8 Mile & Rion (23 page)

“I don’t need your god damned help!”

“Why can’t we drive to your home and get your truck? What are your nightmares about? You don’t talk about your past or anything personal. I just want to know you, Loyal.”

“Knock it off,” he warns me.

“Tell me why. Why don’t you want me to know these things?” I beg him. “What are you hiding from me?”

Taking four massive steps, I can feel him breathing down on me. His anger was a physical thing surrounding me. Only I didn’t fully comprehend it because I was still buzzed and highly emotional. “Shut it down,” he orders me, but I don’t. I opt for looking up at him and adding yet another nail to the coffin instead.

“If you want to be a part of my life, you need to trust me enough to tell me the truth. I deserve the truth. I won’t settle for less when you keep offering me shit while I’m giving you everything I’ve got!”

My next breath had me pinned to the wall with his forearm in my throat. His breath was hot in my face and his expression morphed into a man I didn’t know. “I fucking hate you, Jill.”

All I heard was Jill and in that moment I knew any hope I had for him loving me was a fool’s dream. Digging my nails into his forearm wasn’t working. Kicking him wasn’t either. Loyal was a wall of strength and hate. Now my vision was starting to go black and I wasn’t strong enough to break free. All I could feel was his anger while he looked at me with pure hatred but saw someone else.

The enemy.

Jill.

Then there was a grunt, followed by my body crashing to the floor. With my hands at my throat, I cough fighting for air. It’s then that sound registers and I see that Rio has Loyal in a choke hold. “Go!” Rio yells to me. Frozen in place, I watch as awareness slowly comes back to Loyal. When he sees me on the ground holding my throat the aggression leaves him and remorse sets in. He doesn’t fight Rio as he drags him from the room either. Once they’re both out in the hall I can hear Rio yelling, but can’t make out the words. On shaky legs, I peer outside the door to see Loyal bleeding from his temple and Rio with a knife in his hand.

Fighting the urge to go to him despite what had just happened, Rio blocks my path preventing me from going anywhere. Locking eyes with me, Loyal says nothing. Silently begging him to stay, I reach my hand out toward him but he doesn’t come to me. Instead, he turns and walks away. Scared and numb, Rio ushers me back inside, locks me in and doesn’t speak to me either.

My solution to all of this?

Vodka.

‘It's a sad man, my friend, who's livin' in his own skin and can't stand the company.’

~Bruce Springsteen

For three weeks I’ve been here at the VA hospital committing myself to intensive therapy and treatment. That night in Rion’s apartment haunts me. It was also a wakeup call that I needed professional help. I wasn’t diagnosed with PTSD which was the box my previous doctor tried sticking me in. After days of constant evaluation, I was instead diagnosed with Post-Deployment Syndrome.

My case may not be as extreme as some, but the years of seeing death and the worst of humanity took a toll on me. Whether or not my final op was the one that put me over the edge, we’ll never know, but saving what was left of that little girl fucked me up in a big way. Losing my dad, raising my brother and watching my mom kill herself with alcohol set the stage. Unfortunately, my unhealthy relationship with Jill didn’t help either. Then I signed myself up for years more of it by taking lives in the hopes of saving some.

When I came here, I was angry.

Fuck, I was angry about everything and I always had been. Each day though, my therapist teaches me the tools I’ll need to survive on the outside. Sharing with her not only what I’d spent years doing to Jill who I thought deserved it, but recently to Rion who didn’t, had me vomiting in the bathroom after each session.

Placing blame and hating yourself is easy. Admitting you need help ain’t. Being a solider wasn’t easy either but it made sense to me. I was good at it. I told myself I was doing something good. Maybe I was, but the effect it was having on me long term was not. Even as a kid I wasn’t what you would call happy. My upbringing was strict, then one day it wasn’t and I never coped with it. Bouncing from house to house wasn’t good for me, but I was a foster kid and nobody gave a shit. The Marine’s gave me the discipline I needed, the outlet I needed and the tools I needed to be good at my job. When I was no longer useful to them, they cut me loose and my spiral continued. I came here hoping to make it stop. To make it all stop so I could start over.

This morning my therapist quoted Ajhan Chah, she said;

There are two kinds of suffering: the suffering that you run away from,

which follows you everywhere, and the suffering that you are willing to

turn and face and thereby find liberation.

All these years I told myself I’d be a Marine forever. When I no longer was, I had no warning and no way to prepare, which also made me angry. Coming home to find Jill like I did, made me angrier. Not because I loved her, but because she was one more thing that I didn’t have control over. Meeting Rion and not being able to be the man she deserved made me angriest of all. I perceived all these things as a betrayal and acted out.

