Page 23 of Codename: Dustoff
CHAPTERTHIRTEEN
Checking in with my RCC ranked around my least favorite activities. Especially since the last time I met with Pam she was nothing but stone faced business and tough love. I brought her a cup of coffee from the Dunkin Donuts across from the V.A. as my attempt at a peace offering. You’d have thought I’d offered her a trip around the world with the reaction I received to bringing her that coffee.
“I see you’ve attended two amputee support meetings. That’s great!” Pam began, looking over my file, making a show of taking an appreciative sip of her gifted coffee.
“And I see,” I pointed towards her windows with my own cup, “that you added holiday decorations to your window in addition to ornaments on your little pink tree.”
She looked up in surprise. Maybe she thought I didn’t pay much attention to what her office looked like? Who knows? Honestly though how does one not notice the surroundings in an office that you see once sometimes twice a month?
“Tell me about what you’ve learned so far in those meetings.” Her pen was at the ready, waiting with barely contained excitement, to write down every word I spoke regarding those meetings.
“For the most part they’re pretty cheesy,” I began, trying to find a comfortable position in her guest chair, “there’s a lot of touchy feely shit about what you do when you feel embarrassed, or if people are staring at you. Though Henry—he’s our leader—partnered us up this past week so that we could point out to the other when we acted in a way that reflected the verbs that he assigned us.”
“Verbs?” she asked, pushing her glasses further down her face to look me in the eye uninhibited by her readers.
“Yeah. He said that all of us have ways of acting as part of our coping mechanism. Me for example, he said I’m resist, and my friend Emmett is adapt. And we discovered that it’s not necessarily that we have resisted and adapted as a result of our amputations but that we use those as our coping mechanisms because that is what we were taught. It’s our learned behavior, like since childhood! So, we resist and adapt because it’s our comfort in an uncomfortable situation!”
“Your friend Emmett. This is a development that I want to hear all about. Especially since according to you, he is your literal counterpoint. Is he young? Single? Oh my gosh, Amelia, this is a rom-com desperate to be written.”
If only she wore an oversized hand knitted sweater and had pictures of her cats on her desk, she’d make the perfect best friend in this imagined dream world scenario. Alas, she was a government worker all the way down to her style of dress, completely plain and unassuming khaki pants, blue long-sleeved T-shirt, and a navy wrap sweater.
“Pam, focus. Did you hear me? Your little social worker heart should be singing a swelling Disney sing right now. I literally just recognized my own source of trauma and acknowledged that I am repeating patterns of behavior.”
“Amelia, that looks like a blush to me. It’s not nearly hot enough in here for that to just be a too warm office. You’ve been holding out on me! And yes, I am thrilled that you and your friend Emmett,” she did those cheesy air quotes and winked at me, “were able to figure out all on your own that you repeat patterns of behavior because they are what is familiar to you. This verb thing is fascinating. I’m making a note to circle in with Henry because I think it’s such a great way to make people cognizant of their coping mechanisms. That is a really big step for you. So don’t think I’m not jumping for joy, but your friend Emmett sounds like a giant step too… so, tell me about this friend.”
Pam and I never really had much of a connection. I came in, told her what was going on in my life and she wrote in her file and sent me to fill out another form or visit another office and have them give me whatever form she needed. This bubbly and excitable side of Pam was something new, but I dug it.
“There isn’t much to spill, and honestly I probably fucked it all up anyway.”
“You messed up all of what?” She braced her fingertips on the desk and leaned closer. “Amelia Sanchez, you are in here once a month and you sit here with nary a smile on your face, and today you come in here all oh I have this friend. What changed? And how? Start from the top.”
I summed up our two meetings and gave her the highlights of our interactions. A surprise even to me that I wanted to tell her about the last two weeks. I needed to unspool it all for someone so they could look at the pile and confirm I was in fact justified in feeling my feelings.
“Then he kissed me. And this shithead little kid told us that together we made one whole body and Emmett got all upset over it. But then I kissed him back and that took it to a whole ‘nother level. And by the end of the night, we were sneaking away into the lobby of the hotel and making out in a hidden corner.”
She leaned her chin against her fist, braced against the desk. Her desk phone had rung twice while I regaled her with what felt like the most juvenile example of romantic interest between two adults. Based on the way she looked at me all shiny eyes and toothy grin, my pitiful encounter as a thirty-two-year-old adult was apparently still gossip worthy.
It obviously had been a long while since I dated. Even before riding the rocket that led to my separation from my appendage—I had been pretty inexperienced. The dating potential in hill country was pretty slim, even when you considered sharing a high school with the other small towns in the basin. Then I went to the Army and didn’t want anyone to think I was a Betty—a woman just in the army to find a mister, get pregnant, and then exit with benefits—so I kept to myself.
“Something really weird happened actually.” I didn’t really want to share my embarrassment, but it bugged me. “We were making out; I was super into it. I’m in his lap, and then all the sudden I have this explosion of pain through my entire—um—female region.”
“Did he put his fingers too deep?” Pam asked, confusion wrinkling her forehead.
“Pam! No! His fingers weren’t anywhere near there! We were in a hotel lobby!”
I looked over my shoulder to make sure no one in the V.A. was walking past her open door while she’s asking about me getting fingered.
“I need you to spell this out for me, because I don’t understand.”
Just thinking about Emmett again made me smile. Which, just as it had every other time I’d thought about him, hot on the heels of those sweet tender feelings came the ice bucket of shame drowning it all out again. I needed to return his messages, but I didn’t know what to say really.
“We’re kissing, I shift on my good leg to bring my bad leg over his hips, and sit in his lap. I’m thinking maybe we’ll do a little grinding, you know—sort of a preshow—and the second my body came in contact with his, the whole world went white, the pain was so intense it took my breath away, and then I slingshot back to Afghanistan.”
“And then what?”
“I’m not really sure. I know Finn was there and yanked Emmett up off the couch. He thought he’d done something to make me start screaming. I was crying hysterically. Finn was telling Emmett he was going to cold clock him and asking him what the fuck was the matter with him. I had to tell him I was fine, and explain I’d been triggered into a flashback and all that. But by the time I calmed down and found my bearings I was so embarrassed I couldn’t go back to Emmett’s place and look him in the face.”
Pam leaned back in her chair, chewing on the end of her pen.