Bourbon Nights - Shari J. Ryan Page 0,51

thinking this way, but I think it’s what I should and need to do.

16

I’ve been sitting in front of a dark house for over an hour. I’m still battling the idea of being so intrusive. She might think I’m crazy when she gets home—if she gets home. Maybe she’s staying overnight with her dad. I don’t know what the rules are for relatives of a hospice patient. If she isn’t home in the next half hour, I’ll take it as a sign and leave.

I don’t think I ever noticed how dark this street is, and my headlights must be pinging off the windows of the few neighboring houses. I shut them off to make sure I’m not bothering anyone, leaving myself in the pitch black between Melody’s house and the woods on the other side of the street.

I wonder how many grown men fear the dark and let their minds wander to the worst-case scenario when visibility is low. I would guess I'm one of the few, but all of whom have either been traumatized or are combat veterans. We had night-vision goggles, but I didn’t sleep with them.Even during the nights, we had to camp in man-made holes in the dirt and rubble surrounded by a vast landscape of desert. I often wondered about the odds of a mortar attacking us in the middle of the night, during the few hours we were getting the minimal sleep required to survive. Would I hear it fast enough? Would I react quickly enough to take cover? What if there was an invasion from the enemy who had been plotting all day, waiting for us to have more men asleep than on guard? The holes I dug often felt like coffins, which made me wonder about my future. It was surreal, and though I told myself I volunteered to be sleeping in this hole on the front lines to protect my country, I wondered if I was strong enough to make it through to the end. My heart would race all night; the panic never relenting, and sleep felt like a foggy resemblance of being wasted. My guard was down, and it could get me killed but it was a risk I had to take.

The nights aren’t filled with potential enemies anymore, but the fear is forever burned into my brain, and my mind isn’t capable of handling the necessary reassurance that I'm safe, not when I can’t see beyond a wall of darkness.

It’s human instinct to close our eyes when afraid, but since lowering my lids means that I’m not aware of what’s going on around me, it always seems like a problem. I take my phone out of the cup holder and brighten the screen, offering myself a false sense of safety.

Then the heart attack comes.

Blinding lights flash through my window, I drop the phone as my eyes widen toward the speeding vehicle heading toward me at me at what looks like a hundred miles per hour. Just as quickly as the onset of panic hits me, abrupt darkness returns. My heart pounds, my hands clench the wheel, and sweat beads on the back of my neck as I watch one of Melody’s neighbors pull into their driveway down the street.

I shake my head as if I can toss away the thoughts that just tore my insides apart, but I have to pull it together and man up. The mild orange glow of the sconce hanging from the front overhang is bright enough to light up the front steps and might be a better place to wait out the half-hour I’ve allotted myself.

Once situated on the cement stairs, less than a minute passes when another vehicle turns down the street. The panic doesn’t hit me as bad this time since I’m beneath the porch light. I’m relieved to see Melody pull into the driveway, but I’m not sure she has noticed me sitting here yet.

After all this, I’ll end up scaring the shit out of her, which is the last thing I want to do.

I wonder about her thoughts as she steps out of her father’s truck she’s been driving around. With a glance over at my truck, then to me on the front steps, she finds me waiting and walks in my direction, or the direction of her front door. Maybe she’ll walk right by me. If I was her, I might be tempted to do so at this point of the day.

“Hey,” she says. She doesn’t sound unhappy