What If

Darkness called to me, and I welcomed it. I fell into the abyss where silence settled over the room and my limbs became numb from the agonizing pain. I only had one regret in this life, but I didn’t have time to process that thought before all thoughts became scattered stars in the sky of my consciousness.



I blinked 5,6,7 times before I could open my eyes enough to see a bright light above me. It was painful, like looking up at the sun after you’ve been in a dark room for days. I tried to lift my hands to cover the intensity of the light beams, but when I lifted my hand, I noticed it had an IV attached to it.

“You’re awake,” A male voice said next to me. I recognized it as my buddy, JJ. I turned towards his voice. He stood up and walked to the side of the bed. “We weren’t sure you’d ever come back from that shit.”

“What?” I croaked out. My voice was scratchy and barely audibly.

“Water?” JJ grabbed a cup from the small table by my bed and went over to the faucet. “Here you go.” He put a straw in it and held it to my mouth. “I can’t believe I’m feeding you,” he teased.

I tried to laugh, but it turned into a small, painful cough which made me feel like I was being stabbed in the chest. “What happened?” My voice still sounded gravelly.

“You don’t remember anything?” He looked at me, waiting for an answer.

My eyebrows drew together, tensing my forehead. I could’ve really used some strong painkillers; whatever they were giving me wasn’t enough to match the jackhammer going nuts against my skull. I thought back as far as I could go…

My stomach twisted and my mouth went sour. “Trashcan,” I mumbled quickly. JJ grabbed the can in record time and held it to the side of the bed. Twisting at the neck, I threw up the water I had just drank and then dry heaved; there was nothing to come up because I hadn’t eaten. If I thought trying to laugh felt like being stabbed, then getting sick felt like going through major surgery without anesthesia. I was going to black out from the pain, and I wanted to. I wanted that black, dark place to suck me away from the excruciating pain from the wounds and the memories.

Yeah. I remembered everything. Everything.



I had to stay in that hospital for a few weeks longer after I woke up before being discharged and allowed to return back home to the states. There were a lot of questions that needed to be answered, and I was one of the few people who had the answers. For two days straight I went over every minute detail from my memories. Eventually, I learned to detach myself as I told the story more than once. It was a defensive mechanism that I needed to keep my shit together. The recollections were too much: too horrifying, too traumatic. When everyone left my room, when I was told to get some rest, I laid there in fear that when I closed my eyes I was going to relive those nightmares that had been my reality.

When it was time to go home, I was anxious, nervous to go back to a normal life because I didn’t feel normal anymore. I felt scarred and tormented. The Marine Corps was pushing me to seek out a therapist; I didn’t want to. I’d never been to any sort of counselor, but I knew enough to know that they’d want to talk about what happened. That was not going to happen. I’d spoken the story out loud enough, and now I wanted to bury it in my past and try to move on.

I was pushed on a wheelchair off the plane. I could walk, but it was slow and still hurt like a mother… The first thing I saw was Lacey’s platinum hair. Then I noticed her tight jeans and shirt barely covering her chest. She wasn’t a shy girl, and a couple of years ago the way she dressed turned me on. Now I wanted to wrap a jacket around her and tell her to go put some clothes on. She was letting every male within seeing distance see exactly what was hidden underneath that barely existing cloth. I felt like a dick because my first thought when I saw Lacey was a negative one, but seriously. She was bent over, chatting it up with another soldier. She smiled and laughed hysterically. The guy looked at her like he already knew she was going home with him.

She glanced in my direction, her eyes widening. “Baby!” She squealed and ran towards me. When she got to the chair, she bent down, her ass pushed out for the entire world to see, and kissed all over my face. I still had cuts and scrapes healing, and she wasn’t being gentle. “I’ve been so worried!” She said in a baby voice that made me want to rip my ears off my head. Had she always talked like that? I needed a beer.

“Let’s go home,” I said as she continued to touch my entire body.

“All right.” She looked at the guy pushing my chair. “I can take it from here,” she said in a sultry voice. Was it in my head, or was she being flirtatious with every single male in the room? “See ya, Travis!” she called out to the guy she’d been talking with when I arrived. He smiled and gave her a wave.



I hit rock bottom that year. I refused to see the therapist recommended to me. I self-medicated with marijuana and even found myself willing to try whatever was offered to me.

Most of the time, I didn’t even bother coming home to Lacey. If I cheated on her, I couldn’t remember. I didn’t think that was something I would do, but you never know what you’re capable of when soaring in the clouds, unaware of what’s reality and what’s a figment of your imagination.

We fought when I did come home. She demanded to know where I’d been and where all of our money went, and I’d demanded to know whose dick she sucked off for the new diamond earrings resting on her lobes.

It wasn’t until I nearly lost my life over a year later that I finally realized I was going to kill myself if I kept going down this dangerous path.

It was a summer evening. I was over at a “friends” house that always had the paraphernalia. We’d been drinking all day, and by the night we were doing acid. I’d done it a couple times, so I thought I could up the amount. I didn’t take into account the fact that I was also popping pills.

I wandered out into Dane’s backyard. It was huge, and once you passed his backyard, you entered into a small forested area. I reached that tree line and fell to my knees, throwing up non-stop. I broke out in chills all across my body and started sweating from each pore. Eventually, not even my knees could hold me up any longer, and I fell forward, landing face first on the ground. I continued retching, but couldn’t even move my head away from the barf that my head rested on. My heart was beating too fast for my chest, and I wondered when my heart was going to give up and just stop.

The night turned chilly as I passed out. No one came looking for me, no one questioned if I lay dead just a few feet from where they still partied inside. They didn’t care because they were getting their high.

I awoke face first in my vomit; I nearly drowned in my own sickness. My skin felt like frozen leather. My mouth was dry and scratchy like I’d gone at it with sand paper, and my body was as heavy as an entire gym’s worth of weights. It took an unbelievable amount of effort to push myself up from the ground, but eventually I did. I sat there, completely disoriented, unaware of my surroundings or how I ended up on the frosty grass. My head hung low, my vomit-encrusted chin nearly touching my chest, and I knew this was the lowest point in my life. If I didn’t start digging myself out of the six foot grave I dug myself, I was going to be buried alive. I wouldn’t realize it until my casket was closed and hidden under the hardened ground.