Page 56 of To Save Him

 

 

 

Chapter Eighteen

 

BRANDON HAD GONE to bed early—to Gabriel’s room once more, the room we had talked about cleaning out together—and JR and Annabel were in bed by ten, so I pulled out my laptop, reserved for travel and bedtime writing when I was so inspired, and I did some research on PTSD.  Everything Brandon had mentioned about it made sense in light of what I was finding online, but I did begin to wonder if he should seek long-term counseling.

It was freaking me out a little—the fact that he’d fucked me in the shed and didn’t even seem to remember doing it, afraid instead that he’d hurt me.  The gist of what I was getting was that PTSD was caused by some sort of trauma—be it in combat or everyday life—but I hadn’t been able to do as much research as I would have liked when I heard a light rapping on my bedroom door.

It didn’t matter if it was JR or Brandon or even Annabel—my light was on, so it was obvious I was still awake.  “Yeah?”

“Can I come in for a minute?”

Oh…that almost broke my heart.  After the intimate acts Brandon and I had gone through together, that he felt the need to ask to come in “for a minute” made me sad for some reason.  “Yes.”  I slammed the lid of my laptop shut and turned so I could set it on the nightstand.

That young man was a dream, but he no longer looked like perfection to me.  Yes, his body was beautiful and I could still appreciate it, particularly because he was wearing nothing more than a pair of black sweatpants, but I now knew he was broken.  I was no longer arrogant enough to think I could help him heal, but that wouldn’t stop me from trying.  “Can I shut the door?”

For some reason, his words pierced me through the heart, making me wonder if he’d forgotteneverythingwe’d been through together over the past twenty-four hours.  My entire life—my mind, my heart—felt like it had been turned upside down, so for him to have no recollection of it…  “Of course.  What’s wrong, Brandon?”

He moved over to the bed and sat down.  “We didn’t get a chance to finish talking earlier.  I just wanted to make sure one last time…that I didn’t hurt you today out in the shed.”

I searched his eyes.  “Do you remember…making love out there?”

He raised his eyebrows.  “What?”

“Yes…we…”  I nodded, pursing my lips momentarily, because it sounded so strange to me.  “We had sex out there.”

For a few seconds, Brandon simply squinted his eyes and let the air out of his lungs.  “Why the hell can’t I remember that?”

I shook my head.  “When you were in the hospital, did they explain to you how PTSD works?”

“I really don’t remember a lot of it, Kimberly.  I mostly remember the last month or so when I was in there, when I was dying to get out.  It was…I felt like I was surrounded by crazy, you know.  Like I needed to get the hell out of there or risk getting worse instead of better.”

I sighed and reached up to touch his cheek.  Inside, I was feeling a little panic and had to reassure myself—or find out the ugly truth.  “Do you remember what happened between you and me…yesterday?  This morning?”

His eyes softened.  “Yeah.  Of course.  I’m only having trouble with what happened after—they call that a trigger.”

“Okay, I get that, but what did I even do to trigger you?  I didn’t jump or scream or yell or…”  I couldn’t even imagine what I’d done that would cause him to react the way he did.

“If I knew, I would tell you.  All I can remember…”  He took a deep breath.  This entire subject upset him, and I hadn’t realized how much until now.  “All I remember is talking about the mower and then rolling it into the shed.  Thensomething.”  He was grasping at straws but unable to hold onto anything.  He took a deep breath.  “And then this big blank space for…a while.  I don’t know how much I’ve blacked out but…  I was worried, because I know how Ifeltjust before that.”

He was concentrating on breathing, as if it was the most difficult thing he’d ever had to do.  “Howdidyou feel?”

“Uh…scared.  Tense.  In danger.”

I nodded and pulled him into an embrace.  “I want to help you, Brandon.  I know this can’t be easy for you.”

He mumbled against my collarbone.  “It’s probably harder for you.  I’ve been dealing with this for a while.  I just…thought I was handling it better since I left the hospital.”  I felt his warm arms wrap around my waist, pulling me closer.  “I guess I was fooling myself.”

“Not necessarily.  You’ve been here for weeks and this is the first I’ve known about it.”

“Yeah, I guess so.”  We were quiet for a bit and I just held him close until he let me go and looked at me.  “For a long time, I felt kind of—out of touch with everything, like unable to connect and…something aboutyou, something about your family.  You made mefeelagain.  You don’t know what that’s like, to go from feeling kind of numb and dead to partly feeling alive again.”  I wasn’t going to correct him.  True, I’d never suffered from PTSD before, but Ididknow what it was like to feel numb and dead.

On top of that, though, was his message.  “Wehelped you?”

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