I tried to speak, but my mouth was bone dry. I wanted to lick my lips, but my tongue felt thick and heavy.
The guy turned around to speak to someone, and a woman in blue scrubs put a couple of ice chips in my mouth. They felt like heaven.
“Doc?” I managed to croak.
The man’s eyes smiled. “That’s right. You’re in the field hospital at Camp Leatherneck. You’ve been here for five days.”
“Doc,” I croaked again, “have I still got my balls?”
He grinned. “Everyone asks that. Yes, you do, son.”
I closed my eyes, relieved
“My legs? Anything missing?”
“Well, you’ve lost some muscle mass from your right quadriceps and adductor muscles—your right thigh. It’s a very deep wound caused by shrapnel, and the femur is fractured. You were also shot in your left shoulder and had a collapsed lung. You’ve got some nerve damage, resulting in loss of fine motor function. We’ll know more in a few days.”
I was struggling to understand him: shot and blown up? Fuck me.
“You were comatose when you were brought in with severe blood loss,” the doctor went on. “We medically induce a coma when there’s brain swelling; you had blood poisoning and...” He stopped speaking suddenly as I tried to take it all in.
My brain creaked and whirred, and more memories came back in flashes. I wished they hadn’t.
“The guys who were with me? Chiv and Jankowski?”
The doctor’s eyes flickered away from me. I knew then that it wasn’t good news.
“They didn’t make it. I’m sorry.” He paused. “But the rest of your Unit were EVACD safely…”
I screwed my eyes shut, the pain of surviving was sudden and unbearable.
“You’ll be alright, son. You made it.” He patted my arm and forced a smile. “And if my girlfriend looked like yours, I’d be making a miraculous recovery, as well.”
“Caro?” I whispered, confusion tangling my thoughts into tight knots.
He nodded. “She’s been here every day. We could barely get her to leave long enough to eat. She’ll be back soon.”
“Caro,” I said again.
My eyes closed, but I was smiling.
The next time I woke up, the lights were dimmer. I thought there was something wrong with my eyes, but then I thought it must be night.
The curtain was pulled back abruptly … and I saw her.
Her beautiful eyes were wide and panicked, and her hand flew to her mouth. But then she looked at me, and every expression raced across her face: relief, fear, love.
I saw love.
“I knew you wouldn’t give up on us,” I whispered hoarsely.
She walked up to the bed, looking as though she wanted to touch me but wasn’t sure where to start. To be honest, there wasn’t a single part of me that didn’t hurt like fuck, but I still needed her touch. In the end, she held my right hand gently and kissed it.
“You scared me, Sebastian. Don’t do it again.”
My lips twisted in a feeble smile.
“Sorry, baby.”
I drifted in and out. I don’t know for how long, but each time I woke, Caro was still holding my hand. I wanted to tell her what that meant to me, I think maybe I did. I just remember that she didn’t leave.
Sometime later, a nurse interrupted us, explaining that they were getting me on a flight to the medical center in Germany. And Caro had been cleared to travel with me.
My memories of that journey are hazy. I was drugged up on a lot of meds, but I think my brain was kinda fucked, as well. There was a lot of pain, I remember that, and experiencing turbulence at one point. But Caro never left me: she held my hand, talking to me quietly the whole way.
There was a long wait when we got to Landstuhl. The critical cases were taken off first—guys with brain injuries and missing limbs. It’s hard to explain how that made me feel: I couldn’t walk, couldn’t move my left arm, couldn’t get out of bed and had a fucking catheter in my dick, but I wasn’t critical. Good to know.
It felt like forever as we waited on the tarmac in the cold. Caro kept pulling the blanket up around my neck, trying to cover my shoulders, until I was loaded onto one of the fleet of blue buses with some other guys who were busted up.
The army chaplain came over to me, his eyes tired and his face gray with exhaustion.
“You’re here at the US army hospital. We’re going to take good care of you. We’re praying for you.”
I wondered how many times he’d said that this morning: a lot, I guessed.
