"By telling him I'd offer one more time to help you."
She let out the most bitter laugh I'd ever heard. It was an awful sound. A person so young shouldn't have been capable of that sort of emotion. "Is there an echo out here? Because I swear, we just keep having the same conversation over and over again."
"Maybe we do, but this is the end of the line. After this we're done, one way or another. Either you agree right now to try working with me, or Charlie is going to fire you, and there won't be anything I can do. You'll walk out that door and be alone with this shit."
She stared up at me with wide, glistening eyes. The fear in that look wrenched at my heart like nothing I'd ever experienced before. You know the saying "a deer caught in the headlights?" Well that's how she looked, only magnified a thousand times. I could almost see the last dominoes of her life tumbling over in her mind. It took every ounce of my willpower not to reach out and pull her against me.
"I know it's embarrassing," I continued, "and I know it hurts like hell and all you want to do is get through the day so you can knock yourself out and forget, but this right here, this is your chance to take a step forward. That's the way to beat this thing. One step at a time. I can't promise miracles. You're not going to wake up in a week and feel like a million bucks. But doing something is better than doing nothing."
She didn't speak for a long time. "You keep saying you know what I'm going through," she said eventually, her voice barely more than a whisper. "What do you mean?"
I closed my eyes momentarily. It was easy enough to tell someone else what they needed, but opening up myself was a whole different kettle of fish. I had my own triggers to worry about, and this was diving right into the center of them. But she had to hear it. She had to understand that we were on the same page.
"A lot of us veterans wind up with substance abuse problems once we're back on home soil," I said. "You know how if you go on vacation for a while, then come back home and try to do something like drive a car, it takes time to adjust?" She nodded. "Well, imagine that sensation, except you haven't been in The Hamptons for three weeks. You've been in a combat zone for years, with bullets and IEDs and death all around you."
I leaned back against the wall as images flashed unbidden through my mind. I hated that sensation, not being in control of my thoughts, like someone was playing a horror movie in the back of my head that I couldn't pause or stop. "That shit leaves scars. And then you come back here to a place with supermarkets and traffic jams and street performers, and none of it makes any fucking sense. I felt like a goddamn alien. Some days I still do. You try to explain it to someone, and they nod like they get it, but they don't. How could they?"
I drew a deep breath, feeling myself getting choked up. I hadn't talked about this in detail with anyone, not even Charlie. He was a vet too, so words weren't necessary. He understood. Saying it out loud was painful. It made me feel weak, like I couldn't handle my shit.
"I drank like an Irishman for the better part of a year, just trying to wash all that away. Looking back now, it's pretty obvious I was in self-destruct mode. A bomb with the timer ticking steadily down to zero."
Her face was pulled tight, although I couldn't tell if it was with grief for me or fear for herself. "And Charlie really helped you get that under control?" she asked.
"Yep. I have no doubt I'd be six feet under now if not for him. He's a family friend. Served twenty years before mustering out to open the bar. He's one of the reasons I enlisted in the first place. He saw I was circling the drain, and for some reason he decided he wasn't going to let that happen."
Her eyes fell to the floor and she leaned back against the wall, her body deflating like a balloon. "You make it sound so easy."
I shook my head. "It wasn't easy. It was the hardest thing I've ever done. Still is. It never goes away, not completely. I'm probably going to be fighting it for the rest of my life, but at least now I know how to fight it."
There was a long pause, and when she spoke, her voice was trembling. "I don't know if I have the strength to fight this."
My hand found hers before I realized what I was doing, and I gave a comforting squeeze. Her body stiffened, but she didn't pull away. The gesture felt so easy, so natural, like I'd done it a thousand times before. "You have to try."
"Why?"
For me. God, that sounded insane, but it was the first thing that came to mind. "Because the alternative just isn't an option," I said instead.
She studied my hand in silence. It looked almost ridiculous, wrapped around hers — a gigantic battered glove cradling a delicate porcelain doll. She rolled her fingers gently across each knuckle, charting their peaks and troughs. Her skin felt impossibly soft, like something that should have just scattered at the first hint of a breeze. My blood accelerated.
"What do you want me to do?" she asked, bringing me back to Earth.
I breathed a sigh of relief. "I've got two missions for you, soldier."
A ghost of a smile broke through on her face briefly.
"First, I want you to visit the gym every day for at least an hour."
"Seriously?"
I nodded. "Exercise helps. Focus, energy, endorphins, all that good stuff. It tires you out, makes you feel good, gives that anger somewhere to go." And it would keep her nearby. I couldn't say that, but it was the truth.
She winced. "I don't know. Physical activity and I aren't exactly on the best terms, right now."
"All the more reason to get reacquainted. Maybe it won't work for you, but it's the only thing I know, so you need to give it a shot."
She still seemed unsure, but eventually she gave a resigned nod. "And the second task?"
"I want you to cook every day."