"Jesus," she wheezed. She looked about ready to pass out. "You scared the hell out of me."
Even now, free from that place, images still ran amok in my head. Talking to Grace, that felt like the dream. She was hazy, faint, and the battlefield loomed vivid and terrible.
"I'm sorry," I said.
"Are you okay?"
I wanted to explain myself, but it was too soon. I was too on edge. "I need a few minutes."
I wandered a few feet out onto the hard earth and sat on a rock. After another few seconds of panting, she joined me. The view was spectacular: open space, red earth, mountains rising in the darkness, painted with moonlight. I sucked in a deep breath, as if I could draw that serenity into myself through the air.
Normally I enjoy the desert because of the solitude. I never brought anyone there. But Grace's presence wasn't an imposition. It felt...right, somehow. She didn't speak, seemingly content to let me take my time. I had no words for how much I appreciated that. With other women, this had been the time for questions, for screaming, sometimes for tears. And Grace had every right to lose it like that. I'd run off in the middle of a date without saying so much as a word. That's pretty much the fucking epitome of a faux pas. But instead of freaking out, she took it in stride.
Minutes passed and my anxiety gradually bled away. My mind cleared and my heart slowed.
"I get flashbacks," I said eventually.
"To Afghanistan?" she asked. She seemed hesitant, like she was afraid just the word was going to set me off again.
I nodded. "And I'm not talking about just regular old memories. These are something else entirely. They take over. It's hard to understand if you haven't experienced it. For a while then, I was back on the battlefield. The theater was gone. You were gone. There were bullets whizzing past my head. Mortars going off. My friends were dying three feet away. I could smell it, hear it."
"Jesus," she said, her hand finding my knee.
"Usually it's triggered by something simple. Some innocuous noise tweaks something in my brain and boom, I'm right back there."
"That sounds horrible."
"It is." I closed my eyes. "I hate that I can't control it. Even when you try and explain, people just look at you like you're crazy. They don't get it. A blown off leg? Shrapnel wounds? People can see those. They can touch them. Can understand them. Those wounds fit into a nice neat little box. But this shit? It scares people."
She studied me for several seconds. "It doesn't scare me."
"It should. It sure as hell scares me."
"Maybe, but it doesn't."
I searched her face for insincerity, but found none. Seriously, who the fuck was this girl? Not many people were strong enough to stare my issues in the face, but she did it without even blinking.
"Do you ever have those attacks in the ring?" she asked. "I imagine all that noise and movement would be a trigger."
"Under most circumstances, it would. I could never be in the audience of one of those things. But when I'm preparing to fight, I'm already in combat mode. I can see my enemy, and I know where the threat is. That focus keeps all the bad shit at bay."
She nodded. "That makes sense."
"Anyway, I'm sorry I freaked out," I said.
"It's okay. I should have pushed harder for us to leave at the restaurant. I knew it was more than you were letting on."
I shrugged. "I wanted to give you a proper date."
"Why do you think I care about that?"
"Because that's what you're used to. You always talk about the restaurants you used to visit, how you love always have something new to do. I could see how excited you got when I asked you to pick a place to eat. I don't want you to have to make sacrifices for my sake."
"Well I don't want you putting yourself at risk for mine. Look, I appreciate the effort, but you don't need to pretend to be someone you're not. I want to be with you because I like your company. Because you make me feel good. I don't care what we do with that time. A night on the sofa with you is better than an infinity of nights out on the town."
I couldn't help it; I found myself smiling. Normally an attack like that leaves me on my ass for hours, but those few words, that simple acceptance, swept all the self-loathing from my mind.
"A night on the sofa I can definitely do."