SCARS (5 page)

              In truth, I was terrified. Unhinged males were a pattern in my life. Only in this instance James needed someone to reach out to him. To talk him down. To bring him back. To let him know he didn’t have to stay trapped where he was.

              I placed a gentle hand to his knee as it was uncomfortable and hard to breathe scrunched down in such a small space at our booth. I had to focus and breathe deep as my own fear of closed in spaces threatened to come into play.

              “James,” I said softly, then squeezed his knees tenderly. “James, wherever you are it’s not real. What you’re feeling is very real. But it’s 2016. You are at Denny’s in Grant County. I’m with you. It’s me, Rayna. You’re safe. No one can harm you.”

              Slowly the shouting stopped. The rocking slowed to a stop. His eyes opened and they met mine. As they did a mixture of horror and embarrassment filled them. His hands came down. He looked as if he might cry.

              “It’s okay,” I said. “It’s happened to me before.”

              “I have to get out of here,” he said sharply. He crawled out from underneath the table and rushed outside to the truck.

              Digging into my pocket I hated the way everyone was staring. The waitress looked at me and waved me off. “I’ve got this. My Dad was Vietnam Vet. Consider this on the house.”

              “Thanks,” I said before chasing after James.

              He was already in the truck, furiously tapping out a cigarette and trying to light up. I hopped in the passenger’s seat just as he was taking a hard long drag. He started to rant. I let him. Reliving trauma is as bad as living it. Only instead you’re fighting a ghost. Something that is ephemeral and without substance. But it tasted, smelled and felt as if it did. It was almost as if all of his demons were raising up at once to bring him down in my eyes. Usually I cried on Ellen’s shoulder in the wake of my flashbacks or nightmares and she was always patient and soft.

              His rant scared me and shook me up. But it wasn’t directed at me. I knew I wasn’t in any real danger. Any chance of hurt happening was the cruelty of the nosy diners in Denny’s. I could many of them craning their necks to see what was happening in the truck. I had half a mind to go in and give them a piece of my mind and tell them to mind their own fucking business.

              “I need a drink. I need a thousand drinks. I need enough liquor quiet these voices for good. I should have been able to control it. I shouldn’t have been so weak in the face of things that have been dead and buried for ten years now. I managed to embarrass myself, hurt you, and I bet you paid the ticket or some waitress feeling sorry for my useless ass did.”

              He stopped. His hands were shaking as he furiously smoked that cigarette until it was down to its filter. He rubbed it out on the steering wheel, rolled the window down and flicked it out the window, only to light up another one quickly.

              I hated cigarettes. Detested them actually. They had killed the most maternal and loving mother figure I had ever had growing up, my grandmother. But truth? I understood the need for something to numb the pain with or settle the nerves down. I just generally ate my feelings. Didn’t know much joy recently. But in the weight loss journey my hibernating pain had awakened with a vengeance. That’s what was happening with James.

              “For the life of me I can’t understand why such a beautiful girl would want to do with me.”

              This my chance. If I was going to risk something, it was now.

              “Because I see people. And from the first time I saw you trying to hide from the world in the coffee shop I knew what kind of person you were. I see now what I saw then, a fellow traveler. A troubled soul in need of companionship. I’m not perfect. I don’t even believe you when you say I’m beautiful. I grew up hearing words that were harsh and unforgivable. Words that referred to me as useless, whore, ugly, slut. I still hear these words. I say them to myself on the bad days. My mother is in a nursing home and she wants nothing to do with me. I’m the one who visits. But it’s my sister Georgia who’s the golden child. Life hasn’t been good or fair to me in many respects. However, you have one of the most beautiful souls I have ever encountered. I see it now as sure as I saw it this morning when you took me in your arms. Flashbacks are scary for you. The only thing that I ask of you, is to get into treatment. They may not go away but they may become more manageable.”

              His hands shook less and his cigarette didn’t burn as furiously.

              He gazed at me as if I were the only person on the face of the earth. It very nearly stole my breath. Those piercing blue eyes of his were heated enough I could have fallen into them had I not been holding myself in check.

              “Treatment. Why so I can be on pills on top of the booze? Thanks, but I’ll pass.”

              I flinched at his admonishment. I looked away and stared down at my hands. It hurt. I had reached out to him and he had slammed the door shut on me. I was angry more with myself than anything else. I could hear Ellen’s words echoing in my mind. I knew this would be hard. He’d said as much at coffee shop. He warned me he would fight me every step of the way. I hated myself intensely for not heeding his warning. Love wasn’t fair. Love wasn’t easy. I put my hand on the door handle. I wasn’t one to cut and run though.

              “God I’m such an asshole.”

              His words cut right through me. I froze and looked at him. His eyes on me in all their fiery intensity. I closed my eyes and saw him suffering underneath that table and knew I couldn’t cut run at the first sign of trouble. There had to be boundaries though. I couldn’t tolerate abuse. I would not do it.

              “Pain makes people do and say horrible things. You’re embarrassed by something you have trouble controlling or at least knowing when it’s going to hit. I’m willing to ride the rough patches out but I won’t be subjected to abuse.”

              H swallowed hard. He looked like a frightened child. I took his free hand and leaned over and kissed him chastely on the lips.

              He rubbed the cigarette on the steering wheel and grabbed my face kissing me passionately. It was a desperate, punishing kiss. It triggered all the feelings I thought long ago buried. It was sloppy, long and languid. He kissed me until we were both out of breath.

