My Broken Soldier (Love Conquers Life Book 2) (6 page)

“Look at me.” I look up at him. “What do you say?”

I nod and look back down. I know he’s right. I need to be determined that I won’t hurt her again instead of worrying about doing it.

“Okay, I’ll talk to him tomorrow.”

My father walks back in the room with a bag of stuff.

“Hey, you’re awake.” He places a thermos of soup and crackers down on my table and says, “I also brought you the journal you were asking for as well as your cell phone. You have a text.”

I look at my phone and freeze when I see it’s from Patty.

Patty: I know you’re probably sleeping right now, but I wanted to tell you that I’m thinking about you. I won’t give up on us that easy. You can push me away now, but when you’re better I’ll be there.

She’s amazing, and now every time I get frustrated or want to give up I can look at this and know she’s not giving up on me. She is everything to me. I will fight this thing for her, if not for myself. I’m going to send her a quick message later letting her know that I’m fighting the fight and that I’ll be in touch as soon as I can.

“Thanks for bringing me my journal and phone, Dad.” I open the top to my soup. “Oh, this smells awesome.”

“Eat it slow, son. I don’t want you getting sick again.”

“How’s Mom doing?” I notice that I haven’t seen her here.

“She’s doing okay. She’s worried about you, but she wanted to give you a little space. She’ll be by tomorrow.”

I nod. “Tell her I said thank you, please.”

“Sure, son.”

“Listen, now that your dad is back I’m going to go home to get some sleep. I need to go to the office in the morning and then I’ll be back in the afternoon to see how your appointment went.”

“Thanks, Derek.”

“No problem, kid. Get some rest, huh,” he says as he walks out the door.

My father takes Derek’s seat. “How did your appointment go?”

“I was a jerk. I don’t mean to be, it’s just hard. Derek made me see that I need to work on this, and I promised him that I would talk to the doctor tomorrow.” I take a bite of soup. “This is really good, Dad.”

“Your mother made it.”

“I have two amazing women in my life. I need to fight this so I can apologize to both of them,” I tell my father as I put crackers in my soup. “Look what Patty sent me.” I show him the text, and he smiles.

“So what are you going to do?” He asks while I’m devouring the amazing soup my mom made me.

“Get myself better and then beg for forgiveness.”

My father laughs. I start laughing too, causing some of the soup to dribble down my face, but I quickly stop. I look up into his eyes and say, “I’m sorry. I should have come to you sooner.” I want him to see the sincerity, because I wholeheartedly mean it.

“We all make mistakes, but you need to deal with it and make it right.”

“I will. Please give me some time, and I promise I will.”

“Well, now that I can tell your mother that I saw you eat and this thermos is empty, I’m going home. You need to get some rest. We’ll both see you tomorrow.”

“All right. See you tomorrow.”

“Good night, son.”

“Good night, Dad.”

He takes the thermos with him as he walks out the door. I pick up my journal and my cell phone. First, I send Patty a text.

Carter: I’m working on it and will be in touch soon. Thanks for not giving up
.

Then I start writing in my journal, and I don’t stop until my eyes are heavy and I know I’ll be able to fall asleep.

Chapter 6

Carter

Today is my second full day in the hospital. I got here Tuesday evening and don’t remember a damn thing. I have no doubt that counselor guy from yesterday will be back, and he’ll want to talk more. I was just served breakfast, if that’s what you call it. Eating makes me miss Patty even more because I think about her cooking and how delicious her food is.

I pull out my book and write a note to Patty. I plan on giving her all of these at some point. I want her to know what I went through and that I was fighting for us.

As I finish writing my page to Patty, in walks my doctor. “Good morning, Mr. Montgomery. How are you feeling today?”

“I’m feeling a little better. I managed to eat some of my breakfast, but my stomach doesn’t feel too good now.”

He nods. “That could either be because our food isn’t all that good or because your stomach is still recovering from the large amounts of alcohol you put in it.”

“I bet it’s a little of both,” my mother says as she walks into the room.

My smile grows because I’m truly happy to see her. I feel bad for what I put her through. I need to apologize to her.

The doctor laughs and says, “I bet you’re right. I’ll be in to check on you later. I want to see how you do keeping food down. Hopefully tomorrow we can move on to heavier foods.”

“Thanks, doc.”

He leaves the room, and my mom takes a seat beside my bed. “Mom, I’m sorry. I know I let you down, and I feel so bad.” I look down, struggling to face her.

“Well, you should feel bad. Derek’s phone call to us was like getting the phone call from overseas that you’d been injured. We were worried about you.”

