Page 39 of All I Have Left

GRAYSON

A nxiety sucks.

It comes up out of nowhere, unrelenting and disabling.

I can’t even put one foot in front of the other, let alone draw in a stable breath.

I don’t know when it started. Maybe seeing the sheriff pull Evie aside or the look of fear she’s constantly wearing.

Maybe it started there. Maybe it’s been present since I left Iraq and I’m only now becoming aware of it.

My dad confronts me once more while Evie uses the bathroom with Frankie. I had a feeling after the shit I pulled on the field today, he’d be talking to me again once the girls weren’t within earshot.

“How’d the interview go?”

He’s stalling. That’s not what he wants to talk to me about. “Good. I got the job. Working with Ethan’s crew doing dry wall.” I had the experience they wanted from working for them all through high school.

And then he lets me have it. The real reason he wanted to talk to me. “You need to be careful about this,” he tells me, his face adopting a somber edge I recognize.

I start walking toward the parking lot with my bag over my shoulder. “I know. ”

He raises an eyebrow, stopping me from walking, his hand on my forearm. “Do you? Because out there—” He pauses and gestures to the field with a flick of his wrist. “Didn’t look like you were being careful.”

I don’t like to be told what to do. I can’t think of many young men that do. Especially when you’re old enough to be making your own decisions. But I do understand where he’s coming from. “I hear you. I won’t provoke him anymore.”

Evie and Frankie exit the bathroom and Dad smiles, watching them. He pats my shoulder. “Glad to see you still have your aim.”

I snort but don’t say anything. I’m too busy trying to breathe right. And if I had better aim, I would have gotten his face, which I’d been aiming for. Instead, I hit the helmet he was wearing.

Wanna know the worst part?

The crack the helmet made. I hate the way the sound vibrated through me, a reminder, a flash of a scene I’m trying so hard to erase.

When I woke up in that hospital in Iraq, I thought, fuck, get me out of this shithole now.

And then the days that followed, after a few surgeries, I began to realize getting out of there wasn’t an option.

At least not mentally. Through memories, or rather nightmares, I’d forever be brought back to a place where I had no control.

When I made it back to the States, the doctors threw at me the term post-traumatic stress disorder.

They said I had it, as did many war veterans returning from war.

They described it as combat stress after experiencing a life-threatening event.

How about months of life-threatening events?

That’d be more accurate. They told me that being in shock is normal, but with PTSD, your nervous system gets stuck.

Your body doesn’t recognize that you’re no longer in danger and you’re trapped in a state of immobilization.

Constantly reliving a certain, or series of events .

I’d argued with them that I didn’t have that. I couldn’t. But I did. I just didn’t want to believe it. I didn’t want to believe that one event in your life could alter you to the point where you can’t sleep, can’t tolerate loud noises, or hell, even pick up a bat without shaking.

The half-empty bottle of anxiety medication, muscle relaxers and pain medication wouldn’t argue that clinical term, would it?

I do believe you can distract yourself though.

The first night I didn’t wake up screaming and crying since I’ve returned home was the night I fell asleep with Evie.

She’s my distraction. A way to think about something other than my personal battles in my own head.

And watching her the last few days, she needs that too. She needs a way to relax and not have to be reminded of Shane. I feel like a complete asshole letting her come here, knowing there was a possibility he’d be here too. It was irresponsible of us to allow it.

“I’m really sorry about all this,” I tell Evie as we walk to Frankie’s car. “You didn’t need this shit.”

She reaches for my arm, her steps slowing and lingering, as if she’s stalling. “It’s okay. I needed to get out today and yeah, it sucks he was here, but I’m glad I got to see you play.”

A smile tugs at my lips. “Brings back a lot of memories being here,” I hint, knowing she’ll understand.

First time I kissed her was behind the bleachers.

I can still remember the way her body felt in my hands when I backed her up against the posts.

I didn’t know what the fuck I was doing but it’s crazy how I remember every detail about the night.

She tasted like sweet tea and smelled like strawberries.

Her cheeks warm with the faintest pink added to her sun-kissed skin. “It does.”

Frankie closes the trunk of her car. “Ready?”

Evie backs up from me. “See you back at the house?”

“Yeah, I’m parked in the upper lot.” I hesitate, wondering if I should hug her, or more. “I’ll be there soon.” And though I want to kiss her goodbye, I resist.

She breathes in slowly, a soft quirk to her lips. “Don’t be long.” Her eyes drift to the upper lot. “If you see him, don’t… cause any problems.”

I nod. “I’ll behave.”

Would I though?

While Frankie takes her back to the house, I take my time at the field. Josh and I make small talk as we walk back to my truck. “Oh, fuck. I forgot my hat in the dugout,” Josh says, turning around. “I’ll catch up with ya.”

I keep walking up the hill to the parking lot and that’s when I notice Shane is still in the parking lot talking with a group of guys. His friends, I assume, though it’s hard to imagine he has any.

One would think he’d be gone by now given the game ended over an hour ago, but I also know why he’s still here.

Me.

After our interactions on the field, I expected this, but can’t believe he’s still waiting.

What he doesn’t realize is that I’ve had training he never has. I can, if I want, kill him with my bare hands. And believe me when I say it’s so fucking tempting after seeing what he did to Evie. So tempting.