“Thank you,” said Caro.
I didn’t say anything.
I was only at the hospital for two nights while I was ‘processed’. I heard one of the nurses tell Caro that Landstuhl was a Level I trauma center, treating over 2,000 guys like me every year. Some were flown in from Iraq; most from Afghanistan. We were treated and moved on. Treated and moved on.
I was given the choice of being flown back to San Diego or to go to an East Coast facility. I was considering the options when Caro made the decision for me, explaining to the nurse that it would be easier if I was near home—her home.
She didn’t ask me—she just assumed. But to say I was having second thoughts would be a fucking understatement.
I knew I was finished as a Marine. Sure, I could get some desk jockey job, but that shit just wasn’t tolerable. I was a fucking cripple, and would be eligible for some sort of disability. Twenty-seven and finished—a useless, pathetic piece of shit.
I didn’t want Caro to do what everyone expected and to ‘stand by’ me. She didn’t need me slowing her down: she was brilliant and beautiful and brave. I was shit scared of seeing the moment her eyes looked at me and regretted that we were together.
I knew Ches would take me in, but he was barely getting by as it was, with kids and a wife crammed into a two-bedroom cottage.
But I didn’t contradict her, didn’t say what I was thinking. Instead, we flew out to Walter Reed in Maryland on a Thursday at the beginning of May.
The journey from Germany was long and painful, and I was pretty certain they hadn’t given me enough meds for the trip, and even though the plane was kept cool, sweat was pouring from me. But there were guys who were far worse off; I had no right to complain. I couldn’t talk to Caro either—I had nothing to say.
A fleet of Marine ambulances were waiting at the airport. They don’t tell you that when you enlist: you never expect to need to know that the military has as many ambulances as Armored Personnel Carriers.
I’d been at Walter Reed for two weeks. Caro stayed the whole time. I wanted her to go, but I couldn’t manage to say the words either. We sank into silence, and I hated myself more each day.
I was most comfortable with the other guys. I did physical therapy with a Navy SEAL named Dan. He was strolling around on a pair of stubbies, those training prosthetics they give to guys to help them get used to having no legs.
He laughed when I told him he looked like a dork, and he did a few spins to show off.
“Fuck my luck,” he said, grinning up at me. “I used to be 6’ 4” and weigh 225 pounds. Now I’m 4’ 4” and weigh 160 pounds. Shit, I’ll have to update my driver’s license.”
His family was in Nebraska and he was hoping to surprise his wife by walking on his made-to-measure C-Leg prosthetics before her next visit.
“Stubbies aren’t so bad, but the others—it’s like kneeling on moving stilts,” he explained. “But ya get used to it.”
I was still in a wheelchair at the time, my left shoulder too weak and too damaged for me to use crutches yet, although my broken femur was healing.
Dan had met Caro so he wanted to know if I’d been getting any. I didn’t answer that.
“I’m horny as fuck,” Dan said, “but I guess my wife will have to ride me for now.” He sighed. “At least I’ve got my balls.”
Yeah, some guys hadn’t. I guess I was lucky, but I’d be lying if I said that there weren’t a lot of days when I wished th
e bomb had taken me, as well. How come I lived when Chiv and Jankowski were dead? How was that fair? Why the fuck had I been allowed to survive?
I knew my head was fucked up; hell, I didn’t even want to have sex. Ever since the first time with Caro when I was 17, I guess you could say I had a high sex drive, but now ... not so much. I still thought Caro was the hottest woman I’d ever seen, but that was part of the problem. I wasn’t the man she’d known. I was … less. And I hated that. I’d lost a lot of muscle weight and I’d turned into a scrawny motherfucker. I felt impotent—I probably was. I couldn’t even remember the last time I’d woken up hard. The docs told me that was the meds and everything would be okay when I reduced the dosage. But it wasn’t just that—I hated the man I saw in the mirror, the man who’d fucked up, the man who’d seen his buddies die.
