She was unique and angry, and that was compelling to me. I wondered if she'd give me a blow job in return for the joint I had stashed in my cargo pocket.
On second thought, she was so angry looking I was afraid she might bite my dick off and I couldn't afford to lose anymore body parts. When the IED exploded under our Humvee, most of the blast got absorbed by the undercarriage of the vehicle. It was ripped and torn steel that cut into my leg, shattered the bones, and took two fingers from my right hand. My tender nuts and dick didn't get a scratch-not that they were doing me much good. My left side was untouched except for a small fragment of debris that caught me on the chin.
"So, let's go around the room and introduce ourselves to each other," Mags said, and I pulled away from the death-glare match I had going on with Goth Chick. "Who would like to start?"
There was utter silence, a few fidgeting moves from everyone, and then Sexy Eyes raised her hand slightly with a small smile. "I will."
"Very brave, Jillian," Mags praised with a beaming smile.
Jillian? Hmmm. Pretty name for a pretty girl. I bet she would not, however, give me a blow job for a joint. She definitely looked too sweet and innocent for that.
"So … um," Jillian stumbled while pushing her hair behind an ear with one hand. "I'm Jillian Martel. I'm here for depression. I've been diagnosed with Kearns-Sayre Syndrome."
Another tuck of her hair back on the opposite side and a brave smile.
"It affects me in a bunch of different ways. I'm going progressively blind. Right now, I have no peripheral vision and things are a bit blurry sometimes … like my vision is streaked with dirt, but that comes and goes."
She paused a moment and let her gaze circle around the room, briefly touching on each of us with a warm and friendly smile before she continued. "Um … because it's a neuromuscular disorder, the muscles in my eyes are paralyzed. It's hard for me to open them all the way, which makes it even more difficult to see."
Huh? So those weren't intentional bedroom eyes, which made more sense. Her overall sweet and demure look should have told me she wasn't "that type of girl". And I could finally see her eyes were blue.
Jillian gave a dismissive wave of her hand and looked back to Mags. "There's some other stuff that goes with this disease. Muscle weakness. Cardiomyopathy. But I'm sure everyone would be bored by it."
Fuck yeah, we'd be bored by it.
I gave an exaggerated mock yawn, which was loud and made it clear I found her story boring. It caused her face to lift slowly until she was looking directly at me. I could tell it was an effort for her to do that small move. Her gaze was impassive, but from what little I'd observed about her in the past twenty seconds, I knew that was because she didn't have any muscle control over her eyes. She couldn't tell me with her eyelids and eyebrows what I saw deep in her irises as they turned to the color of dark denim.
I'd hurt her feelings. Or maybe even pissed her off.
Boo-hoo.
"Well, thank you, Jillian," Mags said to break the awkward silence. When my eyes cut over to her, she gave me a disapproving look. I lifted my right hand, raised my middle finger, and rubbed at the corner of my eye with it while I looked at Mags innocently.
She gave a knowing look right back to me. It said, "I've seen your kind. A dime a dozen. Yeah, you're a badass, but I'll chew you up and spit you out, boy."
I knew at that point not to underestimate that little old lady.
Mags turned away from me, and her gaze swept the group. "Maybe I should take a moment before we continue with introductions to explain why the group dynamic is important. I'll facilitate conversations, and you should all feel free to jump in when you feel like it."
I looked back over at Jillian. She was politely watching Mags, but I could tell her anger at me was completely gone. I was an asshole to her, completely dismissive of her issues, and yet she sat there listening to Mags with a sweet smile on her face and even a bit of eagerness to belong to this group.
God, she was fucking weird and I narrowed my eyes at her.
Regardless of her tragic tale of disease and disability, my gut instinct said she didn't belong in this group. It was for people with "issues" but, more specifically, for people who had a hard time dealing with their "issues." She didn't seem all that upset by her impending blindness and cardio-whatever-the-fuck-she-said-she-had. The emotions vibrating off each person in attendance were tangible, ranging from the most heavy-hearted melancholy to bitter hatred of life.
But not Sexy Eyes.
She seemed to radiate an inner joy that felt completely out of place in this room.
