?” following him down the hall.

  He appeared in the doorway of Carey’s room, his sweaty chest gleaming in the dim light, his sandy hair standing in spikes, the slightest hint of vulnerability on his face that tugged at Carey’s heart and made him waver…

  “Get the fuck away from me.”

  “I’m fine.”

  Firming his lips, Carey said, “I’m going home.”

  Fifteen

  “What?” Jase strode into the bedroom. “You said you didn’t have to leave till tomorrow!”

  “Whether today or tomorrow, leaving’s not gonna get any easier, is it?”

  Silence.

  Grabbing up his prosthetic, Carey perched on the edge of his bed to don it, trying like hell to keep his fingers from trembling. His head down, his heart thundering, he heard Jase’s footsteps cross the room and pause in front of him.

  “Would you stay if I asked you to?” Jase’s voice was hoarse, shaky.

  “No.” Carey rolled the liners of his prosthetic up and smoothed them along his thigh, his movements sharp and jerky. “I can’t.”

  “Why?” Jase asked, then exhaled, dropping to his knees in front of him. “Because of what happened earlier? You know that has nothing to do with you.”

  “Doesn’t it?”

  Jase blinked. “What do you mean? It was a nightmare, Carey. A bad dream. It wasn’t even about you.”

  Carey settled the last of the liners into place and stood, the metal ankle creaking as his weight bore down on it. Then he grabbed up his duffel and started cramming stuff into it.

  Still on his knees, Jase gestured helplessly. “Help me understand this. Why is the fact I had a nightmare making you leave?”

  “Because you shut me out.” Carey clenched his fists. “You. Just. Keep. Shutting. Me. Out.”

  Jase’s voice rose. “Of course I did! Why the fuck would I bring you into that shit?”

  “Why the fuck wouldn’t you?” Carey whirled around. “Isn’t that what friends—what lovers—do? Share the good and the bad?”

  Shocked into silence, Jase could only stare at him.

  “You’ve seen me at my worst, Jase,” Carey said, waving his arm wildly. “You’ve seen a version of me that had everything stripped away. You’ve seen the anger, the bitterness. You’ve endured the childish tantrums, the emotional storms, the times when—” His voice broke. “—The times when I did my fucking best to push you away. Yet through it all, you refused to pity me. You gave me a safe space to just—to just be.” Carey sucked in a ragged breath, his insides shredding. “You know me better than anyone else ever has or ever will.”

  “Then why?” Jase choked. “Why are you leaving me? Stay. Please stay.”

  Forcing himself to turn away, Carey yanked a T-shirt over his head. “I can’t do the breezy bullshit, Jase. The ‘I’m fines.’ I need more.”

  As Carey slung his duffel over his shoulder and grabbed up his crutches, Jase planted himself in front of him. “I love you, goddammit,” he said fiercely. “I want to build a future with you. Doesn’t that mean anything?”

  “It means everything.” Carey’s lips trembled before he firmed them. “But you won’t let me love you back. You don’t trust me enough to let me love you back. Not the way I want to.”

  Pushing past Jase, he strode toward the door. “I’ll text you when I get home.”

  Carey clattered down the steps toward the sidewalk and headed for his car, a soft “Hold up” coming from behind him. Gently, Jase took the crutches, and they scuffed in silence toward Carey’s SUV. As Carey popped the hatch, Jase waited until he’d set his duffels inside, then placed the crutches on top of them.

  “Be safe,” he rasped. “Don’t forget to text me when you get home.”

  His eyes starting to burn, and wanting to be safely away before he fell apart, Carey caught Jase’s hand and squeezed it briefly before letting go and climbing into his car.

  He eased away from the curb, one silent tear sliding down his cheek as Jase’s still figure grew smaller and smaller in the rearview mirror, then faded away.

  And just like that, it was over.

  “May I come in?”

  Stepping back from the doorway, Jase let Layla into the apartment. His head throbbed with lack of sleep, and his skin felt too tight on his bones, like it might split open and spill everything inside him out onto the ground.

  “Want coffee?” he rasped, glancing at the clock on the microwave. Seven a.m. Carey had been gone four hours already.

  “Yeah. I’ll brew it, love.” Patting his arm, she moved past him and proceeded to make herself at home in the kitchen.

  Happy to let her, Jase sank into a chair at the table and dropped his forehead onto his folded arms. “You know?”

  Layla didn’t pretend to misunderstand. “Carey called me. Asked me to check on you.”

  “Great.” He let out a muffled snort. “Not only did he walk out on my ass, he sicced the mama hen on me.”

  “Stop it.” With a light smack to the back of his head, which made him yelp, she set a mug of steaming brew in front of him.

  He pulled it to him and hunched over it gratefully. “Thanks.”

  Without being asked, she started rooting in the fridge, and soon the mouthwatering smell of frying bacon filled the air.

