Page 35 of Always You

“Every night,” I confessed, “do they ever stop?”

“Sometimes,” the therapist replied honestly, but I already knew the answer. The room stayed quiet, except for the clock ticking on the wall, marking the time until I could leave. “Have you done some thinking about your choices?”

During the last session, she asked me to examine my major decisions since leaving the Army and consider whether I would make the same ones again. She wanted me to think how I ended up on the street. Maybe it had been her plan all along, but I got lost in my earlier choices and regrets.

“I went back a little further than after leaving the Army. Is that okay?”

“Of course. This is your time.”

I paused, unsure how to begin. “My choices mean I have a lot of regrets,” I admitted. “I let my military career come between me and my wife, Olivia, and with Harper, our daughter. I wasn’t there when they needed me, not really. It cost me my marriage and time with my daughter.”

The therapist leaned forward, her expression one of understanding. “How long were you married?”

“Isn’t that in my notes?” I joked, but she smiled in encouragement. “Olivia and I got married young,” I explained. The marriage didn’t survive my career, nor did having our daughter keep it together. Loving her was the simple part. Being there for her, consistently and fully, was where I faltered. I missed everything, and each time I returned home, I foundHarper a little taller and Olivia more distant. “We divorced when Harper was eight.”

“Do you still have feelings for your ex-wife?”

I considered the question. “We were friends once and happy before everything fell apart. I respect Olivia immensely, but the love we had… it changed. I was absent too often, and when I was home, part of me was still away. It created a distance I couldn’t bridge when I finally came back for good. She wanted me to stay away from Harper, and she was right to do that because I was so messed up.”

The therapist’s lips thinned, perhaps disagreeing with my harsh self-assessment, but she hadn’t lived my life; she couldn’t know the stress I’d brought to Olivia’s door.

“It sounds like you’re grappling with a lot of what-ifs about your past,” she observed.

I nodded, the what-ifs a constant ache. “Yeah, and it’s not just about my family,” I said, thinking of Alex again.

“Go on,” she encouraged.

“I’ve, um… reconnected with an old friend, someone important from my past, and it’s bringing up a lot of old feelings. Makes me wonder how things could have been if life had been different.”

If Alex and I had stayed friends.

If he’d written back to me.

If being a soldier hadn’t consumed me.

The therapist’s gaze was keen. “It’s natural to wonder about the roads not taken, especially when you’re facing regrets.”

I thought about Alex’s recent words, how he’d said he wanted to be friends. “I want to be better. For my daughter, for my ex-wife, even for my friend. I want them to see that I’m trying to fight the nightmares, to settle back into real life.”

“That’s a valuable goal,” she replied, jotting something down in her notes. We talked longer about regrets and nightmares until our time was up.

“Can I ask you something before we finish?”

“Of course.”

“With my…friend…I was always the strong one out of us, and I can’t be that for him this time,” I admitted.

“Okay, so do they expect you to be the strong one? Do they know what you’ve been through?” she asked.

“Some of it. They know I’m broken,” I said, and she frowned—I knew she hated when I described myself that way.

“Are they kind to you?” she asked.

“Yes.”

“Do they reinforce your self-doubt? Do they use the word broken?”

“No, but…” I struggled to explain. “It’s complicated.”

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