Yeah … she was fucking weird.
Chapter 4
Present day …
When I drove the front passenger tire over the IED and it exploded, I didn't feel pain at first.
I remember being aware of screaming, and smoke, and more explosions in the distance that shook the ground, but the sounds were muffled because the detonation caused temporary acoustic trauma to my ears. I looked to the passenger seat where Jelonek had been sitting just ten seconds prior, prattling on about his wife who was due to deliver their first baby any day now. It made me think about Maria, and I wondered how fast she wanted to have kids once we got married. Soon, I had hoped.
One minute, Jelonek had been sitting beside me, chattering away. The next, the passenger seat was gone.
The entire passenger side of the Humvee was gone.
Jelonek just … gone.
There was nothing left of him or our conversation except a fine mist of blood that seemed to hang heavy in the air around me. My first involuntary breath in, I sucked the remains of Jelonek into my lungs, tasting the coppery fluid from within and immediately expelling him out in a nasty, hacking cough.
I gagged once … twice … then a spray of vomit hit the steering wheel in front of me, which I vaguely noticed was twisted from the force of the explosion.
Then I felt the pain.
Twelve months in Afghanistan, safely driving my anti-tank, missile-ladened Humvee.
One unfortunate turn where my front tire rolled right over an IED.
Twenty-four hours in a military field hospital to get me stabilized.
Thirty-six hours at Landsthul Regional Medical Center in Germany to prep me for a medical flight to the States.
Thirteen long months at the new Walter Reed National Military Medical Center in Bethesda where doctors spent three months trying to save my mangled leg as it oozed with puss and infection. It was held together by the thin spokes of an external fixator that looked like a giant cage, as if they were afraid my leg would just up and run away from me.
That was the worst three months of my life, and I was actually relieved when they cut that rotting thing off me. It was one of the few times I'd felt happy since the explosion.
Not sure I've felt it since.
I take a deep drag off my cigarette as I lean my elbow on the open window ledge of my Suburban. It's only two years old, has low mileage, and is loaded with nice features. It was one of the first things I bought when I got out of rehab with the money the government handed me along with my discharge papers. The only modification I made to it was having a left-foot accelerator pedal added to it, but that wasn't a permanent device. It merely attached to the right pedal with a bar, so when I pushed on the left gas pedal, it also depressed the right pedal, causing the vehicle to speed up. I could take it off easily if someone with a living right leg wanted to drive my car.
Not that I was going to let anyone drive my car.
It was my vehicle, paid for free and clear, so I smoked in it and made no apologies. But when Jillian made delicate coughing noises but stubbornly refused to roll her window down, I'd conceded and lowered mine. Now her face is turned away, looking out as we travel east on I-64, just a few miles from the campground we're staying at outside of Louisville, Kentucky.
Craning my neck side to side, I hear the bones crack and roll my shoulders to loosen the stiffness. I've driven a little over nine hours total today, and I'm a bit sore. I take another drag off my cigarette, which is down to the filter. With a practiced flick, I shoot it out the window and it arcs away from the Suburban with a trail of embers sparkling in its wake. I roll the window up, mentally telling myself not to call Connor Dead Kid by mistake, and repeat the mantra a few times so it sticks. It's not that I'm afraid of hurting his feelings, but because when I nodded my head at Jillian back in the convenience store a few hours ago, I was making a promise.
And while I'm a man of my word, I'm not promising another damn thing to anyone in this group on this descent into hell trip. I'll do my duty and then I'm done.
Out.
Finished.
This grand adventure lame-ass road trip is purely voluntary, unlike the group counseling. That was non-negotiable, or so the court said, and if I refused to attend the therapy, then I could simply go to jail. But the trip is part of group therapy, and Mags bargained with me to go. She promised I wouldn't have to attend the other group sessions if I went, and that she'd proclaim to the court I had completed their requirements. So I'd weighed a week in a car where no one would try to make me talk against six more weeks of forced therapy.
Seemed like a decent trade-off at the time. It still feels like a good deal because there's no way I'll ever get suckered into letting these people into my life. I have enough crappy shit to deal with without taking on other people's burdens.