When I’d calmed enough to go home, a place that was no longer a refuge, Sebastian had gone to bed. He didn’t even acknowledge me as I climbed in beside him. Our bed had become another battleground.
And he wouldn’t touch me: he barely looked at me, shunned any embrace, and we didn’t make love. We were strangers to each other, but sharing a bed.
In the morning, I wearily dragged myself awake, both of us having slept badly. He’d had another terrifying nightmare, screaming out in fear. I longed to hold him, but he wouldn’t even look at me. When I touched him, he flinched.
I didn’t know how much longer we could go on like this. And he still refused to speak to any doctors.
“What the fuck do they know about it, Caro?”
“A lot: you’re not the first Marine who’s been injured.”
“Former Marine; former fucking Marine, Caro. I’m nothing now. Maybe you can try and fucking remember that.”
His words cracked my heart.
He’d been my lover, he’d been a Marine, and now he was neither. The past was another country and the future was… well, he couldn’t see that he had a future. We lived from each slow hour to the next.
And he felt guilty – so guilty for having been the one who had survived. No one would tell me exactly what had happened but from what I’d pieced together, and from what David had told me during that first phone call, someone on the inside, an ally, had started shooting and then detonated a bomb. Three other Marines had died and two more were injured, although not as badly as Sebastian. Surviving wasn’t about skill; it was about luck.
During those long, dark days, two things kept me going. The first was his letter, the one he’d written before his last mission. The paper had become soft and fragile with the number of times I’d read it. I looked at it often when I was alone for a few seconds, even though I’d long memorized the words.
The second was a small thing, ridiculous really, but it signified a lot to me, and I think to Sebastian, too.
I’d been sorting through a pile of dirty clothes: one of those joyless, thankless jobs that we all have to do, but never get done because they’re never-ending.
I was making sure buttons were done up, and shirts were turned inside out before I threw them into the washer, tedious but necessary trivia, when I picked up Sebastian’s jeans. As usual, he’d tossed them into the hamper unbuttoned and unzipped. I thought I’d better check the pockets, too… and that’s when I found it.
I felt a hard lump in the hip pocket. I pushed my hand inside and pulled out a small, white pebble. It was the little piece of quartz that I’d found on the beach, that silly sentimental gift that I’d given to Sebastian the day he’d flown out to Afghanistan. And he’d kept it. More than that, he kept it with him even now.
My throat started to ache with tears but I refused to let myself cry, because they would have been hopeful tears. If Sebastian cared enough to keep that little pebble, surely it meant he still cared for me? That he was still capable of caring for me?
A loud crash brought me running to the living room.
Sebastian was thrashing around on the floor, swearing up and down, cursing like it was going out of fashion, and surrounded by books.
“What happened?” I said, breathlessly.
“I fucking fell! What does it look like?” he snarled.
I guessed that he’d lost his balance and tried to hold onto the bookshelf, but pulled the whole thing down instead.
I bent down to help him up.
“Leave me alone! I’m not a complete fucking cripple.”
I bit my lip and watched as he struggled to his feet. His frustration at what he perceived as his helplessness boiled over several times a day. I had to remind myself that he wasn’t mad at me, but sometimes it was hard. It hurt to see him fight so hard: fight his own body as it continued to heal, fight me, fight everyone.
He was sinking deeper into depression each day, and I didn’t know how to help him.