Touching Scars (15 page)

I heard the shower water turn off about ten minutes after she went in. She came walking out in a pair of black jogging shorts that showed her gorgeous legs and a gray ribbed tank top. Kat’s hair was still wet and the light that was coming through the living room windows gleamed off her red streaks, making them look more vibrant.

“Do you have a brush I could use?” she asked.

“I have a comb. Will that work?”

Kat nodded her head and I passed by her on the way to the bathroom. She followed behind me. I reached into the medicine cabinet, handed her my black comb and stepped out of the way. She began brushing out her long locks, little droplets flinging off the tips of her wet hair. I desperately wanted to reach out and take the comb from her hand and do the job myself, but I kept my distance. Instead, I asked her a question.

“Did you take last night off?”

She looked at me through the mirror and nodded her head.

“Was Ed okay with that?”

“Yes. I never ask for time off, so he was more than happy to give it to me.”

“Did he ask you why?” I wondered.

“No, he knows that if I wanted to talk to him about it, I would.”

Now it was my turn to nod. I continued to stand there and watch her until she was done brushing out all of the knots. “What time do you have to be at work tonight?”

She turned around and faced me, leaning back against the sink. “I don’t have to be in until five.”

I needed her to feel relaxed. “I have an idea. How about we go rent some movies and veg on the couch until you have to go.” I leaned over and poked her ribs. She attempted to step out of my reach, but giggled. “Come on, it’ll be fun.”

She smiled at me. “Alright.”

We’d made a quick run to Port O’Conner’s version of a Blockbuster, which in actuality was a gas station with a small selection of movies. Turned out Kat was a bit of a romantic. She chose an old Molly Ringwald movie, and
Water For Elephants
. I had raised my eyebrow at her when she approached me with her two selections.

She said, “What? You said I get to pick, and this is what I choose. Deal with it.”

“Always so sassy,” I laughed.

I’d grabbed a few snacks for us too since I had no idea what she’d bought at the store. We drove back to my place and I went in and started putting the first disc in. Kat closed the curtains, making the room fairly dark. When we were ready, I settled into my usual spot in the corner of the couch. Kat came over and snuggled into my side, laying her head on my chest. I hadn’t expected her to cuddle up to me, but you wouldn’t hear me complaining. Resting my hand on the curve of her hip, we sat back and watched the movie in silence. Two hours later, the credits started rolling and Kat leaned up on her arm.

“Did you like it?”

“Well, I thought it was awesome that the elephant was a murderer in the end. Who knew that the trunk is such a powerful weapon. Well… come to think of it, my trunk is pretty strong.” I waggled my eyebrows at her. She slapped my chest and laughed.

“You’re ridiculous,” she said.

Standing up and stretching my arms above my head, I looked down at her and caught her staring at the exposed skin of my stomach where my shirt had ridden up. If I didn’t know any better I’d have thought she looked like a starving woman, the way her eyes were transfixed on me. I was going to go put in another movie, but the way that she was watching me was causing me to get a little heated myself so I changed direction and headed into the kitchen for some ice water. When my pants got a little looser, I went back into the living room, only to see her standing up and looking at the few pictures I had sitting on the built in shelves.

I walked up behind her. Without turning around, she asked, “Do you miss her?”

Reaching around her and picking up the photo of me and my mom, I answered her. “Every day,” I stated simply. “She was someone to look up to. There wasn’t a day that went by that I didn’t know that my mom had my back. Did you know that when I was eight years old, my mom had gotten a phone call from Mr. Beck, who owned the Penny Candy Store, and he said that he had seen me shoving a bunch of candy into my pockets? Mom hung up the phone with him and came to me to ask me what had happened. I lied, of course, and told her that I paid for that candy and Mr. Beck was being mean because he didn’t like me or my friends coming in his store.” I laughed at the memory. “Mom turned right back around and marched to the phone and called Mr. Beck and told him that he could shove it.” I chuckled a bit more. “Mom never cussed, so hearing her say ‘shove it’ was pretty epic.”

Kat laughed. “Sounds like she loved you very much.”

Looking down at the photo of us, my mom’s arms wrapped around my shoulders while she stood behind me, kissing my cheek, I said, “Yeah… she did.” I gently placed the photo back on the shelf.

“Timber?”

“Yeah?” I said quietly.

“I think we need to talk about last night.”

I nodded even though she couldn’t see me. Turning and walking back over to the couch, I sat down and leaned forward. “What do you want to know? I can’t promise I’ll tell you everything, but I suppose you deserve to know some things.”

She came over and sat a few inches away from me. “H-how long were you over there? You know… in Iraq?”

Her stuttering made me look over at her. Those hazel eyes looked like they were staring into the depths of my soul, and again I felt like I could talk without it crushing me. Taking a deep breath I said, “Two tours. Three years total.”

“Was it hard?”

“Some days. Other days, no.”

 “Were you like this after your first tour?”

“I suppose not, no. There were certain aspects that I struggled with. But I’m sure we all struggle in some way when we come back. We have to re-adjust to life, just like our families had to adjust to having us back home.”

“What happened this last time then that made you… you know?” She bit her lip after she asked.

 I blew out a heavy breath. “I’m not sure that’s something that I can answer completely right now.” Still, needing her to know some of it, I went on. “I worked every day with the same group of guys. We ate together, slept in the same room together, drilled together, and patrolled together. Basically anything we could do together besides pissing and shitting together, we did. It obviously was easy for all of us to get close. They became my brothers. Since I had been an only child, I figured that was what having a brother must have been like. There wasn’t anything I wouldn’t have done for them.” Swallowing, her eyes moved to my Adam’s apple. “I would have even died for them. If there was gunfire or bombs going off, I would have thrown myself in front of them without a second thought.”

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?

I
N
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?”

He reached up and ran his hand through his hair, tugging at the ends, the way he usually did when he was frustrated. “I don’t really have a reason, Kat. I just enjoy being around you.”

 His eyes were moving all over my face as if they were searching for something. The air between us changed from light and carefree to thick and heavy, with what I could only pinpoint as heat in this already too warm Texas air. Timber took a step towards me, and I took a step back. My movement caused him to raise an eyebrow at me. He moved again and I did the same. A few more steps and my back touched a cool brick wall. I hadn’t noticed before but we had somehow maneuvered ourselves into an alley between the pharmacy and the pizza shop that was surprisingly quiet for a Friday evening.