  “Caffeine and food,” Layla murmured as he dug into his breakfast, suddenly ravenous. “Get some fuel into ya. Clears the mind.”

  It was true. When Jase finally pushed his plate away and sat back, he felt stronger, less brittle. “You’re the best. Seriously.”

  She smiled and took a sip of her own coffee. “You okay?”

  “Not really,” he said, sucking in a fortifying breath. “How did Carey sound? Did he say anything else?”

  “I
could tell he was upset, but no, he didn’t say much.”

  “Shit.” Deflated, Jase leaned back in his chair. “I just don’t understand any of this. Before he left, he said something about me not trusting him. My God, I trust him with my life!”

  Her eyes were steady on his. “Do you also trust him with your vulnerabilities?”

  That brought him up short, and he stared at her. “Vulnerabilities? What do you mean? I don’t want to be weak for him, Layla. I want to be strong. Like he is.”

  She regarded him for a moment. “Let me ask you something. Do you think Quinn is weak?”

  “What?” Jase barked out an incredulous laugh. “Quinn Barranco, the ex-Delta Force sniper? The guy who could snap my neck with one hand tied behind his back? Weak?”

  “Mmm. Would it surprise you to find out that sometimes—not very often, but sometimes—he cries in my arms?”

  Speechless, he could only stare at her.

  “The anniversary of Dalton’s death, in particular. That hits him hard, every year.”

  Jase knew the story, of a fierce firefight deep in the mountains of Afghanistan. Quinn’s platoon leader had been shot in the abdomen, and the team, pinned down for days in an inaccessible canyon, could only sit by as he bled to death internally. Jase shuddered.

  “Do you think he’s weak for grieving a friend?” Layla asked softly.

  “Of course not,” he croaked. “Jesus, no.”

  “He doesn’t always cry,” she went on. “Sometimes he goes out into the garage and plays the drums until his palms blister. But when he needs to cry, he knows he can come to me. Do I think he’s weak for doing that? No. I cherish the gift of his vulnerability. I’m the only one he lets witness that.”

  Pursing her lips, she seemed to make a decision. “When we were in the courtyard of Wellman’s office, waiting for you, Carey said—”

  She paused, and Jase sat forward eagerly. “What? What did he say?”

  “That he doesn’t want the performer, the cool guy that everyone else gets. What he wants is the stuff underneath that.” She reached out and gave his arm a squeeze. “So my advice to you is, be vulnerable with him. Let him get to know you. Not as the hero medic, not as the badass singer, but you. The part that hurts. The part that wants to curl up and cry in his arms.”

  Jase closed his eyes. “And if that part makes him look at me in disgust? What then?”

  “He wants you to trust that it won’t.”

  “I don’t know if I can,” he said, blinking back tears. “I just don’t know if I can.”

  After she’d gone, Jase wandered around the apartment, straightening up. He stripped the sheets off the bed, resisting the urge to smell them, to see if Carey’s scent still lingered on them.

  “Stop it. He’s gone,” he told himself fiercely. “He wants something you can’t give him.”

  Something he could never give. Blowing the lid off those memories would destroy him. He’d found that out the hard way, through that EMD-whatever therapy. When they leaked out through his dreams, he dealt with them, usually through running, sometimes with drinking, a lot of times with smoking pot.

  “He plays the drums until his palms blister.”

  Jase had seen Quinn do that, play until he was soaked in sweat, eyes closed, teeth bared. The vicious, hard-driving beat had seemed to calm something inside of him and ground him.

  Yet he also went to therapy, and allowed himself to cry in his wife’s arms.

  Was that weakness? Jase bit his lip. Or was that strength?

  On impulse, he grabbed his Mac and sprawled on the couch with it. Opening his browser, he typed in “Hope Ranch Colorado” and clicked on the link.

  He caught his breath. A huge cabin-like lodge was nestled amongst the trees, along with smaller cabins and bungalows. The interior shots were just as impressive—beautiful hardwood floors and colorful rugs, stone fireplaces. It was rustic-looking, yet comfortable, a place to feel at home.

  He moused over to the “About Us” tab.

  The first picture was of founder Bill Barkley himself. Jase lingered on his features, disfigured and scarred by fire, yet his light blue eyes glowed with vitality under his shock of snow-white hair. He wore a loud Hawaiian-print shirt, a gold cross necklace gleaming against the gray hair peeking out from the neckline.

  The next picture was of the chief financial officer, then the treasurer, and then…

  Jase smiled, and Carey smiled back at him, crisp and professional in a formal headshot.

  “Carey Everett,” he read. “Marketing director, public relations, and strategic liaison. Carey is a former United States Marine and combat veteran. Wounded in an explosion and living as a left-leg amputee, he also serves as a mentor and peer counselor…”

  There were photos of Carey, surrounded by men and women in wheelchairs or with prosthetics, sitting in front of the fireplace, or outside on the redwood deck, the beautiful snowcapped mountains in the distance. As he led the discussions, he looked confident, relaxed, and totally in his element.

