Ranger
Six month later
I drop my bag next to the door on seven and take a deep breath. Home, as much as this ever was. Letting the door close on its own behind me, I walk further into the open kitchen, dining and living room space. Everything looks so clean and impersonal, compared to the Farm where I spend the last six months getting sober and my head back on straight. The farm was all wood and warm colours. My apartment is gray, white and black. No pictures on the walls, no personal items lying around and the only way you'd know I live here is by my clothes in the closet.
Up to a week ago, I wasn't sure if I was ready to come back, but I woke up two days ago and just felt ready. It felt like it was time to face it all. To face them. While this never felt like home, the people a few floors below me do and some of them are even my family by blood. I just have to believe that they will listen, forgive me and help me deal with this shit in my head. Because it will be a continuous battle.
Like Trainor, my therapist said, PTSD isn't cured in days or weeks. It can take months or years for the memories to lose their impact on your psyche and I will need a support system that understands that. And the guys definitely do. They have seen some of the same stuff I have, done some things that we should never tell anyone about.
'Trauma needs to be processed. Otherwise it will pile up. Then it becomes a heavy burden, which will drown you and rip you apart.' Trainor said to me when I first got to the farm and she was definitely right. I realized, during my time there, how much I was drowning, how I didn't have my shit together as much as I thought, even before the drugs.
With a sigh I walk into my bedroom, but just when I do, the front door flies open and steel cap boots echo on my tiles. "Six months… we haven't heard from you in six months and you just gonna appear like a ghost and not even stop by on five to say hello?"
I turn around and face my cousin, pulling my face into neutral expression. "I figured the welcome wouldn't be a friendly one, I just wanted to drop my stuff off before facing you guys on the mats."
There is a beat of silence before Les steps forward and hugs me tight. "Fuck, cuz, it's so good to see you."
It is good to see you too, I think, before wrapping my arms around him. It is the most disconnected I have ever felt from Les. We grew up not far from each other, did pretty much everything together and got into a lot of trouble together, but I never felt like I do now: unsure. While I know Les and the others will understand, I just don't know where this leaves us as friends and partners.
'After everything you have told me, they care about you and love you. Trust them to help you through this.' Trainor said to me in one of our last sessions when I expressed my unease.
With a hard slap on my back, Les steps back and swallows hard a couple of times. Emotions clearly written on his face. He has always been the most emotionally expressive one of the four of us. "I thought you would return to us as fat as Santa, but I stand corrected" and he has also always been uncomfortable showing those emotions, so he cracks jokes to cover them up.
"Fuck you, I am in tip top shape" I grin to cover my lie.
"We shall see about that old man" Les throws back and then turns around and leaves. "Mats in ten!"
Three hours later, I fall onto the mat and look up at the ceiling. I am a sweaty mess. Tank, who was the last one in line drops down next to me, making the ground shake. Seconds later Bobby and Les join us too. A water bottle appears out of nowhere and I take it without hesitation. While I put on muscle mass from working on the farm, because they don't believe in just sitting around in a circle and doing therapy, I haven't sparred with anyone in over six months and I am a little out of breath. Not that I would ever admit that out loud. I would never hear the end of it.
'Lean on your friends' Trainor's words echo through my head and I glance around me. The last three hours, while they were hard and punishing, they reinforced what Trainor said. These guys care. They love me, so it is time to open up. We cannot keep going this way. For the sake of our friendship and for Rangemen. And I will have to make the first move. Set an example.
So I do. I tell them everything that happened. The more I unload the better I feel. 'Share the burden.' I hear Trainor say.
"Fucking hell Ranger." Bobby shakes his head. While I talked, the colour drained out of all of their faces.
"When did we get to this point?" Les questions and I look at him with a raised eyebrow. "There used to be a time when we talked about this shit. After every mission you did, we got drunk and you told us everything. You shared. But then you stopped, why?"
I sit up and shrug. "I found a better way to cope, I guess."
"Stephanie." Tank chimes in.