He stands a little straighter when he spots me, his shirt beside him on the hood of his car, a beer in hand, cigarette dangling from his lips. I know guys like him. He thinks that shit, the cigarette and beer, and his custom car Daddy bought means he’s tough. He’s a fucking pussy if you ask me.

It’s an act. The son of a bitch beats up women. What real man lays a hand on a woman? One who can’t defend himself in a real fight.

Though I don’t want the reaction, my body tenses, anticipating a fight as I approach my truck. I don’t remember parking it beside him, but as my luck would have, we’re right next to each other. I bet he moved his damn car.

I try, I really do, to walk by without going noticed. Of course, as soon as I walk past them, Shane starts in with his bantering.

There are ways of finding out information, classified or not. It’s all in who you know and if you dig deep enough, you can get that information. Such as, injuries, past ones, that let’s say, happened while deployed. You’d think that would be highly classified, right?

Nope. A simple records request done by the right personnel will give you anything you want to know.

“How’s that shoulder?” Shane asks, taking a slow drag from his cigarette. He waits for me to make eye contact with him before he blows the smoke in the air.

See what I mean? He dug deep enough to find what he could on me.

I toss my bag in the back of my truck, giving way to an amused laugh. He obviously knew which shoulder to hit, didn’t he?

Honestly, I don’t care that he knew. I don’t. Let him know just how fucked up I am. Let him see what that pain does to me now.

“It’s fine.” I wink at him, leaning into my truck with the same shoulder. Yeah, it hurts, but I’m not going to let on. “How’s your hip?”

It’s not like I give a shit, but I notice a bruise already forming on his hip. I also notice the darkness under his eye and the cracked lip. He’s gotten a taste of what I can do to him, but he has no idea what I’m capable of.

“Never better.” Shane shakes his head, his buddies watching me, and it takes everything in me not to kick his ass.

“Bullshit.” I know if I cause a scene with him, right now, I’d be going against what I promised Evie. That’s the last thing I want to do. I know I already pushed my luck with her today .

Just as I’m getting in my truck, Shane pops off with “Not much of a tough guy without—”

I don’t let him finish before I jump out of my truck, slam the door shut and face him. He slides off his car, inches from my face. “I will only tell you this one time, you stupid motherfucker,” I warn, stepping closer. “Stay. Away. From. Evie.”

His posture stiffens. “Why? You gonna stop me?”

“Yeah, I am going to stop you.” I make no attempt to back off. “I’m not warning you again.”

His expression remains blank, searching my eyes.

Maybe he’s trying to see if I’m being serious, which only pisses me off more that he doubts my intentions.

“I’m not going to regret anything,” he says, leaning casually against his car again, his cigarette brought to his lips.

“But you do. You regret a lot of things. And she turned to me. Does it kill you to know that she was on my dick?”

I act like the twenty-one-year-old kid I am. “Nah.” I smile. “It don’t ’cause she was on mine first. And I know it kills you to know I had her first.”

By the collapsed brows and frown, I know I struck a nerve, but he recovers quickly, rearranging his facial expressions. “She won’t be for much longer, soldier boy.”

I back up an inch, tilting my head to the side. “Hasn’t anyone ever told you not to threaten a man’s family? It’s a death sentence.”

Shane laughs and draws in a lung full of smoke. “She ain’t your family, man.” He stands straighter, his chest tight. “Walk away. It’s what you’re good at, remember?”

“I can’t do that.” I run the back of my hand across the right side of my jaw.

“I’m not scared of you, Grayson.”

I point my finger in his face. “That’s your fucking problem right there. You should be. I should be your worst nightmare because I will be if you keep fucking with us.”

Like it or not, my mental stability takes all my composure and I start shaking.

My words are no long sturdy. He knows he’s getting to me.

I want to kill him. I want to make him pay for every time he touched her in anger.

A scar he’d carry until the day he died.

A reminder that I made him pay for the consequences.

I look to his friends, all standing back, waiting for him to tell them what to do. They say nothing. Not a goddamn word.

“Grayson.” Josh appears before I can do anything, “Help Ethan with the chairs.”

I turn without another word and reach for two of the four chairs Ethan is holding, his eyes on Shane.

“What was that about?” he asks when Shane gets into his car. I don’t say anything at first, but he raises an eyebrow.

“Nothing.”

Never again will I stand by and watch someone get hurt. I won’t do it.

“Are you going to be okay?”

I guess my shaking is more noticeable than I want it to be. “Yeah.” I run the palms of my hands over my pants. “Hey, you guys going out tonight?”

“Yeah. We thought about it. Evie up for it?”

“I was gonna take her to dinner tonight, but then I thought going out as a group would be a better idea. More people around us.” I want her alone, but at this point, I don’t think it’s a good idea.

I know Shane’s only biding his time until he finds one, or both of us, alone.

But I also know we can’t stay locked up in my room. “I think she needs a good distraction.”

She needs a night of normalcy. Something I can provide her because normal is what I need just as much. She’s my normal, my distraction.

I refuse to let post-traumatic stress disorder define me. My emotional state is already better simply by being back with Evie.