Page 14 of Wrecked By the Mountain Man
She called them profound. Breathtaking. Saw the raw grief in them, the trauma, the darkness I carry inside my soul and refuse to let anyone see.
She blows on another spoonful of soup, steam curling around her pretty face.
Still… she waits.
Not pushing, just present. Safe.
“Things,” I say, my voice tight. “I saw things no one should ever see.”
The images surge away in the back of my mind. Dust choking my lungs. The metallic stink of blood mixing with gunpowder. A small boy’s wide, unseeing eyes staring up from the rubble, empty of life but finally free from fear.
My fault.His life was my fault.
“I can imagine,” she whispers, her gaze dropping to her bowl. “My grandpa fought in Korea. He never talked about it. But I could still see it, sometimes, in his eyes. That distance. Like he was seeing something I couldn’t.” She looks up, her eyes empathetic. “Is it like that?”
I nod once, sharply. “It's exactly like that.”
“I bet you feel like you’re still there, don't you?” she asks.
Still there? Fuck…
I’malwaysthere. In the dust, in the blood, in the screams.
“Every damn day,” I admit, the words raw, tearing at the walls around my heart.
This is the closest I’ve come to confessing the full extent of my torment to anyone.
"They offered therapists, counselors… all of them with kind eyes and soft voices. They were all armed with notebooks and pamphlets about processing and moving forward… Like it was that simple. Like talking could ever cauterize wounds that deep."
Penny takes a breath, her spoon now forgotten on the table.
"I sat in sterile offices and just… stared at diplomas on the wall." I shake my head and take a breath. "But you know what I said? Nothing."
"Nothing?"
"The words choked me, Penny," I say, staring down into my bowl, refusing the dim the bright lights in this beautiful woman's eyes with my dark past. "They didn't need to hear the gory details. Shrinks couldn't carry that weight for me, and I sure as hell wasn't going to dump the bloody mess of it onto some stranger's clean carpet."
Her hand reaches across the table, her fingers gently touching mine.
“I’m so sorry, Edward,” she says, her voice sincere. “No one should have to live with that.”
Her empathy, so unburdened by judgment, is like a tiny chisel chipping away at my defenses. I want to pull my hand away, want to retreat into the numbness, but her touch is the first human contact I've had in… fuck knows how long.
“It is what it is,” I manage, my voice rough.
“No, it’s not,” she insists softly. “It’s trauma. And it’s… real. And it’s not your fault.”
Not your fault.
I’ve carried that blame, that guilt, like a crushing weight for years. To hear it articulated, by someone who doesn’t even truly know the half of it… it’s unsettling.
“You don’t know what I did."
The images threaten to overwhelm me. The choices I made. The lives lost on my command.
“No, I don’t,” she agrees, her gaze steady. “But I know you, Edward. The man who let a stranger into his cabin in a blizzard. The man who hides heartbreakingly beautiful art. The man who just made the best damn lentil soup I’ve ever had. And that man… isn’t what you think he is.”
I stare at her, truly seeing her, for the first time.
