My psychologist says for me to let her go. To think back to where we first made a connection and cut it, but that’s impossible. Trust me, I’ve tried.
As I drive down the rows and rows of tombstones, I know right where I am headed. When you are going to visit your own grave, how can you get lost? The grass is green, so green, and the trees are tall and fully budded. I put my car in park and collect my crutches, then head out. I stop for a few moments and stand in the bright and warm sun, gathering the heat.
Then I know what I have to do and I will myself to move forward. With every step comes great trials, but this is something that I am doing for myself. I repeat that over and over in my head as many times as I can. Hoping the words will be my strength today.
Finally, kneeling at my grave, my name is clear as day. Nathaniel Jeffrey Wilcox.
It’s so strange to imagine that my friends and family laid me to rest here, when I was struggling to stay alive halfway across the world. If only they would have known that I’d survived, things now would be so different. Arion wouldn’t have fallen in love with someone else. She would have been fighting for my return home, just like I was.
Instead, fate had a different hand of cards laid out for me. Anything I’d ever dreamed of was washed away. My future was erased as if my past never existed. The person I once was vanished, and now here I sit at his grave, trying to make sense of how I ended up in this whole mess of what I call my life.
Today my emotions are replaced with anger. An anger so big and heavy that it scares the shit out of me.
I know any day the military will be removing my grave. It was a mistake in the first place to have it put here, when I am certainly not dead. But today something brought me here. I guess inside I wanted to say goodbye. Goodbye to the Nate I used to be. Goodbye to the memories, of him and the person he was. He is long gone and not coming back. Although this is an extremely hard pill to swallow, I have to do it.
Staring at the white headstone, reading my name over and over, I say a silent prayer. Leaving everything I ever knew in the past. I ask God for a sign that what I am doing is right and instantaneously a huge hawk flies over my head, squawking as he does. I look up to see his wings spread wide, a mixture of light and dark. I watch as he silently glides away and wish that could be me. I would give anything in the world to leave my life behind, to be free of my obsession with Arion.
“I’d like to schedule an appointment for a prosthetic.”
The woman on the other end of the line rambles on about the process. Then proceeds to tell me how busy they are.
“That’s three weeks away…you have got to be kidding me.”
I guess it’s sooner than not having an appointment at all. “Sure, that’ll work,” I respond.
We wrap up the call just as there is a knock at the door. I get up and answer it. To my surprise, my utter surprise, it’s one of my friends from boot camp. I’ve talked on the phone with him a few times, but he lives out of state, so to see him here shocks me.
“Nash?” I ask him, just to make sure my eyes aren’t deceiving me.
“It’s me. How the hell are you?” he asks.
“Uhhh, okay,” I say shrugging my shoulders and gesture him inside. He pats me on the back and I close the front door, walking back to the couch. “What brings you to town, man?”
“Actually, I just moved here with my girlfriend.”
“No shit. That’s awesome. How are things with her?”
“Good, really good. We’re getting serious. How about you?”
“I’ve been better. Things have been hard.”
“Did you end up talking to your girl?”
“Yeah, I saw her and we talked.”
“And…?” He looks me straight in the eye.
“Let’s just say she’s not my girl anymore. She’s really happy in the relationship she’s in.”
“Damn, that’s horrible, I’m sorry.”
“It is what it is. She’s not mine, I could sense it all along. I’m just praying that things will change. I’ll always love her.
“I’m sorry, bro. I know how much she meant to you. She’s all you used to talk about.”
“There’s nothing that I can do about it. Enough about me, I didn’t know your girl lived here,” I say changing the subject, in hopes that he won’t bring up Arion again.
“She didn’t used to, but her work recently transferred her here so I came along for the ride.”
“Ahhh, I see. Still not taking life seriously”
“Oh, I am. I’m going to open a gym; I just have to find the right space. Speaking of which, you should come with me and work out sometime.”
I can’t contain the laugh inside of me. I am in no shape to be in a gym. I couldn’t imagine the way that people would stare at me. “I think I’m probably the last person that you should ask to work out with.”
“Why?” he asks me point blank.
“Uhhhh, because of my leg. Plus, I’ve been lifting some dumbbells here and it’s been a struggle.”