  A lump rose in Jase’s throat, almost choking him. Carey had put so much work into himself over the years. Why would he want to get any more involved with a man who wouldn’t do the same?

  “He wants more than the performer. The hero medic.”

  Oh, God. If they only knew. He was no hero. The lives he’d taken, the lives he couldn’t save, they would play in a technicolor loop behind his eyes if he’d let them, and he’d expended most of his strength not letting them. Now they were doing their best to break free of their mental boxes, and Jase was afraid.

  No, he was fucking terrified.

  Running a shaking finger down the mousepad, he was about to close the page when another staff member’s name caught his eye: Jesse Byrne, one of Carey’s closest friends at the ranch.

  Curious, Jase clicked on his profile. A good-looking, fit man in his mid-thirties grinned back at him. Sandy-haired, with a firm, scruffy jaw, “Byrney’s” specialty was leading backcountry trips ranging anywhere from a weekend to fourteen-days long. “All skill levels welcome,” the description said, although some of the trips were more challenging than others.

  Photos showed participants backpacking, rappelling, and grouped around a campfire, seemingly deep in discussion. Jase was about to close the page when the phrase “Specifically for combat medics” caught his eye. His adrenaline spiking, he clicked on the link.

  “Few experiences in life can match those of a medic in combat,” he read. “Come connect with other medics during a one-week backpacking trip deep into the heart of the Colorado backcountry. Discussions will be led by a therapist trained in post-traumatic stress and moral injury…”

  Jase stopped reading, his eyes suddenly glued to the last two words.

  Moral injury?

  He pulled up a search bar and typed it in.

  “‘Moral injury is a wound to the soul,’” he read in a whisper. “‘It’s a pain that comes from damage to a person’s moral foundation, a violation of their deeply held sense of right and wrong. Caused by the collision of ethical beliefs and the ugly realities of war, moral injury can lead to shame, guilt, sorrow, and regret. These are emotional injuries, and different from what we think of as post-traumatic stress…”

  Suddenly, he flashed back to Balboa Park, and Carey’s comment about combat leaving wounds on the soul as well as the body. Not wanting to acknowledge either to himself or to Carey that the words struck a chord, Jase had fallen back on his disbelief and derision about the idea of “soul healers.”

  Wounds on the soul. Moral injury.

  “It has a name,” he said out loud. “It has a fucking name.”

  He clicked eagerly on the link for the trip. There was no cost—everything would be paid for by Bill Barkley’s foundation, the reason he and Carey did tireless fundraising. Glancing at the date for the next one, Jase groaned. Only two weeks away. Surely it had to be filled by now.

  To his surprise, when he clicked on the registration tab, the pag
e opened. Was it possible…?

  As he plugged in his information, Jase’s heart started to pound. He’d go to Colorado and spend some time with other men and women who’d walked in his shoes. While it wouldn’t be a miracle cure, or any kind of quick fix, it’d be a start. If he wanted things to change, he had to start somewhere, didn’t he?

  And best of all, he’d get to see Carey. Spend some time with him. Show him that maybe, finally, he was ready to put in some real work on himself.

  After he’d clicked “Submit” on his registration form, Jase glanced at the date again. “Oh, no, no, no!” Clutching his hair, he leapt to his feet. “Oh, shit. Layla’s gonna kill me!”

  Not only Layla, but the rest of the band. Not to mention Wellman.

  Jase let out a tortured groan. The day he was supposed to report to the ranch was the same day the band was scheduled to head to L.A. How the fuck had he missed that?

  Still clutching his hair, he started to pace. Well, now he had a hell of a choice to make, didn’t he? Cancel the trip to Colorado and wait for months for the next one, or throw himself on Wellman’s mercy and see if he could reschedule the studio time.

  He gulped. No way could he do that without getting the rest of the band’s blessing first. Steeling himself, he picked up the phone. After he’d told her, Layla was quiet for what seemed like an eternity.

  “I’m sorry. I know I’m putting my own needs ahead of everyone else’s,” he said at last.

  She gave a soft chuckle. “Well, it’s about time, honestly,” she said, a note of resignation tinged with fondness in her voice. “But the timing does blow.”

  “I know, I suck.” Jase gripped the phone so tight his fingers hurt. “And I’ll approach Wellman myself. He’s done one of these trips, too. I’d have to think he’d understand.”

  “Honey, we all understand.” She let out a breath. “Take whatever time you need, and be sure to really sweet-talk Wellman with that Jase charm we all know and love, okay?”

  “I will.” Jase felt his throat close up. “Thanks for your support, Layla,” he choked. “I—”