And the nightmares—waking up screaming every fucking time I closed my eyes. Nobody so much as blinked. The nurse just came in, shook me awake and handed out some more sleeping pills. Night terrors were nothing when just about every guy in the place had PTSD.
Apart from seeing Caro trying to hide the pity in her eyes, the most painful part of my treatment was the fucking shrink sessions.
I tried to disappear when it was time for my appointment, but one of the orderlies always found me. I’d hated it from the very first day—talking about fucking feelings.
“Come in please, Hunter. If you’d mind sitting over there.”
The woman pointed to an empty space on the far side of her desk. At least she hadn’t asked me to take a seat. Ha-fucking-ha.
The bitch of an orderly wheeled me into position and locked the brakes on the wheelchair. Nope, I wasn’t going anywhere; I was having fucking therapy whether I wanted it or not.
“My name is Captain Banner,” said the doc. “I’m from the Army Medical Corps and I’m also a qualified psychologist. However, in my office there are no ranks: you can call me Judith or doctor. What do you like to be called? Sebastian? Seb?”
I tried to shrug my shoulders, instead sending a wave of pain through the left side of my body that made me nauseous. I decided that having her call me ‘Sebastian’ would be too weird—only Caro used my full name.
“Seb,” I muttered when I felt I could talk without biting off my own tongue.
“Good!” She gave me a professional smile. “Our sessions are about helping you come to terms with everything that’s happened to you. Acceptance precedes understanding. I’m told that your shoulder injury is healing well with only limited loss of function, so you should be able to wheel yourself soon; and your other injuries are also making progress.”
I could see she was choosing her words carefully. I watched her face, wondering what her angle would be.
“You’ve also had a traumatic brain injury—being that near to an explosion, the brain experiences a shockwave inside the skull, and it can have serious effects.”
Was I supposed to agree? She was the fucking doctor.
She looked down at her notes again. “The nursing staff tell me that your sleep is disturbed by nightmares most nights.”
Every night, I thought, but I didn’t say that.
“Can you tell me what you dream about?”
I looked away. It was bad enough dreaming about seeing Chiv and Jankowski get blown to pink mist every night, parts of their bodies raining down on my Utility Uniform, so I didn’t see how talking about it to some shrink would help, going over it again and again.
She sighed and pushed her notes to one side.
“I have been out to Afghanistan,” she said. “I do know what it’s like.”
I nearly smiled. “Yeah?”
Her face brightened. “Yes. I was based at Camp Leatherneck for six weeks.”
Six weeks. Try six months, or a year.
“How many times did you go outside the fence?” I asked casually, already knowing the answer.
“Excuse me?”
I met her gaze. “How many times did you leave the compound at Leatherneck?”
“Oh,” she said, momentarily off balance. “I didn’t because…”
That’s what I thought.
I looked away. “Next question.”
So she moved on: question after fucking question. How did I feel? What was I thinking? What outcomes did I want from sessions with her?
To get the fuck out as quickly as possible.
I stared out her window and refused to answer. I could do this shit all day long.
Eventually, she admitted defeat. Time-was up—onto the next exciting appointment in my busy schedule: more physio.
An orderly came to wheel me out, but Doctor Spock had the last word.
“I’ll see you tomorrow at fourteen-hundred hours, Seb.”
Oh, the fucking joy.
Physio was at the gym most days. I didn’t mind that, even though it was fucking painful. It reminded me of boot camp—being yelled at to try harder, push through the pain, get over the mental wall. I could do that. Maybe it was because I was a competitive motherfucker, or maybe it was because I was one of the least injured guys there. One kid, Lance, had lost both legs and his right arm. He shrugged his good shoulder when I talked to him.
“Rather me than my buddies,” he said.
I didn’t know if he meant because he didn’t want to see his friends injured, or because his friends were dead. I didn’t ask. We were put on the same team for a game of sitting volleyball, one-handed.
It was pretty funny seeing a bunch of cripples try to reach for the ball as it came crashing over the net.
