Page 57 of Rock Bottom

That was impossible to do with him picking at the strings, but I tried. Adding an extra five pounds helped. It almost worked until he started to sing a slowed down, gender swapped version of “Take Me to Church”.

I lowered the weights and rolled my head to the side to glare at him. “Ha. Ha. Very creative. I’ve never heard that one before.”

“Aw, come on. What’s your problem with music, anyway?”

I sighed and put the weights down on the deck. Sunlight danced through the trees and a warm wind kissed my face. There were no walls out there, no bloody concrete floors. That place was millions of kilometers away in a world Dante could never understand. But he deserved to know.

I sank onto the steps leading down from the deck, staring out at the peaceful forest. “The prison I was held in…It was deathly quiet sixteen hours a day. Everyone was afraid to whisper because if you did, the guards would pull you out and beat you for it. But four hours a day, there was music. Not the good kind either. They’d play it so loud, it felt like an earthquake. It felt like it was rattling my bones, like I was going deaf. It was so awful that when the music ended and they took us out to torture us, it almost felt like a relief. At least we always knew that was coming. The music, though, it was random when they played it. Sometimes before, sometimes after, sometimes they’d start and stop it. Sometimes…” I choked on whatever I’d been about to say and hung my head.

Dante touched my shoulder, and I flinched. I hadn’t even heard him get up from his chair.

He slid down to sit beside me. “I’m sorry,” he said so sincerely it hurt.

I shook my head and stared at my hands. “It’s not your fault. You didn’t do it.”

“No, I mean, I’m sorry that happened to you. I wish it hadn’t. They took something beautiful and twisted it and that’s…It’s so wrong. Just hearing about it makes my heart hurt.”

I swallowed and said the same thing I always said when people said they were sorry for what I’d gone through. “Thank you.” The words came out numb, meaningless.

He could never know how bad it was, even if I tried to explain it to him. That wasn’t his fault, and it wasn’t right that he should have to suffer because of my inability to function.

“Maybe I’m overstepping here,” Dante said quietly, “but if music is a trigger for your PTSD, why would your boss give you this job? Is he that big of an asshole?”

“Who? Boone?” I snorted. “He can be an ass when it suits him, but not like that. He doesn’t know. It’s not usually an issue.”

“But you knew it might be when he gave you this job. I mean, you knew I was a musician, didn’t you?”

I didn’t have an answer for him. Or rather, he wouldn’t like the answer I did have. “I thought I could handle it,” I mumbled. “It’s been years. I’ve been in therapy. I thought…I thought I was better than this. Apparently, I was wrong. Maybe I’ll never get better.”

“I know that feeling.” He let his head fall against my shoulder and we sat in silence for a long time, listening to the forest sing until he turned his head to look up at me. “Do the birds bother you?”

I shook my head. “No. Crickets, birds, nature sounds are all fine. And sometimes soft music is okay, but it never stays soft. It always gets louder or has percussion and I can’t…I can’t do that.”

Dante pressed his lips into a thin line and studied me intensely before jumping up. “I have an idea.”

“Dante…” I tried to pull him back down. “I’ve already tried everything. If my therapist couldn’t help me…”

“Please let me try? I promise we’ll stop if it gets to be too much.”

I relented with a sigh and let go of his hand, but only because I knew he wouldn’t let it go until I proved him wrong.

Dante grinned and bounced up and down before kissing the top of my head. “Stay here. I’ll be right back.”

He ran off, and I winced at the sound of him stomping through the house like a whole herd of elephants. This was going to be bad. The man didn’t know the meaning of the word quiet. He came back a few minutes later with a pair of socks. I watched as he folded the socks around the guitar strings.

“I don’t think that will help,” I said as he picked up the guitar a second time.

“Give it a chance,” he said and put his fingers back on the strings.

I braced myself for the same visceral reaction I always had whenever he started to play, but this time, when he strummed the strings, it was barely there. The sound was much different, softer and muffled in a new way.

He gave me a hopeful look after playing just one note. “Better?”

“Keep playing,” I whispered, dumbfounded that something as simple as a pair of socks could make such a difference.

Dante smiled and shifted the guitar before playing a series of familiar notes, but I didn’t recognize Neil Young’s “Heart of Gold” until he started singing.

My throat tightened. Music. I was listening to music, and it didn’t feel like nails clawing at the inside of my head. When I closed my eyes, I didn’t feel like the walls were closing in. For the first time since I’d been back, I felt the shadow of something like joy.

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