“I can’t even imagine. I feel like when I first started drinking it was so I could forget what happened with Patty and to forget the nightmares. When I saw you and dad at the house, I drank more because I was embarrassed. I felt bad that I hadn’t come to you about the nightmares or went to Derek for help.”

“You shouldn’t be embarrassed by what you’ve gone through, but how you dealt with it was not good. I can’t say that I understand what you’re going through and I won’t pretend I do. I’ve never seen the things you have and I’ve never dealt with the nightmares that you’re dealing with. That being said, you could have come to us and told us you needed help. I thought we were closer than that. I’m not upset so much by the binge you went on, but rather that you didn’t tell us you were having problems.”

“I’d been having nightmares for a while, but I told Patty about them and they stopped. It’s like I was stressing over her knowing and the stress was causing them, but when I got it off my chest it went away. I had promised her if they came back, I would get help.”

“Let me guess. When she ran out on you, they came back.”

I look out the window because now I feel like I’m talking to the doctor again. To be honest, I’m not sure if they came back because of the alcohol or the stress of her leaving me.

“Look at me, Carter.” I turn my head to look at her because there’s no way I’ll disrespect my mother. “What brought them back?”

I shrug. “I don’t know. I drank so much from the night she ran out on me until you guys got to the house. A lot of things are a blur.” She nods as she sits there, listening to me talk.

I yawn, and she says, “Get some rest. I’m not going anywhere. I’ll be here when you wake up. I brought you some snacks, and we’ll have them in a little bit.”

“Thanks, Mom.”

I close my eyes. In a matter of minutes, I’m out again.

***

I sit up in bed again, panting, but this nightmare was different. This time, my nightmare had nothing to do with overseas, which is weird. It was all Patty. For the first time since that Saturday night, when she left me standing in that foyer, I’m replaying the night in my nightmares.

“Are you ready to talk?” Dr. Cardoza asks me.

“Jesus, what is it with you and Derek creeping up on me?” I roll my eyes and shake my head as he pulls his chair up alongside my bed. “I guess I’m ready. But first, I’d like to know how you’re going to make these go away.”

“You have to talk about them,” he says like it’s a simple thing.

“That’s it, just talk about them?” I say, ready to call bullshit on him.

“Well, that and figure out what triggers them. It’s different for everyone. For some people, alcohol triggers them and for others, it’s stress and certain situations. From my experience, if we can get you to understand why you’re having them, they should stop.”

“I need them to, Doctor Cardoza. I’m tired of waking up freaking out, not knowing what’s real or in my head.”

“What are the nightmares about? Are they all the same?”

“No. Typically, in my nightmares, I’m back in the desert and I’m losing Brody all over again, or they’re of some close call missions I led, but lately they’ve been different.”

“Okay. Well, why do you think you have the nightmares of losing Brody?”

I look at him like he’s crazy. How the hell would I know? I stop to think about it and go through that day in my head all over again. It was a day we weren’t prepared for. We were caught off guard. We were attacked on our way to a mission and never made it there. I look up, and I can see him watching me as I have this internal debate.

I sigh. “Probably because I wish I could have saved him. Brody and I had served together from the beginning, and he died while lying in my arms on the ground. His last thoughts were of our men and making sure we got home safe. He died, and I got shot in the knee. I’m lucky they were able to save my leg.” I can’t even look him in the eye. I stare down at the white hospital blankets as I remember more details from that day. It’s like it’s a movie screen and I can see it playing out in front of me.

Calmly, he says, “Tell me about the day Brody died in as much detail as you can remember.”

When I look up I can see sincerity and pain from all he’s witnessed in his eyes, and that’s when I know he’s been in my shoes. He knows this isn’t going to be easy.

Looking back down at the bed, I begin the story.

“We thought it was going to be a day like any other. We had a mission. It was a security inspection, and we set out in the early morning. We knew the roads were tough. We were worried about roadside bombs, not an ambush. As we were approaching a hill, our convoy came to a screeching halt. Brody was
lead car and I was in the third and final car. I remember Brody’s voice over the radio. He told me that we had trouble, and I asked him to talk to me. He didn’t have to say another word after that. We were surrounded by guys running up on us. We all grabbed our weapons and started picking them off one at a time. We took out quite a few of their men, but we were sitting ducks. We had no cover except for our vehicles. When Brody jumped from his car, the drivers all started to form a wall with the cars, hoping to help us, but as soon as he was out, he was hit. I saw him go down and screamed for a medic as I ran to his side, but I collapsed. I hadn’t even realized I had been hit until after Brody was gone. That’s when I noticed the medic working on my leg. While they were working on me, an air strike had been called in. A chopper flew overhead, picking off the remainder of their guys. It was too late. Brody was gone.”

I look up at him, and for the first time I cry. “He was my boy, and now he’s gone.” I wipe my tears as I look out the window.

