Touching Scars (2 page)

When she made eye contact with him, her expression changed. Katherine straightened her slumped shoulders and tipped her chin up. She was trying to show something to him. Her left hand came up and she pushed her glasses up the bridge of her nose. Timber decided to go speak to her. He opened his car door and got out.
As he walked towards her, he noticed that her previous look of self-assuredness wavered. She shifted from one foot to another, watching him intently as he neared her. When Timber was standing directly in front of her, he looked down.

“What do you want? Did you come over here to shove me on the ground and cut my tires?” Her lip quivered, but she held it together. “Go ahead. I don’t care what you do to me.”

Timber had never actually inspected Katherine before. He never noticed how her almond shaped eyes held a hint of green amongst brown. They were absolutely beautiful. She hid them behind her dark rimmed glasses, and unless you were standing this close, you couldn’t see the exact color. He also noticed her lips were full and had a slight pout. What would it be like to kiss her? Closing his eyes tightly, Timber shook himself of the erratic thoughts.

“Are you just going to stand there? Do your worst,” she spat.

He opened his eyes. “My worst? You think I came over here to hurt you?”

Katherine looked up at him skeptically. “Well, you’re no better than your asshole friends, so yeah, of course you would.”

Timber’s jaw clenched. She actually thought he would do the same thing Adam did? “I’m not like them. It wasn’t like I was the one that threw the fucking football.”

She looked down, and her long, dark brown hair made a curtain around her face. “You might as well have,” she mumbled.

“Excuse me?” Her words took Timber aback.

She glanced back up at him with confusion in her eyes. “You heard me. You might as well have. Did you even bother to stop your friend from throwing it at me? Did you laugh right along with them when my back was turned? No, wait. You probably plotted to see what you guys could do to hurt the poor nerdy girl. What would embarrass her the most?”

Katherine was mad now and was firing accusations at him that pissed him off. “You have a lot of nerve. I’ve never done anything to you.”

She narrowed her eyes at him. “Yes, you have.” Her lips quirked up in a rueful smile. “Frankly, I’d say that you are the worst out of all of them. You
know
what they’re doing, and yet you stand there and let them. You all walk around this school like you rule the place, and you pick on everybody that isn’t a clone of you. Well guess what,
Timber
,” she said his name with so much hate that it rocked him, “I am different. I care about people, and I don’t walk around pushing and shoving them, making them feel like they are less than me.”

Timber was speechless. Nobody had ever spoken to him this way. Part of him was completely turned on by this feisty five foot three inch person in front of him. He’d had no idea that a wildcat was inside of this small package. But another part of him was hurting from the deep blow to his ego. He didn’t know how to respond to her accusations.

Swallowing hard, Timber said words that he’d wanted to say to her when he saw her on the ground crying. “I’m sorry.”

Katherine dropped her hands that were on her hips and walked around to the driver side door. “Save it, Timber. Your apology means nothing to me.” She was about to climb into her car but stopped. He saw tears glistening in her eyes. “Change.”

“What?” Timber wanted to reach out to her and tell her not to cry, but it seemed like a completely illogical thing to do.

“If you’re so different from them, then change. Stop being the guy on the side that accepts the mean things those guys say to people like me. Do something about it. Then maybe your apology will start to mean something.”

With that, Katherine got into her car and drove away, leaving Timber standing there. As he walked back to his car, he made a choice. He couldn’t say that he would stop his friends from doing the same things that they’d always done to everyone else, but he would make sure that they left
her
alone. Her words had cut him like a knife, and sometimes the truth really fucking hurt.

“S
IR
,
CAN
I
GET
YOU
something to drink?”

“I’m sorry, what?”

“Can I get you something to drink?”

I glanced up at the flight attendant that was looking at me expectantly. She had a smile on her face that I was certain was forced. I had a feeling she had been standing there trying to get my attention for a while. I was off in my own head. Being up in the air without any sleep for the past eighteen hours had messed with my head. Our first stop was in Bangor, Maine. It would be the first time I stepped foot on American soil in over a year.

Though the woman was attractive, I wanted her to stop looking at me. Her eyes watched me with weariness, as if she knew where I was coming from and she felt sorry for me. I didn’t want her fucking pity. I wanted to feel numb.

“Crown and coke,” I bit out.

She nodded and began pouring the smooth amber into a plastic cup. She’d given me two of those mini bottles which I appreciated. I pulled a twenty dollar bill out of my wallet and handed it to her and told her to keep the change. When she handed me my drink, she stood there while I tipped my head back and swallowed the cup’s contents in three gulps. It would take a few minutes for the alcohol to warm my blood, and I was feeling more and more irritated that I was being scrutinized by this stranger. I turned towards her, handed her the empty cup and gave her a stiff smile.

“Thanks.”

The smile that was plastered on her face faltered when she saw the hardness in my eyes. She nodded, moving on to the next row. Thank fuck. I was pretty sure if she had stood there any longer I would have told her we could take the staring into the lavatory and she could stare at me while I fucked her from behind and she watched in the mirror. I may be screwed up in the head, but I’m still a man with needs. In fact, I wondered if I should pull her back with me and do it anyway. Maybe having sex would help me forget.

