Drive Me Sane (4 page)

“So what brings you two back? I thought you’d both moved on to bigger and better places.”

“Just here for a visit,” Tyler said.

Sera looked around, hoping the conversation passed right over her reasons for being home. She didn’t want to explain her early departure or the circumstances that led to her involuntary discharge from the army. It was still a situation she was struggling to accept herself.

“Get a seat, stay a while,” Merv said.

Tyler took a chair at the closest table; following behind, she sat on the opposite side, letting Merv claim an empty seat between them when he brought back three Cokes.

Just as quickly as they sat down, they began reminiscing about old times, and any awkwardness vanished when Sera began throwing out her own memories of the place.

She and Tyler had started hanging out at Merv’s when Tyler became serious about his music career at the age of seventeen and he talked Merv into letting him play a set one Saturday night. That one set became an every weekend event until Tyler realized that if his dreams were going to go anywhere, he needed to branch out and start playing gigs elsewhere. Soon he was traveling to surrounding towns, playing larger bars, making his way to the bigger cities and nightclubs, before heading to Nashville. Sera had never doubted he would make it big. She’d just assumed she’d be along for the ride when it happened.

When Maggie showed up a little after four, she brought a couple of girls from the bank with her. They all sat crowded at the tiny table, talking about old times. Eventually others gathered and before long, half the bar was listening to Tyler talk about his buoyant life on the road. When Maggie stood, saying she needed to get home, Sera looked at the clock and saw it was almost ten. She hadn’t realized they’d been there that long, and aside from one overly flirtatious girl who’d made eyes at Tyler the whole night, she’d had a good time. She noticed that even Tyler had smiled, laughed, and appeared more relaxed than she’d seen him the previous two days. It hit her then how much she'd missed his goofy smirk and how she still thrived from seeing him happy. Unfortunately the thought also made her wonder how many other women Tyler had charmed with his humble ways. Had there been anyone special that enjoyed looking at him as much as she did? Aside from listening to his music, she tried really hard not to think about the life he lived. A life that they were supposed to share. But it was hard to turn a blind eye to all those thoughts with him there. A dull ache formed in her belly as a vision of the blonde from his video flashed through her mind. For all she knew Tyler could have had many women.

“You ready?” he asked, as Maggie left the table.

“Yeah.” She swallowed, grabbing her purse.

The envy only worsened when they were back in his truck and she got her first good, long look at him. During the stolen glimpses of the last few days, she hadn’t been able to see past the ex-boyfriend part to be able to really appreciate everything he was. His raw features were eye catching. The stark contrast of his dark eyes against his pallid skin made it difficult not to want to dive into their depths. She’d gone there once. She knew how good it could be, but fear of what might happen if she went there again had her head ringing with warnings.

Lost in those thoughts, she didn’t realize Tyler had stopped the truck until it was too late. She hadn’t heard him announce the train was coming or tell her to get out so that they could stand by the side of the tracks to feel the rush of it passing—something they’d done countless times as teenagers. It wasn’t until her door opened and he was there tugging on her arm that any of it began to register.

The blow of the train whistle entered her body when she opened her mouth to beg him to leave. It stole her voice and threatened to suffocate her lungs as it traveled down her throat, then settled somewhere deep in her chest. The tightness was unbearable, as was the buzzing that vibrated every vein running through her limbs.

“Come on, Sera.”

He pulled on her hand and she quickly snapped it away. The pounding of the rails as the train flew by ricocheted through her head, drumming up a harsh pounding.

“Sera,” Tyler called again.

No, no, no!
she thought with a shake of her head. Her hands covered her face when the images flashed. Dizziness came as she started holding her breath. She closed her eyes, willing the demon away even as she told herself to breathe.
Breathe, dammit
! She couldn’t. The night sky faded into a miserably bright sunny day and suddenly she was back to a place she didn’t want to go. Then came the sound—
whoooo whoooo
—just before the loudest, most unpleasant horrid noise blasted all around.

“Sera. Sera,” Tyler yelled, shaking her wildly.

Her whole body shuddered. She cried out, “Oh God,” when an image of Rollins’s bloodstained face popped into her head.

“Sera. Dammit! What’s wrong?” Tyler screamed.

She shook her head from side to side, swallowing hard, letting the flow of air trickle down her throat. With her lungs full, the images began to fade, as did the inherent pounding of her chest.

