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Sweat rolls down my temples, my breathing heavy and quick. I do as Leigha says and when I complete the task, she moves onto her next question. These happen daily. What I’m not expecting is the next one.
“Everything you’re feeling is normal, Grayson.”
Anger shoots through me, settling in my stomach. I can’t control any of it. It’s like the emotions come out of nowhere and pulsate inside me until the next one decides it’s time to take over. And I think I know what Leigha is talking about. Or at least, I’m assuming she’s referring to my recent outburst about my balance. It’s frustrating to want to stand up, walk across a room like you used to, and not have to use the support of others.
I’m especially agitated today because it’s noon, and I haven’t seen Evie yet. I have these fears that one day I’m gonna wake up in the morning and she’s going to decide this is too much. I can’t, nor would I blame her if she left after this.
The worst part?
It’s no longer war that haunts me at night. It’s one vision played out repeatedly until it consumes me. From one hell to the next. I let it. I don’t know why, but I do.
That scene? Evie screaming for me. Not her being raped, though you’d think it would be. It’s the knowledge that I could not get to her. And I imagine this stems from what happened in Iraq. I couldn’t get to Matt. He begged them to stop, for me to help, and I couldn’t.
It was like that night repeated itself, but the people in it changed.
Leigha shines a light in my eyes, checking my pupils. I knock her hand out of the way. “Do you have to shine that in my fucking face so much? My eyes are fine.”
“She’s just running late,” Leigha tells me, knowing where my frustration stems from.
I lay my head back on the pillow, staring up at the ceiling. What if she’s not? What if she got in a car accident or someone attacked her? What if she fell down the stairs?
Hundreds of situations I can’t control in here run through my head. I’m a protector. That’s who I am by nature and this has taken all that from me and I’m left to depend on others. Something a guy like me hates to do.
“Did she say when she’d be here?”
Leigha tucks her stethoscope into her purple scrubs. “No. I know she mentioned she has physical therapy this morning.”
Physical therapy? Maybe she mentioned that and I’d forgotten. It’s a possibility. I forgot my birthday the other day. It was Tuesday and even if you would have told me the date, I wouldn’t have remembered it.
I’ve been in this hospital for five weeks now, and every day blurs into the next, like the ocean ebbing and flowing.
I think about her in physical therapy again. For her hand, I assume. She’d broken it. The idea that she’d suffered injuries toognaws at me and my mood worsens. Aggression works through me and Leigha notices.
“Here, do you want me to call her? I can.”
I snort, rolling my eyes. “I look that desperate?”
She touches my shoulder, reaching for her cell phone in her pocket. “Honey, I’ve spent nearly every day with you for the last month. I’m beginning to understand your eye movements at this point,” she teases.
Just as she swipes her finger across the screen, Evie walks in. Relief floods through me in an instant. Her hair’s pulled up in a bun, her neck revealed and then my emotions take on another focus. Sex. It’s on my brain daily. I fight through so many urges, most of which involve me being an asshole to most everyone, but this one, the desire to hold Evie, kiss her, fuck her… that one is uncontrollable at times.
I lied to her. I do remember what happened. I remember every fucking detail up until Shane approached me with the bat. I don’t remember the hit, or what lead to it, but one of my last visions is of him raping her.
I’m not proud of where my thoughts surface from, but I want to erase that vision and replace it of one with me and her. I’ve talked to the physiatrist who insists I see him about this a few times. I worry aboutwhyI’m so obsessed with wanting to have sex with her. You’d think it wouldn’t be that way. That I wouldn’t want to after seeing that horrifying situation play out and what he did to her.
He tells me that it’s normal to want to give her back the control that was taken from her and replace it with a good memory. I’m not entirely sure I’d agree with him. I think it’s more related to the fact that I can’t stand that he was the last to touch her. That’s what I want to take back.
As fucking disturbing and disgusting as that is.
Evie moves into the room, a Starbucks cup in one hand, her bag in the other and a cute smile tugging at her lips. “Your bandage is off,” she says, looking at my head.
Right. Forgot about that. Leigha removed it this morning. I run my hand over my head but stop short of the stitches. My hair’s beginning to grow, a thick coarse stubble. “Yeah,” I mumble, my heart flipping around uncontrollably in my chest.
Reaching my hand, Evie holds it. “I love it. Looks as gnarly as your attitude lately.”
I snort again. She’s always finding ways to try to make the best of the situation. While I appreciate it, I don’t reply.
Leigha excuses herself and we’re left alone, the room dimly lit and quiet, other than monitors I’m still connected to.