Page 54 of To Save Him

I’d half expected Brandon to come inside while I was preparing dinner, but he didn’t.  When everything was ready to eat, I walked upstairs and gently rapped on JR’s door.  “Yeah?”

“You ready for dinner?”

“Yeah, but come here a sec.”  I opened his door and walked inside.  “Look how much I got done so far.”

I moved over to where he sat at his desk, his laptop open, no fewer than five tabs active on his browser.  It looked like he’d written at least a page.  “So what’s your topic?”

JR looked up at me, grinning.  “How games can help people learn more about classic stories.”

“Like?”

“Okay, so like…you make a game calledHuckleberry Finn, right?  And you’re playing the game and what’s happening is what happened in the book.  You know…like how some games, no matter what you do, there are certain things that happen during the game play.  Same with something like this.  So we could play a game aboutJulius CaesarorTreasure Islandwithout even realizing we’d read the whole stinkin’ book.  Rad, huh?”

“Very rad, JR.  How long before you think you’ll be done with your project?”

“I’m almost done.  Mr. Ryan says I usually have weak conclusions, so he asked me to try really hard to make this one solid.  So I have to do that and then I’ll be done.”  I was reading over his shoulder and I could see, through what he’d written, just how important this project was to my son.  It was a great reminder of how being interested could help someone excel.

“Great.  Well, why don’t you go wash up, son?”

“Be right there.”

I walked back downstairs to the kitchen and began setting the table.  That was when Brandon came in from the backyard.  He looked dazed.  I was getting ready to ask him if he was okay when he approached me.  His voice was quiet when he asked, “Did I hurt you?”

“What do you mean?”

“In the shed.  Did I…hit you or…?”

“Hit me?  No.”

He blinked several times before repeating his first question.  “Did I hurt you?”

“Why do you keep asking me that, Brandon?”

I could hear something—fear, disbelief, maybe panic—in his voice.  “Because I don’t remember what happened.”

And, just like a tense movie, that was when JR came into the kitchen, ensuring that Brandon and I would have to resume this conversation later—no matter how important the answers were.  I could see in Brandon’s eyes that, even in his strange state, he too knew that.  And so we put on happy faces as we joined my son for dinner.

I managed to keep the conversation light by asking JR more questions about his blogging project.  It was the first time in a long time that I could remember JR being excited about an English class, and the need to keep him distracted was the perfect opportunity to also bond with him.  Brandon was quiet, eating slowly, and withdrawn.  It was one of the most bizarre transformations I’d ever witnessed.  If anyone had asked me that evening during dinner if I knew who Brandon Abbott was, I would have told them this young man at my table was not him.  The Brandon I knew was, yes, a little beaten down by life, but generally optimistic and outgoing.  This man in my kitchen now was introverted, with waves of negativity washing off him.

I was so grateful JR wasn’t picking up on it.

By the time JR was ready to head back up to his room, Brandon had finished half of the one chili dog on his plate.  JR said, “Hey, man, you wanna play a game when I’m done with my homework?”

Fortunately, Brandon hadn’t completely shut down.  He even made eye contact with my son.  “Sure.”

After I heard JR heading up the steps, I asked, “What’s going on, Brandon?  Talk to me.”

He looked at me, eyes wide.  He sighed as I took in his visage, still shocked at his seeming transformation.  Something serious was going on here.  “I don’t think I told you before…but I have PTSD.”

“What?”

“Post-traumatic stress disorder.”

I blinked.  “I know what itis.  I just didn’t know…  When?  How?”  Oh, God, I was probably adding to it.  I would have blamed it on his time in the service, except he and Gabriel hadn’t been involved in any sort of conflict.

He shook his head and looked down at the edge of his plate.  “I don’t even remember lots of the last half of my second round of active duty in the Marines.  We’d signed up to be part of a special study and…I can’t even remember what all happened.  I just…know that’s when it started.  They kind of confirmed that during my year in the hospital.”

Year?  Had I heard that right?  “Why were you in there so long?”

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