“Sera,” Tyler yelled louder.

She opened her eyes, barely able to see through the tears flooding her face. Tyler’s hands were on both sides of her shoulders, shaking her roughly.

“Sera, dammit, talk to me.”

She opened her mouth, but only sobs came out. Her hands and feet trembled as wretchedly as her heart had been a few seconds before. She breathed heavily, trying to catch her breath, but another cry stole it. Finally, she looked up. Tyler’s eyes, thick with fear, bore back at her.

“Are you okay?” he asked.

Closing her eyes again, she couldn’t bear to look at him. No. No, she was not okay. She gave a nod of her head, saying she was anyhow.

“What the hell just happened?” he barked.

Another whimper escaped as she continued to wrangle in the uneven breaths. Then, looking away, she said, “Please take me home.”

The sound of the bedroom door opening had Sera quickly trying to muffle her sobs. She wiped at her face, trying to dry any lingering tears. Why she thought her fast bolt from the truck would save her from an explanation, she didn’t know. But then she hadn’t worried about a talk. All she wanted was to get away from the hollowed-out look Tyler kept giving her. As if he wasn’t sure if he should be concerned for her safety or his.

How crazy he must think she was, if something as ordinary as a passing train sent her into a fit. It had all happened so fast. She didn’t have time to prepare for her reaction and so she freaked out instead. Now on top of feeling the emotional toll the episode had taken, she was embarrassed too. A silly train. She couldn’t even watch or listen to the whistle of a silly damn train without losing it.

Another swipe of her face ensured that the flow had stopped, but she was thankful for the near darkness that hid what was surely her reddened face.

Feeling a give in the mattress, she looked up to see Tyler sitting on the opposite side of the bed, facing the wall with his elbows resting against his knees. His head bent down and his shoulders slumped forward. He looked as battered as she felt.

His voice sliced like a knife through the black silence, pushing all tension and anger aside, leaving only a genuine concern between them. “How bad is it?”

He knew. He knew without having to ask. But then of course he would. He was a smart enough man to figure it out. As much as she wanted to tell him to screw off, she couldn’t. This was Tyler. Not some nosy busybody interested in her life for no good reason. She recognized his sincerity as what it was: a true concern for her well-being. Quickly thinking about her answer, she searched for a blasé excuse to hand him, but expelled the truth when she opened her mouth. “Not nearly as bad as some.”

• • •

Tyler felt like a piece of him ripped away, as if nothing he thought true was right. Sera had come back from Afghanistan physically unwounded, but she was suffering in a way neither he nor could anyone else really understand. She hadn’t been acting quite right, but he hadn’t been able to put his finger on it and chalked her weird behavior up to seeing him. He was sure his presence wasn’t helping matters, but she was dealing with more than just the awkwardness of meeting up with an old flame. She had PTSD, post-traumatic stress disorder. He’d only imagined possible physical wounds, nothing else, because Sera had one of the most strong-willed minds he’d ever met. “Is that why you got out?”

Hoarsely, she answered, “Yes.”

“Was it voluntarily?”

“No.”

The fact that they were having this conversation was bad enough, but hearing the aridity in her voice and knowing Sera wasn’t the type to let anything get her down, stabbed his already tormented spirit. Running his hand through his hair, he fought the urge to grab her and hold her against him. He couldn’t stop thinking about how her mouth—a mouth that was normally so full and pretty—had twisted into a ring of awful terror. Nor could he forget the way her shoulders and arms had shaken as violently as the rails of the train tracks. He’d almost been afraid she might fold over into her sobs and fall out of the truck. He’d even imagined her body withering to the ground and wondered if he hadn’t been there to keep her in place what she might have done. The sound of her cries continued to echo in his ears.

Never in his life had he wanted to hold her so badly, yet the sheer look of being entirely somewhere else halted the need. He thought he’d heard Sera at her lowest before her deployment, when she’d called every other day on the verge of tears while lashing out. But that had been about him and her concerns for their relationship. It had nothing to do with a fear of carrying out what she’d enlisted to do.

Knowing he’d been quiet for far too long, he stretched out beside her flat on his back. She lay motionless with the covers pulled up high to her neck. He knew she’d lie like that all night without another word if he didn’t press for more. Yet he had no clue of what to say either. Finally gaining some ground on the flood of emotions filling his body, he asked, “Have you talked to anyone about it?”

