Page 61 of Breaking Through

Mike's pencil stopped moving. The silence stretched until I found my voice. "Sometimes the edges find us. Even here."

"Yeah." Martinez's laugh held no humor. "Like how I can't sleep without checking the perimeter three times, but I can't explain to my kid why daddy has to count all the windows."

Wilson's charcoal made angry black marks on her paper. "Or why certain sounds make you hit the deck in the middle of Walmart."

"Or why—" Peters stopped, staring at her hands. "Why you can't handle confined spaces anymore. Why you need to see exits."

I pulled out more of my sketches and laid them on the center table. Years of therapy distilled into graphite and shadow—Chicago's flames, Blue Harbor's steadying pines, and finally, Holden emerging from morning mist with his camera.

"Start anywhere." My voice was steadier now. "There's no wrong way to tell your story."

Martinez picked up a pencil, testing its weight like an unfamiliar weapon. "I don't know what to draw."

"Draw what keeps you up at night." Mike spoke without looking up. "Draw what makes you check the windows. Draw why you're here."

The sound of pencils and charcoal on paper filled the room. No one spoke, but the silence felt different now—pregnant with possibility rather than threat. I moved between them, watching stories emerge in other hands.

Wilson's charcoal created explosive patterns, shrapnel frozen in flight. Peters drew doorways, endless doorways, some opening into light and others into darkness. Martinez's lines were precise and mathematical as if he were trying to create safety through geometry.

"I can't get this right." Peters' voice cracked as she crumpled another paper. "It's all wrong."

"Show me." I pulled a chair up beside her, remembering my first therapy sessions. "What are you trying to capture?"

"The door." Her hands shook. "The one I couldn't—that we couldn't—" She stopped, breathing hard.

"Here." I laid a fresh sheet before her. "Start with just one line. Not the whole door. Just the edge that matters most."

Peters drew a single vertical line, dark and heavy. "That's where it jammed. Where Martinez—" She swallowed hard. "Not your Martinez. Our Martinez. She was right there, and the door—"

"Keep going." My voice stayed level while my hands itched to take the pencil and show her how art could carry the weight of memory without breaking. "Show me what happened next."

She added another line, then another. The door took shape beneath her fingers, not just its physical form but its emotional weight. Other veterans drifted closer, drawn by the story emerging on her paper.

"I know that door," Wilson whispered. Her charcoal sketch lay abandoned, all sharp angles and explosive force. "Not the same one, but—"

"Yeah." Peters' pencil moved faster now. "They're all that door, aren't they? Every stuck handle, every moment we couldn't—"

Martinez—this Martinez, not the one lost behind Peters' door—reached for fresh paper. "In the mountains, it was a cave entrance. Local intel said insurgents were using it for weapons storage." His lines were still precise, but now they appeared to vibrate, even throb. "We were so focused on what might be inside, we didn't check—"

"The high ground." Mike finished the comment. "There's always high ground."

I watched their stories spill onto paper, each one different but connected by threads of understanding. They drew their doors, their caves, their moments of before and after. Some addedcolor; others stayed with stark graphite lines. Wilson's charcoal explosions became something else—a record of survival rather than destruction.

"Show them yours." Mike's voice cut through my observation. "The warehouse."

My throat closed. The other veterans looked up, pencils pausing.

"I don't—"

"Yes, you do." Mike's eyes held mine. "You've been carrying it since Chicago. Maybe it's time to drop it and let us all see."

My hands trembled as I pulled out the sketch I'd sworn would never see daylight. The paper was soft from years of folding and unfolding, the lines almost grey from age. I'd drawn it the night after the warehouse fire, sitting in a hospital corridor while doctors worked on my burns.

"The support beams were already compromised." The words scraped my throat. "We didn't know—couldn't have known—but I've replayed it a thousand times. Looking for the moment, I should have seen..."

Peters touched the corner of my sketch. "The moment that would have changed everything."

"Yeah."

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