Off Limits

chapter 18



Nix



I call first thing Monday morning and luckily, I am able to get an appointment with Dr. Antoniak for the following day due to a cancellation she had. I fire off a text to Emily that I will be gone out of state for a few days and just to come in to work on Wednesday.

My text doesn't say anything else and I actually struggled for a few minutes over whether I should say more. Part of me wanted to ask how the rest of her weekend went, and how she was doing, and was she thinking of me the same way I was thinking of her. Then I scoffed at myself and put my phone back in my pocket.

Any such actions on my part will give Emily the wrong idea. It will push whatever this is between us into a different realm. I decide I'm going to treat Emily the way I would have treated someone like Lyla, for example.

I ask myself, Would I have asked Lyla how her weekend went?

The answer is easy. No, I would not.

Therefore, I will not ask Emily.

And it doesn't matter at all that I actually want to know what she did all day Sunday. I never gave a rat's ass what Lyla did once she left my bedroom, but I do think a lot about what Emily is doing.

It's just another source of tension I'll need to deal with, thus making the trip to see Dr. Antoniak even more relevant.

The better part of Monday is spent working on some sketches of a custom metal arbor I've been commissioned to make. Then I pack an overnight bag and Harley and I hit the open road around mid-afternoon.

It takes us about three and a half hours to make the drive from Hoboken to Bethesda and my timing is nothing short of impeccable. I arrive right in the middle of rush hour traffic.

Finally, I pull into a hotel that is conveniently located near Walter Reed National Military Medical Center. Harley and I settle in for the night and I think about all of the things I need to talk about in the precious hour that I have with the good doctor.

***

The next morning, Harley and I head over to Walter Reed. I graciously pull through McDonald's first to get us each a sausage biscuit. We contentedly eat our breakfast in the parking lot, and when we are finished, I walk to the passenger door.

Harley always sits in the front seat when he rides with me. I clip his leash on and he hops out. I put him in a "sit" and then reach into my pack. I pull out his Service Dog vest and fasten it on him. The damn dog's chest actually puffs with pride when his uniform is on, I swear it.

Harley and I navigate the hallways until we make it to the Neuroscience Department. There was a day when I hated coming here...despised it beyond all measure. Now, it sort of feels like an old glove.

I haven't been to see Dr. Antoniak in a few months. I was officially released from her care over a year ago, but I've made trips back every so often.

It's not long before we are called in and we step into her office. She steps from behind her industrial, military issue desk and comes around to shake my hand.

"It's good to see you, Nix." She bends over and gives Harley a rub on his head. "And you too, Harley."

I take a seat opposite her desk. Her office is small and sterile which makes me feel oddly comforted. She takes her seat behind her desk, appraising me with interest and a slight fondness that has developed over our months of therapy. There was a time she would do that and I wanted to throttle her, so great was my anger in those days.

Dr. Antoniak is an interesting doctor. She's a diminutive woman with steel gray hair cut closed to her scalp. She has piercing blue eyes and when I say piercing, I mean they could cut through some of the thickest metal I work with. Her intelligence is a weapon and she will not let me get away with any misstep in what I say. The woman probably has reams of paper dedicated to our meetings and yet she never has to look back to reference our discussions. She can remember something I told her two years ago as it if happened only yesterday. She's been my neuropsychiatrist from the moment I returned from Afghanistan on a military medical flight.

"You look well, Nix. Hair's a little long."

I smirk at her. "That's what my dad says every time he sees me."

"So, what brings you in today?" Her voice is warm, completely at odds with her iron looks.

I shrug my shoulders. "Just like my dad has an opinion about my hair, he suggested it might be time for a tune-up with you."

Dr. Antoniak gives a bark of laughter. "A tune-up? I love it."

"Yeah, well, I wouldn't have come but he's been riding me about it."

"And you don't think you need any follow up treatment or counseling?"

I shrug my shoulders again. "Not really. I think I'm coping well."

"No headaches?"

"Nope."

"Rages?"

"Nope."

"Nightmares?"

I almost say "nope" but she'll know I'm lying. "A few times a month."

She jots that down on a notepad then pins me with her blue lasers. "Have you talked to Paul lately?"

Shit. I knew she'd go there but it still threw me. Thank God I just talked to him. I smile confidently when I reply, "Sure. Just last week."

She returns the smile. "That's wonderful. And you initiated the communication?"

F*ck.

She's too damned insightful and it pisses me off. But truth be told, this is the main reason I made the appointment with her.

"No. I returned his call."

"And how many times had he attempted to call you before you returned his call?"

"Several," I grit out.

"Why are you avoiding him, Nix?"

My anger flares white-hot. I reach for Harley's head and start rubbing it.

"Why are you so nosy?" I ask her.

"Come on, Nix. Quit f*cking around. You know we don't have long."

Dr. Antoniak's bluntness is one of the things I appreciate about her. She never would let me escape from the difficult conversations, and she's not about to let me do so now. It's part of the Exposure Therapy she had been torturing me with over the two years I've known her.

Might as well get this over with. She'll never let me leave here without answering the question so I take a deep breath. "He makes me feel uncomfortable."

"Why?" she asks simply and without judgment.

