Touching Scars(39)

I needed to stop and breathe. This was more than I’d ever said to anybody before. Not even the damn therapists the Army sends you to after being through what I had to help you debrief and decompress. I had told them what they wanted to hear. I’d kept my words mechanical and unemotional. After so long, they gave up on me and signed me off as fit to be discharged. With Kat’s hand rubbing soothing circles on my back, I knew that she wouldn’t judge me. She was listening to me, not spouting off medical terms and suggesting medicine to help me cope or sleep. I continued.

“One day, two weeks before we were supposed to be coming home, we went out on a patrol. Everything about it was routine. We’d skimmed the parameter of the western side of Fallujah and then were headed back to base. But then something had caught my eye. We’d seen things over the course of a few months, some things that had raised red flags. We hadn’t stopped to check it out because we’d been trained that if it didn’t involve us directly, then leave well enough alone. However, it was something that we’d discussed as a squad that if we saw this particular thing happen again, we’d check it out.” Kat had paused her rubbing but started it back up again when I’d stopped talking. “When we’d halted the vehicle, everything seemed to happen so quickly I could barely process it all. What I do know is that when I said I would have protected my brothers at all costs… well, they meant it too. I lost them all that day. I was the only survivor out of my squad and another squad that had accompanied us.”

“Oh my god, Timber I’m so sorry,” she said, I could hear the tears in her voice, but I didn’t want to see them right now. I was feeling too raw.

“There’s nothing to be sorry for. None of us saw it coming, and I should have never told the boys what I’d seen.”

“What did you see?”

I shook my head no. “Huh-uh… I can’t Kat, not right now.”

I looked up at the digital clock that sat on top of my TV. It was almost five and I told her it was time for her to go to work. As she stood, she pulled me up too. When her small little arms wrapped around my middle and hugged me tight, I could have swore I felt a little bit of my pain ease out of me. This small person was holding on to me like she was trying to hold me together. It was one of the kindest gestures she could have given me. I stood there in her arms, my own arms resting on her shoulders, my cheek lying on her head, and I was in awe of her. She wasn’t scared of me, and she didn’t judge me. How on earth did I find this diamond in a world that was so harsh and dark?





IN THE PAST THREE WEEKS, somehow Timber and I had found a comfortable routine with each other. I’d come to the realization that he was going to be in my life for however long he lived here, and I needed to stop being such a cold bitch to him. After he’d told me his story about his fallen comrades, I couldn’t help but open my heart to him. I had to let him in and be a part of my life and not be so guarded. There was no other way for me to describe how I felt around him but… safe. He made me feel completely protected, and not in the same sense that I felt safe around Beaver or my uncle, but in the sense that he understood me. If I needed to be left alone, he left me alone but was never too far. If I needed to feel secure, he would wrap his arms around me and make me feel like I was whole and not just a piece. If I needed a friend he would sit and listen when I would talk about things that had bubbled to the surface. Somehow, someway, Timber had whittled himself into my life and made himself a fixture that I could rely on. The only flaw in our semi-perfect relationship was that we both had secrets we wouldn’t share. I’d kept very quiet about what I went through with Adam. I somehow knew that if Timber found out, he’d put that all on himself and I didn’t want him to shoulder my guilt. Unfortunately, something happened a few days ago and I was certain that he had a pretty good idea what had happened to me.



“So what are your plans tonight?” I asked Timber while he walked me to the bar. I’d been coming over to his place almost every day to hang out.

He reached over and ruffled my hair. “Seriously, Kat? What have I been doing every night for the past few weeks?”

I hid my grin from him. “Okay, point taken. I guess I just don’t understand why you think you need to stick around the bar all night. Beaver is there standing guard. Besides, nothing is going to happen to me.”

He stopped walking and pulled me to a stop beside him. “You know why.”

Actually, I didn’t. He never talked to me about personal stuff. He simply took over a certain bar stool every night, all night, and he hung out with me most days when he was off work. I had accepted it, but never questioned it. Maybe it was time for me to start asking questions. “No, Timber, I don’t know why. We don’t ever talk about much of anything that’s not superficial. But I’m asking now… why are you with me all the time?”