Page 122 of Free Heart
I hold still, letting whatever is happening unfold.
“I’m not going to tell you the details. I’ll go to my grave with those right in here.” He hits his chest harder than necessary. “No one else knows everything about that day. No one.”
I say nothing.
“It’s fucked me up.”
I nod.
“The therapist YOSAR made me see said it’s not just that rescue, but all the traumas before too. It’s a cumulative effect. A cascade of damage.” He rakes his fingers through his hair again, making it stand up, poofy and wild. He’s trying to lock that monster down. I can see the effort he’s making. “But I don’t know. I think itisthat last rescue. I can’t forget it. Sometimes I can’t stop hearing…”
I don’t move, don’t speak.
He shakes himself. “Bad things happen if I can’t stop the memories. It gets scary. Being around me isn’t good for anyone when I’m in the grip of it. Nina left, remember?”
“Nina was on her way out the door even before. She just needed an excuse.”
His laugh is short, but heavy with emotion. “I gave her a lot of reasons, Dan. I was angry and obsessed, and I couldn’t stop myself from…” He shakes his head. “You know I didn’t quit YOSAR, right? They let me go. I was cracked. Mentally. They knew I was a danger to myself and others, so—” He runs his index finger over his throat. “Axed.”
I feel like I’m supposed to say something to that for sure, but I have no idea what. My fourth foster father always said silence was better than saying the wrong thing, so I keep it now.
“Did Sejin ever tell you about how I found him in the field after you fell?”
I shake my head. I knew he had, but I’ve never asked when or how or why.
“Yeah. Well, when the memories first start slipping in and taking over, I try to ignore them. Sometimes they’ll go away. If that doesn’t work, I try to reassure them. I listen to the police scanners and I tell my goddamn fucking brain, ‘See? It’s over, it’s not happening again.’”
“You were listening to the scanner when I fell,” I surmise.
“Yeah. The memories had been hounding me that week. I was listening because sometimes it’s enough to make them shut up.” He puts his fists by his head and squints his eyes shut.
I swallow.
With visible effort, he calms himself. “Sorry.”
“It’s okay.”
“I’m ugly inside, Dan.”
“I’m sorry.” I get it. There’s ugliness in me too. A monster that pursues me unless I can outrun, out-focus, out-climb it. The monster of memory.
“When I heard on the scanner that you’d fallen, I had to do something to help. That’s the worst part. That impulse. That need. Most of the time, I can’t do anything. Wingsuiter down in the valley?” He shakes his head. “Nothing I can do. Not since I’m not with YOSAR.”
“You couldn’t help a downed wingsuiter anyway, even if youwerestill in YOSAR.”
His throat works. “Tell my brain that, man. Tell my fucking brain that.”
“I just did.”
He rubs his palms over his eyes, and his shoulders shake. At first I think he’s laughing, but then I know he’s crying. I wish Sejin were here to comfort him. I’m bad at this sort of thing.
So, I sit there. But that must be all right after all, because when he finally wipes his face off, he says, “Thanks.”
“For what?”
“For not making that weird.”
“Okay.”
