24 VA
Steve visited the VA and stood again in the doorway and listened to Sam Wilson work magic. He smiled and greeted each member of the group warmly and Steve didn't think he noticed him, standing there in the door, but that was okay because he only needed to hear.
They talked about how they were doing, how they were feeling, and Steve became enthralled in their stories and their experiences because suddenly, he wasn't the only one still up until four AM with flashbacks and he wasn't alone with the guilt of knowing he was still alive. Steve felt a barrage of emotions. These people spoke the words he'd been thinking and feeling for a long time. It was as if he'd said it himself.
"I don't want to burden my family with these feelings," one person said and Steve found himself taking an actual step into the room.
"You have to keep telling yourself you're not a burden," Sam responded gently. "They're your family and they love you no matter what."
"Everything's my fault," someone else said and Steve inched into the back of the room closer.
"That's absolutely not true," Sam said fiercely. "You can't let guilt destroy you."
"I'm never happy anymore," and Steve found an empty row in the very back, sat down, leaned forward.
"That's what you have us for," Sam replied. "Let us remind you how to be happy."
The people at the VA impressed Steve too because he was partly bewildered by them. There was a curiosity there because as much as these people were like him, so much like him, they weren't because they talked about it, almost as though they weren't ashamed. Was it possible? To not feel ashamed? To not feel endlessly guilty? And then Steve felt bitter resentment because if they were okay, how come he had to feel so ashamed? Why must he suffer and suffocate, why must he take that blame, for everything, take the responsibility for every single bad thing and it crushed him, it stole his very breath, he was so guilty even simply for feeling.
But Sam was a miracle in that room, he was a beam of sunshine and Steve clung to his words, soaking them up as the other attendees at the VA spoke the words Steve didn't know how to draw out of his own heart.
I feel so alone. All the time. Even when I'm with people.
"I understand. You have to start opening up. You have friends here," Sam said gently.
Right when I think I'm doing better, I just get worse again.
"I know it's frustrating, but it's okay and you are doing better," Sam replied.
I'm depressed. I don't know what to do.
Sam sat back in his chair and was quiet for a moment and Steve leaned forward on his knees and listened hard.
"When I first came back," Sam began to say. "I was in a bad place. It was hard to see a meaning to life, after all I'd seen. I thought I'd rather be dead because I wasn't happy and people I loved were dead. But guess what?" Sam offered a smile and paused, lifting his hands. "Things got better. I got happier. I learned to live."
"How do you do that?" The VA member asked quietly and Steve scrubbed his face with his hands, up and down, taking a breath and leaning over his knees, listening with everything he had.
"You just keep living," Sam said. "You keep going, even when it's hard, because I know you can and because there's a light at the end of the tunnel. And you find the things that make everything worth it and you want a hint? The things that make everything worth it are the people in your life. It's all about them, always. You find those people that you love and that love you back and you cling to them because your very life depends on it and they'll carry you through it. It's the people that matter, in the end. It always is."
The meeting closed and Steve didn't wait for Sam to find him. He slipped out the backdoor and took every word Sam had spoken to heart, remembered the way they'd touched him and the way he'd felt for once not deeply alone.