Jase winced, knowing what was coming.
“To make matters worse,” Carey continued, “his cell phone was dead. He was out of communication in unfamiliar territory and he flashed back to Afghanistan.”
“So he went into survival mode and when he finally got back home he didn’t see his wife, he saw someone who had given him bad intel and put him in what he perceived to be great danger,” Jase finished.
“Exactly. His wife ended up calling the police on him because of how he reacted, and he’s devastated that he scared her so badly. Neither she nor their kids want to see him right now.”
Jase could totally picture it, how the man’s situational awareness had turned into fear the more lost he became, and how, in order to try and control the fear, anger had taken over. For a soldier in a war zone that anger could be a lifesaving asset; at home with innocent civilians, not so much.
“I’m going to meet him for breakfast in the morning, Jase. Maybe you’d like to come, just to talk to him? I think it would help him to hear things from someone other than just me.”
“Of course,” Jase replied, leaning over Carey and kissing him softly. “If you think I can help, I’ll be there.”
Carey lifted his arms and linked them around Jase’s neck. “I do think that. I’m so proud of how far you’ve come in your own recovery, Jase. But this guy needs to hear that it’s okay for a warrior to ask for help, that it’s okay to rely on therapy and even medication if a professional thinks it’s necessary.”
Jase thought of his own pill bottles in the bathroom cabinet. With his doctor’s blessing he’d started weaning himself off the antianxiety meds, and he was using the cognitive behavioral therapy that he’d been taught in counseling to help with anxious thoughts when they cropped up. When a panic attack did happen, he found that using his yoga breathing right from the start would sometimes reduce the severity. There were times, though, when the only thing that helped him get through it was taking that pill.
Things had definitely improved. Having Carey a reassuring weight next to him in bed every night was reducing the frequency of his nightmares, even if they weren’t completely gone. The last time he’d had one it had been particularly bad, and Jase had lain trembling in Carey’s arms afterward, his hoarse sobs unashamedly filling the room.
“Shhh,” Carey had soothed, rocking him. “I’m here, Jase.”
Eventually Jase had calmed, and Carey brushed his fingers down Jase’s cheek tenderly. “You know, the price of letting me so deeply into your heart is that all the poison you had compartmentalized and locked away in here”—he placed his palm on Jase’s chest—“is being allowed to seep out.”
“It’s not seeping out,” Jase had rasped, “it’s fucking gushing.”
“But maybe that means it’s almost purged, then, my love,” Carey had whispered. “You’re going to be okay, Jase. It always has to get worse before it gets better.”
Now Jase kissed Carey softly. “I’ll help that guy in any way I can,” he assured him. Carey smiled, then pushed Jase gently away so that he could go get ready for bed. Jase settled back against the pillows to wait for him, his arms crossed behind his head as he reflected on the past year.
Their friends had been nothing but supportive of them. The recording label had been skeptical at first of the idea of their newest addition having an openly bisexual lead singer, but Jase refused to hide his relationship with Carey in any way. The label had had to concede defeat after a series of successful concerts when Jase brought Carey on at the end to proclaim his boyfriend had moved to California to be with him and made him the happiest man in the world. The fans had gone wild, even more so when Carey grabbed Jase and kissed him passionately right there on the stage.
Obstacles had been faced head-on and overcome, and Jase was as emotionally and mentally healthy as he’d been in years. Everything he and Carey had gone through, separately and together, had brought them to this point, and Jase knew with a fierce certainty that it had all been worth it.
As Carey came back to the bed and settled in Jase’s arms, Jase’s thoughts turned toward the future. He’d been thinking about asking Carey to marry him, for the two of them to show the world they had made it through the worst and come out the other side. Jase would ask Carey to spend the rest of his life with him when the time was right, but Carey had already made Jase the most important promise of all—the promise to take things one day at a time.
Day by precious day.