I rolled my eyes at my own thoughts. Meaningless sex with someone might give me a temporary release, but it wouldn’t stop the nightmares that came every time I closed my eyes. All I could see were the faces of my friends, my brothers. I leaned my head back and stared at the headrest in front of me, refusing to let sleep pull me under.

An hour later, we were making our approach to Bangor International Airport. I’d been here before after my first tour in Iraq. That was three years ago. At the time, I was happy to be home and truly enjoyed the welcome wagon that greeted us as we got off the plane. This time, I was dreading it. Veterans from the area come and meet us, to thank us for our service, and shake our hands. They wave flags, and other people in the airport stop what they are doing and clap. I know that they don’t know what it’s like over there. They don’t know what I’ve seen, and I know they are just showing me their gratitude. But this time I don’t want their happy smiles and ‘thank you’s’. I want to be getting off the plane with my full squad. I just want to walk through the terminal, find a seat, and sit down until I have to board my next flight. I want quiet. Unfortunately I don’t think I’ll be finding my peace ever again.

It was exactly as I predicted. The double doors that lead out to the terminal seating was surrounded on each side by old men wearing their covers and retired military uniforms, saluting each of us. Men, women, and a few children were amongst the vets with small American flags, smiling and clapping. Damn if it didn’t make my heart ache. I nodded at the few servicemen that made eye contact with me. As soon as I was passed them, I set my carry-on down in the chair beside me. Taking a deep breath in through my nose and exhaling, I tried to calm my taut muscles. I felt tightly wound, like I would blow at any point.

I had my closed my eyes, but I felt a tap on my thigh. When I opened them, I was looking at a little
dusty, blonde haired boy that had to have been no older than five.

“Mister, are you a soldier?”

His innocent eyes soothed me. “Yes, I am.” I answered him in a quiet voice.

“Cool. I want to be a soldier when I get big.” Big blue eyes lit up his face.

“Well, that’s a good goal, but you make sure you go to school first.”

He paused and looked over at who I assumed must have been his mother walking towards us.

“Have you killed a bad guy before?”

Immediately the tenseness slammed in my gut and I shut my mouth before I said something stupid, like “go the fuck away, kid, or not as many as I should have.” Thankfully, his mother came and grabbed him, apologizing for bothering me as she led him away. I leaned forward with my elbows on my knees and ran a hand through my hair. Another thirty minutes passed without being bothered. When my next flight began to board, I settled into my seat for the seven hour leg.

In a small suburb of Houston, the cab pulled up to the curb of a brick ranch styled house. I pulled out forty dollars and got out. I grabbed my duffle and rucksack and walked up to the door. All of the homes on the street were very cookie cutter, with the same manicured lawns, flowers lining the walkways to the front doors, and a neatly trimmed bush under each window. I still didn’t understand why my dad chose to live in this neighborhood. The house was more than he needed, but I think he got it because it was a house my mom would have loved.

Mom passed away during my first tour in Iraq. They let me come home on emergency leave to attend her funeral and help my dad get his affairs in order. She had passed away from a sudden heart attack. Our entire community was shocked. She was a seemingly healthy woman. She exercised regularly and ate well. The doctors told us after they performed an autopsy that her heart had a defect that caused the lining of her aorta to be thin. It ruptured one night while my mom was watching Wheel of Fortune on the couch. It was so sudden that she bled out in less than a minute and couldn’t call for help. My dad was beside himself.

When my first tour was over, he had a ‘for sale’ sign in front of the house and he said he couldn’t live there anymore. He didn’t find comfort in the memories behind those walls. I didn’t blame him for feeling that way. The sadness crushed me every time I walked in the door. But now he was living here in Friendswood, Texas, in a house that was everything she would have loved. I’ve never called him out and asked why he chose this place, but I was certain it was because of Mom. I just wished that he was still in Bay City so his friends and church members could keep him company.

As I walked in the front door, I called out my dad’s name.

“Back here, Timber.”

He was outside, sitting on the back porch, drinking a beer and smoking a cigar. The past year his age had caught up with him. He used to tell me, “you’re only as young as you feel.” Well, I guess my mom’s death made him feel every bit of his sixty-three years. When I came into view, he stood up from his wooden rocking chair and greeted me with a tight hug and a slap on the back.

“Hey Dad, I’ve missed you,” I said while we were still embracing.

Pulling back to look at me, he smiled. I noticed that he had a few more age spots around his eyes than he did before I left. He was also thinner. His hands gripped my arms, and it almost felt as if he were trying to reassure himself that I was standing there, in one piece.

“Want a beer? I can go grab you one from the fridge,” he asked.

“Sure.”

He walked into the house and I took a seat on the brick flower planter that sat a few feet away from his chair. Glancing around the yard, I could tell that he probably spent most of his time outside. There was a tool shed in the back left corner that was shaped like a small barn house. He had a six foot wooden fence that went around the perimeter. The yard was immaculate, clearly his pride and joy.

When he came back out, he handed me my beer and took a seat. We both sat in silence as we drank and looked around the yard. I’m sure most would say that our reticence towards each other wasn’t normal of a father and a son that were seeing each other for the first time in a year. Never mind the fact that I spent that year in a dangerous war zone. But it’s what we did, and it’s how we worked now. I was close with my dad, but my mom was always the one who spoke for the both of us.