“Don’t be ashamed of the tears, Carter. You lost someone you care about, and you watched him die. It’s a horrible thing. I need to ask you something, though. Did you neglect Brody in any way that day? Did you tell him to jump out of the vehicle when he did?

“No.”

“Did you shoot him?”

“Fuck no.”

“Then stop blaming yourself for his death. You didn’t do anything wrong, and there was nothing you could have done to prevent it. It was his time, and as tragic as it was, there is nothing you could have done differently to prevent it.”

“Is that supposed to make it easier?”

“Nope, nothing makes it easier. Hopefully, when you’re ready, you’ll hear what I said and stop blaming yourself. You care about the people around you, but you can’t save everyone. You’re only one person.” He stands up and hands me my journal. “Maybe do some writing. Think about what I said today, and we’ll talk more again tomorrow. I want to hear how the nightmares have changed.”

I nod and open my journal as he walks out the door. As I’m writing, I realize that I’m feeling a little better now that I’ve told someone about that day. My line has always been that I didn’t want to relive that, or that I don’t want to right now, but I don’t have that option anymore.

***

It’s been two days since the good doctor has been here, but I’ve been told he’s coming today. I have my journal ready, and today we’re going to talk about my nightmares that involve Patty.

Last night was the first night that I slept through and didn’t wake with a nightmare. I’ve had visitors, including my big boss, Tobey. He runs the Veterans Affairs offices for the entire state. This dude is huge and scares the shit out of me.

In a joking tone, he says to me, “Kid, if you don’t get out of this hospital, I’m going to kick your ass myself.”

I chuckle and tell him I’m working on it. My parents happen to walk in as he’s getting ready to leave.

“Listen,” he says. “A lot of us have been in your shoes. Get better so you can get back to work helping the other soldiers who are suffering like you.”

He turns to my parents and says, “Good day.” Then he walks out the door.

My mom hands me a bagel with cream cheese and a coffee. “Thanks, Mom. You’re the best.” I wink at her as I take a bite.

My father puts his hand on my shoulder. “Well, you’re in a much better mood today.”

“I slept really well last night, and Dr. Cardoza is supposed to be here today so I can have another round of clearing my head with him.”

“That’s great, son. Have you heard from Patty anymore?”

I shake my head. “I don’t blame her. I’m sure she’s at the lake house burying herself in work. Part of me wants to text her, but I really want to be in a good place when I do.”

“Don’t stress over it. She told you she’ll be waiting when you’re better, so wait until you are.”

Dr. Cardoza walks into my room. He greets me with a warm smile. “Well, well, you look a lot better since I last saw you.”

“That’s because I got some sleep last night.”

He nods. “Good to hear, and how are you doing with food? I see you have a bagel today.”

“Yeah, I’m doing pretty well. I kept all my food down yesterday. I still have a bit of a stomach ache, but the doctor said that should go away in time.”

My dad says, “Come on, Mia. Let’s let him have his session, and we can come back tonight with dinner for him.”

“Thanks, Mom and Dad.”

He winks at me as he takes my mom’s hand and walks her out the door.

“Sorry I couldn’t make it in sooner. I had some emergencies to deal with, but if I recall we left off at your nightmares changing.”

“Yeah, they went from being about Brody to rescue missions. In the mission, I was told I was going to rescue some civilians, but when I got there I found Patty. Sometimes she’s held by terrorists and sometimes by Ben. What really threw me, though, was the last nightmare. It was about the night she left me at the fundraiser, the night that triggered all of this.”

“Okay. Tell me about the night she left you.”

I go into all the details of that night. I fill him in on who Ben is and how we don’t trust him. I also fill him in on the situation with her mother. I don’t know what she has against me, but she really doesn’t want us together and I know she set this up. Why else would she be laughing as her daughter walked out, devastated?

“So, what triggered the nightmare?” The doctor asks with a grin.

“I knew you were going to ask that, so I started thinking about it yesterday. I think it’s because I love her and I miss her. I screwed up how I handled the situation, and I’m beating myself up for it. I already wrote to her about it in my journal.”

“Great. Now you need a plan to fix it.”

“I need you to let me out of here before I can do that.”

He laughs. “Nice try, but you’re not quite there yet. How did you feel after our last session?”

“At first I was embarrassed because I broke down over the loss of my friend, but then I realized that you were right and it wasn’t fair for me to put so much pressure on myself. I started to write again, and by the time I was done, I felt good.”

“Good. So what does that tell you?”

I shrug. “When I’m struggling with something, write it out.”

“Sure. It seems to work for you, and if that doesn’t help, call me.”

“Great. When can I get out of here?”