there a couple of weeks? I didn’t want to disappoint my family.
Mom had dinner plans, so after eating leftovers and watching the end of a movie, I cut the lights and tried going to sleep despite the city buzzing outside my window. When I first arrived, it took me a couple of solid weeks to actually shut my eyes and get some sleep because it was too much and I was hyperaware of every sound.
Our nights had been quieter in the desert, though any noise could alert us to danger, so the vigilance never went away. I had also gotten used to looking at the night sky above the mountains. In the city, there was nothing but skyscrapers and blaring car horns, and I wondered where that kid had disappeared to, the one who’d thrived on the perpetuity of it all.
He was still inside me somewhere because I possessed the same restlessness, the same urge to keep moving. It’d helped propel me beyond the constant grief over Dad’s death, which was eating me alive until I decided to join the military. Training had kicked my ass, and I had little time for wallowing in my thoughts after that.
Since my return, being alone with my thoughts had been brutal, so in a way, the city provided that noise for me. Yet, it drove me crazy at the same time. It all felt wrong, like my bones were too big for my skin, and not only because of my injuries, which felt too fresh some days. I just didn’t know how to reconcile all the conflicting emotions. I was stuck between a rock and a hard place.
The social worker at the VA said it happened to plenty of soldiers, to some more severely than to others, along with what she’d identified as PTSD—something I’d long suspected, but it was validating to finally have that diagnosis. I had attended several group-therapy sessions with other soldiers, some who seemed haunted, and they only left me feeling fragile and humbled. And the way Mom would look at me after—this hopeful glint in her eye, like maybe I’d finally found my peace—was unsettling. But I couldn’t blame her. She only wanted what was best for me.
I eventually succumbed to sleep…and awoke in a cold sweat right before dawn. Another nightmare. The scene played out before me in slow motion, just like the other times. Two guys from my squad, Smithy and Miller Time, were standing on the side of the road with a boy from the village, his ebony hair gleaming from the sun beating down on us. They were laughing, all solid humans with the same blood, and bones, and hearts, and the next second they were lying in unrecognizable pieces. I tried screaming in horror, but the sound got caught in my throat. As the shrapnel from the blast pelted my body, I took cover by jumping in a ditch, fucking up my knee in the process. The noise was muted, like I was underwater, then came roaring back. Yelling, crying, a mother’s wailing. I was transported by the med copter after losing a lot of blood from my injuries. I lost consciousness for a time, only to wake up in a military hospital with other patients who had experienced much worse.
Fuck, the guilt of that was palpable. And the sounds at night, the silent sobbing and moaning, were enough to put me in a straightjacket. Being discharged had felt like the best thing at the time. Until the reality of civilian life began settling in.
I sat up, trying to get my bearings as my heart drummed a frantic beat in my chest, and it took me entirely too long to return to my senses. But that same restless energy inside me propelled me out of bed and into my sneakers. I slipped silently out the door and onto the quiet streets. Dawn had become my favorite time, when the sidewalks were empty, the sounds of the city blotted out. The buildings were lined up like toy soldiers in formation, and the sun was just beginning to gleam off the Hudson River.
The early morning walks had replaced the endless nights I sat on a stool at the end of a bar, hoping to drink myself into numbing oblivion. My body thanked me for the exercise, even if my knee was positively aching by the time I got back home with a bag of bagels from the corner shop.
As the morning sun greeted me, I