"Yeah." I nod. "We still should have talked every time I returned from a mission, but Steph gave me such peace that I didn't even think to talk to you."
With regret in his eyes, Les says "We take some of the blame. We should have insisted on a debrief. But...at least for me, I understood why you kept seeking out Steph. I didn't push you, simply because you seemed happy whenever you came home and saw her."
"Until I wasn't."
"Yeah." Les echoes.
"I felt betrayed" I tell them, before I can stop the words coming out of my mouth. Seems like I am turning into a chatty Cathy after all.
"By whom?" Tank queries.
"My superiors, the CIA, the government. I found out later that my CO's didn't push for an update from the CIA and the CIA buried the fact that I had been taken. I have the suspicion that someone up the chain didn't want to let me go."
"Seems likely." Bobby agrees. "You know too much, have done too much and your skills are out of this fucking world."
"Exactly" I sigh and take a sip of my water. The statement doesn't come from a place of arrogance. I just simply know that I am that good at that job. "To be honest, if I knew what I do now, I am not sure I would sign up again."
"Me either" Tanks agrees, surprising the heck out of me. And when I look at Bobby and Les, they nod in unison. "Don't get me wrong I am proud to be an American, I love this country, but the stuff I have done…we have done" Tank shakes his head "We kill one drug lord, because the one coming up behind him will serve our agenda better. We invade foreign countries, because they commit human rights violations and allegedly have weapons of mass destruction, but the real reason is because we want their Oil. It is a fucked up world, one I wish I had not found out about. We were just pawns in a much larger chess game."
"You are taking the words right out of my head. You sure you don't have psychic abilities?" I muse, to break the tension.
"Thank fuck I don't or I would be privy to whatever runs through Les' peanut brain and I would rather eat a bullet than listen to that shit." Tank retorts, making all of us laugh and Lester glare daggers at my best friend.
When we all fall silent once more, I address another elephant in the room. "I will never forgive myself for what I did. I don't know how she can."
"It could have been prevented, if you had gotten help earlier…" Bobby remarks. "But I also know that getting help is not a guarantee that the nightmares will stop. They will lessen, but they won't disappear. You have been through too much for that."
"She should have gone for the gun. Stephanie should have shot me when she had the chance." I mutter and run a hand over my sweat soaked face.
Once again it is Bobby who speaks up "Best case you would have been injured, worst case dead. Do you want to die?" That question instantly takes me back to the farm. To a session with Trainor when she asked me the exact same thing.
"Do you want to die?"
"No" I reply honestly. "But I am also not afraid to die."
"So why do you say she should have gone for the gun?"
"Because in my rage I could have overcome the taser, a well placed gunshot not so much." I advise her. "But she didn't want to hurt me."
"Did Stephanie say that?"
"No, but I know her. She wouldn't be able to shoot me unless it's the very last option."
"So what happened next?"
"We argued over getting her help. She didn't want to go to the hospital, because Steph was afraid they would call the police on me. I deserve to be locked up for what I did to her." I sigh. "So we went to an off the grid clinic, they patched her up and then we started driving north...I don't know how to describe the two weeks we spent together. At the beginning I was angry… so fucking angry. I couldn't get over the fact that I nearly killed her. I will forever remember the look of her, the bruises on her beautiful skin. It shook me. I was adamant that I would come here and then break off all contact with her when I returned to Trenton."
"And then?"
"I was still angry, but somehow, this time around, when I was close to her I slept like a baby. No nightmares. I was selfish. Instead of sleeping on the ground, when we only had one bed, I chose to share the bed with her, because her presence made me calmer.
"I will never forget the look on her face or the bruises on her body." I admit.
"I was half away out the door when I spoke to her after it happened" Bobby says. "But she told me 'No'."
"I know, I overheard."
"We should have done something sooner. We should have insisted on driving you north, but Steph said that she had to be the one to deliver you to the farm. FUCK!" He bangs his water bottle onto the ground, stands up and starts pacing. "When I heard your voice, I instantly knew something was wrong. I was so fucking angry at you, I was angry at myself and those two, too" He motions towards Les and Tank. "When I picked her up from the airport, black and blue, I was ready to fly up there and kick your ass. But Steph stopped me and hugged me and told me she was fine." he shakes his head. "I blame myself just as much as you do."