Lance nudged me in the side and nearly fell over doing it. “Isn’t that your fiancée over there? She’s hot.”
I tensed up immediately. I really fucking hated Caro seeing me like this, and right now I was sitting on the floor, knowing it would take me a full 30 seconds to climb back into my wheelchair. I didn’t want to see the compassionate look on her face while I did it.
Lance was still studying her, and a part of me wanted to punch him for it.
“Lucky bastard,” he muttered. “Do you think any girl will want to have sex with me now? Maybe one of those weirdoes who goes for amputees, or maybe one of those Wounded Warrior groupies? What do you think?”
“Just take your eyes off of my girl,” I snapped.
He laughed and went back to the game.
When I looked at Caro, she waved quickly, then left the room. Yeah, I was sick of me, too.
It was the third week and my fifth session with Captain Shrink, and to say we hadn’t hit it off would be an understatement.
She kept pushing me, picking at my scabs, refusing to let me put everything behind me until I’d ‘talked’ about it. Instead I’d yelled at her.
“I want you to accept that without being me and being where I’ve been you have no way of knowing what will actually help,” I sneered.
Of course, she hadn’t left it at that.
She sat up straighter in her chair and I could tell she was itching to pull rank, but she didn’t.
“I want you to accept that you need help, then for you to ask for help, and for you to make a decision to choose that help. You do accept that there are trained professionals who can help you?”
I laughed at her. She wasn’t happy about that.
“You’re not the only one who has been training since the age of 18,” she said stiffly. “Although unlike your job, the equipment I work with doesn’t come with a user manual.”
Yep, definitely pissing her off.
Then came the sucker punch.
“I talked to your fiancée.”
She saw the flicker of fury on my face, and the fact that she’d seen it made me even more pissed. I could feel the rage building inside of me, and if I’d had the strength, I’d have wheeled myself out of there. But unless you’ve got one of those electric wheelchairs, you can’t work an ordinary chair with one hand, or you end up going in fucking circles.
Why the fuck had Caro been talking to my shrink? I felt betrayed. T
he only defense I had was to look away.
“Miss Venzi is a very interesting woman,” continued the doc. “She seems fully invested in working through the … changes … in your circumstances.”
My veins felt like they’d been filled with boiling tar. Caro had been talking behind my back? I didn’t want to believe it.
“She thought you might consider taking a different sort of job in the Marine Corps.”
“What sort of job?” I asked suspiciously.
“Well, with your language skills, there’ll be plenty of work for an interpreter with Military Intelligence, or at Quantico.”
“You mean a desk job?” I jeered.
She pressed her lips together into a flat line.
“Your physical recovery is impressive, Seb, but you won’t be sent back to the front line.”
I shook my head, a grim smile fixed to my face.
“The extent of your injuries render you unfit for frontline duty,” she droned on. “As you know, one of the prerequisites of being a Marine is the ability to run without a limp. Your doctors tell me that it’s unlikely you will ever be able to walk without using a cane. A medical discharge is the most likely scenario unless you want to reconsider an alternative career in the Corps.”
“Put me behind a desk and I’ll fuck up within a week.”
She sighed and looked down.
“Is that your final decision?”
I nodded without speaking.
“I see,” she said, and closed the file. “I’ll send your paperwork to the Physical Examination Board and their liaison officer can help you with your disability application and…”
I’d never had a strong hold on my temper, but I seemed to lose it on a daily basis right now—usually at Caro—but today I had Captain Shrink in my sights.
“Do you think I give a fuck about disability money? I’m 27! What am I going to do with my life now? Nothing. I’m worthless. Useless. On the scrap heap. The Corps don’t prepare you for that when they train you to be so single minded and focused.”
“That’s just not true,” she said calmly. “There are many ways you could contribute. You could retrain…”
“As what? When you do your reintegration, it’s what-the-fuck-ever. ‘Just go and do your menial job so we can wash our hands of you.’ So retraining—yeah, right.”