How do I say these words without sounding like the biggest a*shole, prick on the planet? "He acts too happy...too well-adjusted. It just makes me feel...bad."

"Do you doubt he's happy and well-adjusted?"

"Yes." The answer pops out before I can analyze it.

"Why?"

"Why? Well, because his legs were f*cking blown off. How's that for starters?"

"And why can't someone who lost their legs be happy and well-adjusted?"

Why indeed? Why, why, why?

But I know the answer to that too, and I don't need Dr. Antoniak to shrink me to know it either.

I sigh. "Because...what happened to me wasn't even a tenth of what he's gone through and I'm pretty f*cked up."

"Maybe the problem is you're diminishing what you've been through."

I kick my legs out in front of me so she sees them. "Nope. My legs are working just fine."

"But your legs weren't hurt, Nix," she says softly, bringing me back around to the real issue. "Your brain was hurt. Your chest was hurt. Your mental health was hurt."

I want to scream at her, So f*cking-what? But I don't. Because, if it's one thing she has taught me over the past two years was how to control my rage. Instead, I say, "And here we are back to the beginning. I'm pissed he's doing so well."

"Be honest, Nix. You're not just feeling anger..."

She trails off, waiting for me to finish her thought. I pick it up. "I'm feeling guilt. I know." My voice is heavy and resigned.

She picks up my file and flips through it, taking a few minutes to read something. I don't know who she thinks she's kidding, but she doesn't need to review anything in there. She knows me well.

"The last time we met...four months ago...you had agreed to go visit Paul. I'm assuming you haven't done that?"

"I've been busy."

It's a pathetic excuse. She knows it and I know it.

"We talked about this before, Nix, but let's go over it again. Your guilt is impeding your full recovery. You've made remarkable improvement since your injury. Your brain is fully functioning now and your cognitive therapy has worked wonders to help you deal with your rage issues. But you need to work on this guilt issue over Paul and his injuries. It's holding you back."

I just stare at the floor. I've heard this all before. Many times. I know she's right. Hell, I'll even walk out of here charged up and ready to go see Paul. But then time and doubt will get in the way, and I'll head back to a life of isolation to ease my burden.

"Nix," she says softly and I raise my eyes up to hers. "Guilt is a poison. It will slowly choke out everything you have worked so hard to overcome. And when it's destroyed all of that...it will keep on killing everything that's good in your life."

***

Harley and I are heading back to Hoboken. I'm lost in my thoughts and Harley is snoozing, curled up into a tight golden ball on the front seat next to me. I reach over and absently rub his hipbone.

Just three months from my enlistment with the Marine Corps ending, my squad and I had been injured in a blitz by the Taliban, normally called a “green on blue” attack. Paul lost his legs.

In some ways, his injuries were easy to treat in that they were palpable...physical...you could see them. The doctors could see the damaged blood vessels and nerves, and knew exactly what they had to do to heal him.

It wasn’t as easy for me. In addition to getting shot in the upper part of my chest, which was the least of my worries, I'd suffered a Traumatic Brain Injury. You couldn't see my injury on films. There was no gaping wound or missing body parts. Just millions of tiny pieces of tissue that were shredded and torn, causing me to turn into a monster.

My injury was complicated by an additional diagnosis of Post-Traumatic Stress Disorder. That's what Harley was for. The Veteran's Administration doesn't pay for psychiatric service dogs, but they are still a legitimate and necessary form of treatment under the American's with Disabilities Act. So after shelling out thousands of my own dollars to get Harley, he's allowed to go everywhere I go by virtue of his status as a service dog. I certainly don't take him everywhere with me, because I have made massive improvement, but I love being able to all the same.

Between the brain injury and the PTSD, the Nix Caldwell that returned to Hoboken, New Jersey was unrecognizable from the fresh faced kid that left when he was eighteen. I was angry, filled with wrath. The smallest thing would set me off and I'd want to smash something. Nightmares plagued my sleep every night. And if I wasn't raging, I was just plain mean, moody and irritable. Loud sounds would cause me to jump. People walking up behind me would cause me to panic.

After recovering from my chest wound, I started intensive cognitive and exposure therapy and I'll grudgingly admit, I've made major progress.

And while I'm able to control my temper in most every situation, I'm still a moody jackass most of the time. My nightmares have diminished a lot and I no longer feel the compulsion to kill someone for looking at me wrong.

Lots of progress.

But not enough apparently.

I ease back into remembering the last fifteen minutes of our session. I told Dr. Antoniak about Emily. It felt silly at first for me to bring her up, considering she seemed to be the one good thing I had going for me right now. But I'd be lying if I didn't say I wasn't very concerned over how she would play in my recovery.

Part of my therapy is confronting my trauma. Confronting trauma means talking about it. Emily is the only person I know of that has come even close to getting me to open up about anything. Frankly, I'm scared shitless that she'll continue to expose my demons.

I have to reiterate to myself that what Emily and I have is nothing more than a sexual relationship. However, I'm not stupid enough to ignore the fact that sex is an emotional activity...particularly for women.

When I see her again, I really, really need to set some boundaries with her and make sure she understands there are certain lines that cannot be crossed.