"We all do," Les says and Tank nods in agreement. They love her and care about her, no question about it.
"So what now?"
"To be honest, I don't know. I am still angry at myself. I hurt her and that is unforgivable. Like Bobby said, the nightmares won't be gone forever. But I love her and I don't know if I can let her go. I know that I should, but I don't know if I can, if she is willing to try again."
This time it is my best friend who speaks up. "But you now know how to cope better. The drugs didn't help the PTSD. If she forgives you, you gotta forgive yourself too."
After a few minutes in silence, Tank queries "Brother, what now?" and I know that this time, he is asking not about my relationship with Steph.
"I want to ease back into Rangemen" I admit. "But I had a long time to think about it on the way back from Alaska to Trenton and I think we need to train up the next core team. We cannot keep shouldering this on our own. I want a life that I can enjoy and it should not be all about work."
"Rangemen has grown beyond our expectations," Bobby points out.
"Exactly" I agree. "We can focus on the future of the company, like opening an office in San Francisco or LA like we talked about, instead of being involved in the day to day."
"I have been wanting to get more medical training so we can expand our suites." Bobby announces. That is no new information to any of us. We all knew he wanted to do so and all asked ourselves why he hadn't made a move yet.
"Why did you wait?" I ask him.
Bobby just shrugs "There was always something more pressing to deal with or get into." And doesn't that make me feel like shit.
"I am sorry, I should have pushed you more..." I start, but Bobby cuts me off.
"This is not on you brother...I should have said something a long time ago, but with everything...I just didn't."
I nod and then turn to Les. "And you Cuz?"
"I wouldn't mind focusing more on the training." Les admits.
"You just like torturing the poor cadets." I grin.
"I would have been a Training Officer in the Army, if something better hadn't come around" He grins and before I can say something, he adds "I am glad you thought this up...I am not even sure we would still be alive, if you hadn't dreamed up Rangemen."
"I was sure I would die in the Army" Bobby nods. "The shit we did…"
"Even though things have changed, there is still not enough done for those returning with mental issues." I note and an idea that started to form in Alaska is growing roots more and more. But before I bring it up, I turn to my best friend, who has been mostly silent, and ask "What about you?"
After a few seconds he says "I need a break."
"After we all took that break, I mean" I grin at him and he flips me off.
"I don't know" Tank shrugs. "I haven't really thought beyond taking some time off. Maybe it will come to me when I'm sipping a Mimosa at a beach in South America."
At that we all crack up. I haven't felt this light in years. The only dark cloud that remains, has Steph's name on it, but hopefully I can clear that up later today.
"What about you Rangemen, any ideas on what you want to do with all of your free time?" Bobby questions.
"I had an idea…" Groans come from the others making me smile. Three...two…
"How much is that going to cost this time?" Les grins. "Shall I call Tim and ask what our borrowing threshold is?"
"Fuck you" I flip them all off. I cannot help that my ideas always cost us a pretty penny, but in the end they are worth every single one. Like the shooting and training Compound out in Texas. We bought it to give Rangemen staff the best possible training all in one location. Now, when we don't use it, we rent it out to companies for Trust building workshops and such. It makes us quite a bit of money. "Since mental health still isn't a high priority for the Military, I was thinking about setting up a non-profit. We might even be able to wrangle the military into a contract. Veterans will be able to receive free mental health care, current Military personnel can get their head set on straight before they get back to work and we can help with reintegration into society after they get out."
"Sounds like a good idea, not sure if it will work out though. Mental Health Professionals aren't cheap" Bobby points out. "And we don't want this to turn out like the Veteran Clinics."
"It is just an idea for now. I haven't made the calculations yet and you would have to help me with the estimates for anything medical….but it is a possibility."
"It's what he said about Rangemen too and see how that turned out" Tank points out and I grin.