“I have. It didn’t really help.”

“There’s medication they can give you.”

“I know all about the crazy pills.”

He wasn’t sure if her obvious offense to the medication annoyed him or filled him with relief to know she hadn’t changed as much as he thought. After dabbling with drugs in her early teen years before coming to live with Roy, she’d sworn off even drinking. It was one of the many things they had in common, because having an alcoholic father made him leery of the stuff as well.

At least now he knew that it wasn’t him keeping her up at night. Although he wished it was. He could put his guitar away and let her sleep. She couldn’t tell the nightmares or whatever else haunted her dreams to give her peace.

Not knowing what to say next, he turned over, facing her rigid body, and hated what his soft, lovable Sera had become: a hard, broken, and distant woman. The need to reach out and touch her became almost consuming, but he knew it wasn’t the time to act on selfish impulses. Balling his hands into fists so he wouldn’t do just that, he asked, “You want to talk about it?”

“Not really,” she said, and paused before speaking again. “I don’t want your pity, Tyler. I don’t need it. There are a lot more that come back with far more difficulties than what I’m dealing with. So please don’t look at me or treat me like I’m fragile or crazy. I’m not going to shoot up the town or go berserk. I know that’s what people think when they hear PTSD. It’s not like that.”

He almost laughed. Just when he thought the woman he used to know had all but disappeared, her spunky side came through. “You were crazy before you went into the army, so I don’t associate the two together.” Joking, he threw her a smile he knew she couldn’t see. However, when she turned toward him, even in the darkness, he sensed she wore one as well. “Talk to me, Sera.”

After a few moments she finally said, “It wasn’t all that bad. Mostly my time went fairly smoothly. Being away from all your friends and family is the worst part.”

A pain seared through his torso. She’d been lonely. Of course she had. Thousands of miles from home in a country full of people who didn’t want her there and the one person who’d promised to love her for the rest of her life had walked out merely weeks before she’d gone. It wasn’t exactly what he wanted to discuss. He hoped for more of a direct explanation of what happened, but as long as she talked, that was all that mattered. His conscience would just have to suffer through and deal with the guilt of his past actions later. “Did your mom not write?”

“She wrote. And your mom and Roy made sure I received something every week. I got so much stuff I had to start giving it away.”

More than once in those twelve months he’d thought about writing her. He had even typed out a couple of emails, but he could never bring himself to hit send. Her lack of response to the ending of their relationship had told him more than any words could. She was hurt beyond words and the thought of reaching out, only to be ignored again, would have been harder to bear than hearing her lash out. Thinking she just needed some time, he thought she would come around eventually, if for nothing more than to give him a piece of her mind. That hadn’t happened either. Not once since she returned from Afghanistan had she tried to contact him, nor had she acknowledged the tickets he’d sent her to his show in Austin shortly thereafter. He’d taken the chance of them both being in Texas to try to reach out. He didn’t know if she went and couldn’t blame her if she didn’t, but it was the last hope he had to try to get back the girl who had literally knocked him off his feet. A small laugh escaped with the memory of her first day of school in Cobb City.

“What?” she asked, clearly seeing he thought something was funny.

“I was thinking about your first day of school here.”

Not one bit happy about coming to live with her kidless uncle, whose wife had died and lived in the middle of nowhere, Sera was a hellcat on wheels. Her first month there was nothing but battle after battle. Roy had rules to follow and chores he expected her to do, which weren’t things she handled very well since structure had never been a part of her life. Roy also didn’t let her get by with much, not even when her sharp temper flared and she pushed Tyler after he bumped into her while playing volleyball in the gym. There was no major squabble. Caught off guard, he stumbled backwards to the floor. They stared at each other sternly until she walked away, but when he got home that afternoon, Roy brought her over to apologize. Apparently one of the other kids had gone home and told their parents all about the new unruly girl at their small town school, who in turn took it upon themselves to call and let Roy know just what a handful he had taken on. Sera later told Tyler that having to apologize to his mother for acting like a five-year-old was the first time she could remember being truly embarrassed about something she’d done. She also said how surprised she’d been when he was waiting at her locker the next morning. From then on, they were practically inseparable.