              Holding my face and pressing his forehead to mine, his fingers buried in my hair. Tears running down his cheeks, his voice full crackling desperation.

              “I’m sorry. You did not run where everyone before you has. You’ve shown me nothing compassion and empathy. Where everyone has given only pity and shown morbid curiosity and fear. I know I’ve scared and hurt you today but you haven’t even intimated that I scared you. Although you must’ve been in there.”

              “I forgive you. I will always forgive you because of the good and decent man I know inside of you. Mental illness isn’t a moral failing. But a disease. As real as anything you can see touch and smell. I forgive you, James. I forgive you because I’m falling in love with you. Please be careful you have my heart.”

              He kissed me again. Only this time it was full of tenderness and love. Soft and gentle coaxing, not demanding. When his lips parted mine he whispered, “Rayna, you are my reason. You are my heart. I love you. And I will spend the rest of my life proving myself worthy of yours.”

Chapter Seven

              Having never been inside James’ home I was expecting the worst. Something like a hoarder’s home. But when I went inside I found that not to be true. I had forgotten a military was a military man in some respects and things were for the most part clean almost Spartan in nature. Spotless even.

              There was furniture, but it spoke of a man who hadn’t known the touch of family, love or a woman in a quite some time. I looked in the kitchen as we stepped inside the back door. The garbage can was filled with empty sardine cans, drained vodka bottle, empty orange juice cartons, whiskey bottles, soda cans and cigarette cartons. What exactly, had I just stepped into.

              He must’ve felt my fear because he turned around and said, “That’s about three months worth of drinking.”

              “It’s still a lot.”

              “It’s a reminder that I have a long way to go.” A reminder to me too. “Still up for the rough patches?” he asked.

              It was a fair question. One did not find a man teetering on the brink of suicide in the early morning hours to expect a relationship to blossom from it and to get on the road to crazytown. Which was, in a manner of speaking exactly what I had done. For all James’ crazy, however, there was a wounded soul in there. Just as there was a wounded soul in me. I knew his brand of crazy. And truthfully, I knew Ellen did too.

              I looked at him and smiled, “I am if you are.”

              “There’s something you want from me though. Something I’m not sure that I can give. You want me to get into treatment. I’m not sure I can do that.”

              “Don’t do it for me. Do it for yourself.”

              “And freakout like I did back at Denny’s? Somehow I seriously doubt anything can help that.”

              “You’d be surprised. It helped me.”

              “Treatment? You?”

              “I had a litany of issues. One of which was PTSD. I used to ‘freak out’ on a regular basis. It’s my best friend who was with me in the emergency room late one night after I’d become suicidal and told me treatment was the only option I had left. That I couldn’t deny the truth of what had happened to me any longer.”

              “You denied the HIV diagnosis?”

              He was shocked that I would do something so dangerous and irresponsible. I took his hand and led him to the couch as we sat down I steeled myself for the onslaught of emotions and questions this would stir up in both James and me.

              “I’m talking about before the HIV. As a child, starting at five and going until I was about ten or eleven my father would come into the room after my mom had cried herself to sleep because of their fight.”

              I looked away from him. It was always so hard to tell this story. Even in its sanitized form it was ugly and savage and held no glory to tell it. Some people judged when they heard it as my father had been a respected cop and member of the community.

              James turned my cheek so that my gaze met his.

              “Rayna, what do you mean he came into your room at night?”

              No glory. Only to help James was I telling this story. Only to help others would I ever tell this story.

              “He would…touch me…take my hand and have me…touch him. Sometimes more. It was always traumatizing.”

              Tears came to my eyes. My lips trembled. My voice shook. But I did not cry. I refused to give that man anymore of my pain. George did not deserve it so he would not get any more of it.

              This seemed to physically pain James. He reached out and touched my cheek. “If he were alive I’d kill him again. And there would be no fast death. It be slow, long, painful and drawn out.”

              The darkness which twisted his face into a mask of fury was something to behold. It scared me that his could bleak and barren and full of rage. I knew if it were unleashed there might be no stopping it.

              “Therapy saved my life. Changed my life. So when I contracted HIV I had something to fight with. I had no real reason to fight beyond breathing and my few friendships. I’ve wanted to write again but haven’t felt the urge in a very long time. Years in fact. But after last night. That kiss…I went to sleep my mind flooding with ideas.”

              The darkness vanished. “You’re brilliant. I see that spirit sparkle and the way you light up when you talk about life and to know I’m part of the reason that it’s there? Makes my life worth living. Makes turning away from the alcohol a little more bearable.”

              “You’re not an island, at least consider the therapy. It can help tremendously. It’s the reason I was running those trails. It’s the reason I found you on that bridge. It’s the only reason I knew I had to expose my heart and soul and make myself so vulnerable it scared me. So yes I was scared in Denny’s but only because I knew you were hurting and I hated the people staring at you like you were a freak. Because I know you. And I know you’re not your disease. That you’re a beautiful soul in a gorgeous package. Life has knocked you around. Made you bleed. I can’t fix you. But I can love you. All of you. For what it’s worth therapy gave me you. I would have given up a long time ago. If weren’t for the therapy I think Diabetes would have been the nail in my coffin.”

              “Truth? The day you came over and engaged me in conversation at the coffee shop I thought I was counting down to the minutes to my last day. But you came over to me and started talking to me. It convinced me to go home instead of over a bridge. So I started coming to the coffee shop every day in hopes of seeing you. Finally it wasn’t enough. If you hadn’t found when you did…I guess I really don’t want to think about that.”