Page 38 of My First Time Fling

“God, it hurts,” Miller said as I started to pull him out, then stopped abruptly.

Shit. He was stuck on something. I could only shift his torso a few inches before he stopped moving. And for all I knew, trying to move him was making his injury worse. But leaving him in the vehicle wasn’t an option.

“Sir, you have to—”

“Shut up, Hernandez,” I growled.

I shifted my attention back to Miller. I just needed to try harder. Or get another angle. If I could come at him from underneath—

But before I could try anything, Hernandez was pulling me back again, ripping my arms away from Miller as he dragged me back from the truck. Miller’s eyes had finally focused on mine, just in time to see me moving away from him. He cried out, wordless, and I fought to get free of Hernandez’s grasp. Didn’t he understand that Miller needed our help?

That was my last thought before the air flashed bright, so bright that all color and even sound disappeared, and everything went still.

I sat up in bed, my heart pounding. I had to go back, I had to help them. I had todosomething.

But I couldn’t.

It was over. It had been since the moment I woke up in a hospital bed, recovering from the second explosion that took out our vehicle. The explosion that killed Miller, and Freeman, and Polakowski. The explosion that would have killed me, if Hernandez hadn’t pulled me back in time.

It was just another dream. A nightmare. The same fucking nightmare I couldn’t stop having, no matter how far I tried to put it behind me.

I looked around the room wildly, trying to make sense of what I saw. Where was I? I didn’t recognize the room, or the bed, or the walls, or the windows—but then I saw Jesse lying next to me, and it all came rushing back.

Where we were. The reason we’d come on this trip. And everything we’d done, just a few hours ago. I looked down at the sheets tangled around us and realized we’d fallen asleep without even getting dressed.

Jesse stirred in his sleep, and my eyes widened, my heart still racing. Had I woken him up? I wasn’t sure, but I thought I could remember myself shouting just a few seconds ago. I couldn’t tell if it had been real or in the dream.

Jesse’s eyes blinked open and shone in the pale moonlight. “Everything okay?”

I froze, my breath still coming in short gasps. Did he know? Had he heard me? Was he waiting for some kind of explanation?

Or maybe—maybe—was he just surfacing from a dream himself, and wondering why I was sitting up in bed?

“Yeah,” I said, praying it was the latter. “I’m just going to the bathroom. Go back to sleep.”

I leaned over and kissed him on the forehead lightly. Something in my stomach fluttered when I did that. I still wanted him, just as badly as I had before we’d hooked up. But what were the chances of him wanting me if he knew the truth?

Jesse smiled sleepily and rolled over. I exhaled slowly.Please, please let him forget about this by morning.

As gingerly as I could, I climbed out of bed and felt around on the floor for my boxers before fleeing to the bathroom. I pulled them on as soon as I got inside and closed the door. Then I turned on the light and slowly slid my back down the wall until I was sitting on the floor, silent sobs shaking my shoulders.

Fuck.

Fuck, fuck, fuck. This was what I’d been afraid would happen. What I’d known, somewhere deep down, was always going to happen, the second I let my guard down around Jesse. I’d let myself get sucked in, feel too comfortable. And I’d paid the price.

He was never going to want to date me now. I was a mess who couldn’t even sleep through the night without getting nightmares. Who wanted to date a guy who woke up screaming, who sobbed like a baby over something that had happened ages ago? A guy who had panic attacks without warning, who’d quit his job because he’d lost touch with reality at an office party. A guy who couldn’t even trust himself to drive anymore, in case he lost it while he was behind the wheel.

No self-respecting person would want to put up with me, and I certainly couldn’t ask that of Jesse. Not when he’d already spent most of his life caring for his mom. There was no way he’d want to be saddled with me after everything he’d been through.

It was just so unfair. I’d thought I was making progress. Therapy had been helping, slowly but surely. Or so it had seemed. I’d gone for weeks without a panic attack in the middle of the day. Even tonight, at the festival—I’d been nervous, but I hadn’t freaked out in the crowd.

But now it felt like all that work was coming undone. Like I was unravelling. Why did this have to happen now, of all times? Right when I’d finally found someone I felt comfortable with? Why was my own brain fighting against me?

I forced myself to run through my breathing exercises, one after another, until my heartbeat slowed and my inhales and exhales returned to normal. I glanced at the door to the bedroom, thinking of Jesse asleep on the other side.

I wanted to crawl back into bed with him and pretend none of this was happening. I wanted to pretend I was a normal person. But could I do that? Would I ever be normal with my stupid broken brain?

If I went back out there, I risked having another nightmare and waking him up again. But I couldn’t spend the rest of the night in here either. That would tell him that something was wrong for sure. And if there was one thing I knew for certain, it was that I couldn’t bear to tell Jesse what was wrong with me. I couldn’t handle him breaking up with me before we even got off the ground.

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