Page 70 of Holding Out

“Whoa, you okay, man?”

Someone was shaking him gently.An older guy with an unkempt beard and an orange Home Depot apron pushing one of those store carts around.

“I dropped a load of PVC pipe,” the guy said.“It hit the ground with a clatter, and you swung around and aimed that thing at me.At first, I thought it was a gun.You scared theshitout of me.I almost called for security backup.We coulda both gotten shot.”

The guy was breathing hard, Griff realized.

“And then you were just standing there.Staring.”

Slowly, the world rearranged itself and began to make sense.

He’d been back there, the night of the surprise attack.Again.

“I’m—I’m okay,” he said.

The Home Depot guy didn’t look convinced.“Do you need me to call anyone?”

“No.I’m fine.It happens, sometimes.”

The attendant was still staring at him with concern in his kind brown eyes.

“I’m okay,” Griff said again.He took a breath.Tried it on for size.“I get these episodes.PTSD.Army.”

The guy’s eyes softened even more.“Yeah.My nephew has that.Marines.”

The thing of it was, Griff had been trying for days to find the words to tell Jake about his episodes.

He’d thought of about ten different ways to start, but in the end, he hadn’t been able to get the words out.Anywords.

And then he’d gone and told a stranger.

That was ten kinds of fucked up and also made some weird-ass sense.

“Thanks for your service, man,” the Home Depot guy said.

“Thanks for checking on me.I’ll be fine now.”

The guy nodded and went back to his own business.

“Hey.”

Griff turned to find CJ standing behind him.

“You hear that?”Griff asked.He knew he was pale, his face damp with sweat; he tried his best to control the shaking that always followed an episode, but he could see from the way CJ’s eyes carefully avoided his hands that he’d failed.

CJ nodded.

They stared at each other for a minute.Then CJ shrugged.“You said it.We all have our shit.”He dumped a bunch of short two-by-fours in Griff’s cart.“I should probably get my own cart, huh?Meet you up front in a few?”

Griff finished his shopping—still shaking, damn it—and met CJ at checkout.They paid, then loaded the contents of the cart into the back of the truck.Griff could feel CJ’s eyes on him as he tried his best to steady himself.“You okay to drive?”CJ asked him.

Griff was a hair’s breadth away from snapping back at him,Of course I’m fucking okay to drive, but stopped himself just as he was opening his mouth.

Huh.

He’d just had an idea.

“Not sure,” he said, hamming it up a little.“Feeling pretty shaky.And, um, disoriented.A little—” What was that word Jake used a bunch in group?“Dissociated.”It was when you lost touch with reality.Definitely not compatible with safe driving.Way worse than sweaty and shaking, or at least Griff hoped CJ would think so.

---