Page 46 of Proof Of Life
Brandt wraps his arm around my shoulders, and I panic and push him. Hard. He stumbles into a display of stacked boxes of donuts, and they crash to the floor along with the thin hold I have on my sanity. I run. Down the aisle, past the registers, through the automatic doors, and out into the parking lot, where a car lays on its horn, narrowly missing me.
It speeds by as the driver curses out the window, and then Brandt is there. He approaches me like I’m a wounded animal. Feral. Scared. Out of my ever-loving-fucking-mind. The sun is too bright, people are staring at me like there’s something wrong with me, and there is. I don’t belong in this world. I don’t belong anywhere anymore. My heartbeat starts up again, too fast and hard, pounding away at my chest like a jackhammer. I’m covered with a cold sweat. The tinnitus is ringing loud in my ear, too loud. And then the vertigo gets hold of me, and I fall flat on my ass.
Brandt crouches down beside me, not touching me, but close. He speaks in a low, soft tone. “Wes, it’s me, Brandt. Look at me.”
I do. I look at him. He becomes the center of my focus. His deep blue eyes, the mole above his upper lip. My heartbeat slows. The ringing lessens. The dizziness subsides. And I take a deep breath. He counts it out.
“Breathe in. One…two…three. Hold it. Four…five…six. Breathe out. Seven…eight…nine…ten.” Cautiously, he slips his hand in mine and squeezes. Anchoring me to the present, anchoring me to him.
I swipe the sweat rolling into my eyes with the back of my hand and blurt out the first thing that comes to mind. “What about the food?”
Brandt chuckles. “Doesn’t matter. We’ll order a pizza. Come on, let me take you home.”
Still dazed and shell-shocked, I let him haul me up and lead me to the Jeep, but I’m pissed. And I’m becoming angrier with each passing second. Brandt is watching me more than he’s watching the road, and his worry for me is also pissing me off. How long is he going to sit there and observe me in silence, trying to figure out how to broach the subject?
“What?” I snap.
“Why are you so angry?”
“Fuck you.”
“Not today, thanks. Tell me why you’re angry.”
It takes me a minute to realize he made a sex joke. At the worst goddamn possible moment, he’s talking about sex. I don’t know whether to hit him or laugh. Maybe that’s the point.
“I asked you a ques–”
“I don’t know!” My voice is loud in the silent interior. No radio, just road noise, and my damn temper. We drive six more miles in silence before I crack. “I’m disappointed in myself. I’m embarrassed as fuck. And I’m tired of dealing with the fallout of what happened. The fucking side effects from the TBI, the leg and all its learning curves, endless therapies. I’m just fucking tired.”
Brandt nods his head and it’s not until we make the turn off for the cabin, that he finally speaks. “Why are you disappointed in yourself?”
“I thought I could handle it better. Instead, I have a fucking panic attack because someone dropped a tin of cookies in the grocery store.”
The Jeep bounces along the pitted dirt road that leads up to the house, and Brandt turns off the ignition, but doesn’t move to get out. “So what? So the fuck what? You had a flashback, a panic attack. Big fucking deal. I’ve seen housewives have panic attacks over their dog pissing on the carpet. You’ve got one leg, a TBI, and PTSD. You’ve probably got some other shit going on, and not all of it is from the blast. I’ve known you for twelve years; some of your issues run real deep, trust me.”
Snarky fucking asshole.
Brandt gives me side-eye, checking to see if his joke landed appropriately. “I have PTSD. I’ve got unresolved anger issues. I have depression. I have scarring all over my body. I’ve lost hearing in one ear. I’m completely fucking disillusioned, and I’ve got no future lined up. Those people at the grocery store? They’re at the bottom of my fucking list of problems, West. I don’t give a damn what they think of me. I almost died for them, so the least they can do is turn a blind eye when I’m having a bad moment. Otherwise, they can fuck right off.” He grabs my hand and laces our fingers together, squeezing my knuckles with his. “You with me?”
I have to fight back the rush of hot tears to my eyes. I absolutely refuse to fall apart right now. “Yeah, Reaper, I’m with you.” I can barely spit the words out through my broken, gravelly voice, a dead giveaway that I’m about to cry. Like the best friend he is, he pretends not to notice.
“You owe me a pizza.”
When I’ve got my eyes under control, I glance at him and he’s wearing that smirk, the one that lately makes me want to kiss his lips. “It’s a date.”
“Hey, one other thing.”
I can’t take anymore of his pep-squad talk, it’s all I can do not to fall apart. “What?”
“You ran.”
“Yeah, I was having a fucking moment. I was panicked. I ran and–”
“No, you ran.”
I don’t get it. What’s he trying to tell me? And then, like a ton of bricks, it hits me. I fucking ran on my prosthetic leg. I ran for the first time in months. He sees when it dawns on me, and he grins like a motherfucker.
“I ran!”