As much as I wanted to talk to her, it was the memory of her reaching for me after I nearly choked her to death that stops me. The staff put my cell phone in a locker for when I left because my focus had to be on healing while I was here. The first few days were the worst. I wanted to kill the people keeping me from my phone and from her. Then after that first week, I was allowed a call. Each evening at seven p.m. even though I wanted to hear her voice, I called Rio instead.

He asks me how I’m doing, I tell him about my progress. He asks me if I need anything, I tell him no. He asks me if I’m coming back, I tell him that I don’t know. He never mentions her and I don’t ask. The thought of her choosing him is an indescribable pain I’m unable to cope with. But I told myself if she did, I needed to respect that and move on.

Giving myself one more week before I sign out, I take to heart every session. I use the tools and I take the meds. Today I started group therapy where I listened as husbands admitted to hurting their wives, ignoring their children, losing their jobs and even attempting suicide.

We signed up thinking we were invincible only to find out that we weren’t. One of the guys in my group, Big John, told me he broke his wife’s wrist when she asked him to do dishes. He doesn’t know why that set him off and that he didn’t remember doing it, but seeing her hurt nearly killed him. He also said, she didn’t leave him even though he begged her to. She told him that when he came home the war ended for him, but started for her. She loved him enough to stay and help him fight. He loved her enough to let her, but he knew he needed help first.

A lot of the guys here have nightmares about the things they’ve seen and done. My nightmares are about what I did to the woman who loves me, a woman who only wanted to help me. A woman who fought for me when no one else would and I nearly killed her.

Even if it was just to say thank you and goodbye, I had to see her one last time.

She needed to hear that I was sorry for what I’ve done.

Letting Rion go would be the hardest mission I’ve ever carried out.

‘You asked me why I never remarried. The day she died my heart was torn into two pieces. One piece was buried and the other belongs to you.’

~Senior

For each step forward, I take two steps back. For nearly a month he’s been gone. I’ve sent him text messages, left him voicemails and he’s never responded. Last night after a long talk with my friend Lina, she told me she still had no leads on his brother. Honor Hart simply did not exist. She also said that if I was what Loyal truly wanted, nothing could keep him from me. Looking in my mirror this morning, I wiped the tears away and decided it was time to let him go. Despite my hoping for it, he wasn’t coming back for me. Lina was right, I wasn’t what he truly wanted.

I can’t say I didn’t try. Even in his absence, I went to a therapist hoping to understand what he was going through. In the event he came back, I would have the tools to help both of us succeed. The things I learned kept me awake at night. Knowing he was out there alone, without help was killing me. I wasn’t sold on Loyal having PTSD, Senior told me all the time you’re gone you can’t wait to get back home. Then you do get home and nothing made sense to you.

Senior also said, you don’t just leave war behind. He said that it followed you always, it changes you. You don’t just blend back in after something like that and to me it seemed unfair he was expected to. Loyal rescued hostages. I can’t imagine what something like that took from a man. My hope was that one day Loyal would be happy, that he would meet a woman who would bring out the best in him. It was in there too, I just knew it was going to take the right woman to do it. It broke my heart that it wasn’t going to be me.

My relationship with Rio at this point is undefined. The night Loyal left, I had assumed he would come back, apologize and we would make sure it didn’t happen again. I told Rio that whether Loyal and I worked out or not, that I wasn’t in love with him like he thought he was with me. I also knew I never would be. When he persisted, I explained further that he was either going to be in my life or he wasn’t. After Loyal left, Rio only stuck around to make sure I was safe, nothing more. Rio didn’t want to be near me anymore, our friendship had fractured and it was tearing me apart.

No letters have come, no attempts have been made and as of this morning, I relieved him of babysitting duty. I couldn’t handle his constant badgering on why we’d be a good fit and then get pissed when he couldn’t change my mind. He wasn’t listening and I’d had enough and told him so. He didn’t like it. In fact, not only did he let me have it, he said if I didn’t choose him, he wasn’t coming back.

He left and I haven’t heard from him since.

Tonight, I decided to take Tank and Shayla up on their offer to go dancing before they left town for a quick vacation. If I didn’t, I knew I’d be a drunk mess wearing a snuggie by midnight petting a dog I didn’t have. I also decided that if Loyal and Rio could leave me so easily, I might as well take my happiness where I can find it.

Even if I was in a night club when I did it.

Tomorrow.

I could get a handle on my shit, tomorrow.

Or you know, never.

‘The past has no power over the present moment.’

~Eckhart Tolle

Having four more days to go, today’s session couldn’t have been better timing. It was about forgiving others, but mostly about forgiving yourself. I realized I blamed my father for dying because that started a chain of events I had no control over. I hated my mother for being weak. I hated my brother for not having to endure the bullshit I did. Mopping up her puke, feeding them both and then watching as some stranger from the state separated me from my only brother after she died.