I reached urgently for my rifle, longing for the comforting weight of it, the fleeting peace of mind that comes with being armed, but my hands only found empty air. I was defenseless. Helpless.
It was too much.
I shot to my feet. Some distant part of me was aware of Grace talking behind me, her voice heavy with concern, but I didn't have space for that right now. My flight instincts had taken over. The people in our row recoiled as I shoved my way past, frightened by whatever horror they saw on my face. It was good that they did. I don't know what would have happened if there had been anyone in my way. At moments like that I'm not in control, my mind reverts to something animal. Someone may have wound up hurt. It had happened before.
As soon as I was in the open, I ran. I ran as though the memories were a physical thing, a snarling beast snapping at my heels. I ran until my muscles ached and my lungs burned. I needed that pain, those endorphins; they grounded me, brought me back to reality. I don't know how much time passed. I had no conscious direction, just an overpowering need to flee.
The streets grew emptier as the shops around me turned to tumbledown houses, then windswept scrubland. When I finally came to rest, I found myself at the edge of a nature reserve. Anthem Hills Park. I always gravitate toward the desert when shit hits the fan. It doesn't make much sense, since that's where most of my messed up stuff went down, but I feel at home there like no other place on Earth.
Footsteps rang out on the pavement behind me. I felt a surge of panic, but it was only Grace. Somehow she'd kept pace with me. She came to a halt a few meters away and doubled over to catch her breath.
"Jesus," she wheezed. She looked about ready to pass out. "You scared the hell out of me."
Even now, free from that place, images still ran amok in my head. Talking to Grace, that felt like the dream. She was hazy, faint, and the battlefield loomed vivid and terrible.
"I'm sorry," I said.
"Are you okay?"
I wanted to explain myself, but it was too soon. I was too on edge. "I need a few minutes."
I wandered a few feet out onto the hard earth and sat on a rock. After another few seconds of panting, she joined me. The view was spectacular: open space, red earth, mountains rising in the darkness, painted with moonlight. I sucked in a deep breath, as if I could draw that serenity into myself through the air.
Normally I enjoy the desert because of the solitude. I never brought anyone there. But Grace's presence wasn't an imposition. It felt...right, somehow. She didn't speak, seemingly content to let me take my time. I had no words for how much I appreciated that. With other women, this had been the time for questions, for screaming, sometimes for tears. And Grace had every right to lose it like that. I'd run off in the middle of a date without saying so much as a word. That's pretty much the fucking epitome of a faux pas. But instead of freaking out, she took it in stride.
Minutes passed and my anxiety gradually bled away. My mind cleared and my heart slowed.
"I get flashbacks," I said eventually.
"To Afghanistan?" she asked. She seemed hesitant, like she was afraid just the word was going to set me off again.
I nodded. "And I'm not talking about just regular old memories. These are something else entirely. They take over. It's hard to understand if you haven't experienced it. For a while then, I was back on the battlefield. The theater was gone. You were gone. There were bullets whizzing past my head. Mortars going off. My friends were dying three feet away. I could smell it, hear it."
"Jesus," she said, her hand finding my knee.
"Usually it's triggered by something simple. Some innocuous noise tweaks something in my brain and boom, I'm right back there."
"That sounds horrible."
"It is." I closed my eyes. "I hate that I can't control it. Even when you try and explain, people just look at you like you're crazy. They don't get it. A blown off leg? Shrapnel wounds? People can see those. They can touch them. Can understand them. Those wounds fit into a nice neat little box. But this shit? It scares people."
She studied me for several seconds. "It doesn't scare me."
"It should. It sure as hell scares me."
"Maybe, but it doesn't."
I searched her face for insincerity, but found none. Seriously, who the fuck was this girl? Not many people were strong enough to stare my issues in the face, but she did it without even blinking.
"Do you ever have those attacks in the ring?" she asked. "I imagine all that noise and movement would be a trigger."
"Under most circumstances, it would. I could never be in the audience of one of those things. But when I'm preparing to fight, I'm already in combat mode. I can see my enemy, and I know where the threat is. That focus keeps all the bad shit at bay."