Page 61 of Swerve
He got up from the sofa, went into the bedroom, and pulled his Glock from the nightstand drawer. He went back to the living room and sat down, holding the gun on his lap, one finger on the trigger.
He had every reason to put the gun in his mouth. Just end it all. The black hole of peace in front of him held the answer he’d been looking for. He wanted out. Wanted the images in his head to stop their carousel rotation. Wanted the numbness that had trapped his heart and refused to let it feel anything let him go.
But the phone rang. Tanner Billings’ name flashed on the screen. Another team member. He considered not answering, but something made his finger hit the button. He listened as one of the men he’d fought and nearly died with too many times to count raged against the decision Ace had just made.
Knox listened, and when Tanner finally went silent, all he could say was, “But I understand why he did.”
Tanner started to cry. Knox listened to his quiet sobbing, picturing the enormous warrior who had saved his ass more than once. And he knew that the fact that Tanner could cry meant he would be okay.
Knox wanted to cry. But the tears were frozen inside him.
“You better not, man,” Tanner said, the words barely audible. “Tell me you’re not going to let that shithole we survived end up being the winner. Because I swear if you do . . .”
“I don’t want to,” Knox said softly. “I just can’t picture anything else making sense.”
“I’m getting on a plane, Knox,” Tanner said. “The next one I can get a seat on. Give me your address. We’ll figure this out together.”
~
IRONICALLY, IT WAS Ace’s suicide that ended up bringing Knox back to life again. But if it hadn’t been for Tanner, Knox knew without question that he would have followed Ace’s way out the afternoon he’d received that text.
Tanner arrived at his apartment late that same night, got their airline tickets lined up for Ace’s funeral two days later. The two of them sat on Knox’s sofa and shared their best memories of Ace and the close calls they’d all pulled through together.
Before the funeral, Tanner made some discreet phone calls and found a psychiatrist who specialized in PTSD and was able to book an emergency session the very next day. He drove Knox to the appointment and sat in the waiting room while Dr. Thomason began a slow drilling into the abscess that had become Knox’s soul.
With his probing questions, Dr. Thomason released enough of the pressure that day that Knox considered the possibility that he might be able to climb his way out of the darkness.
And on the day that he and Tanner stood by their SEAL brother’s grave, absorbed the sobbing of his wife and three children, and felt the bottomless well of their grief, he felt the first flare of anger for what had been taken from them all.
That in trying to serve his country, Ace had made a choice that had repercussions he didn’t know to expect.
In trying to save the lives of innocents, he had ended up sacrificing his own.
That afternoon, with a cold October wind at his back, Knox wondered what it would take to write himself a different ending.
~
THE STORY WASN’T pretty.
And there were times when it just didn’t seem worth it.
After learning that he was getting help, Mariah put a halt to her petition for divorce. Called him one afternoon and told him she wanted to try again.
But he couldn’t let her. He wasn’t the same. And no matter how much therapy he subjected himself to, that was never going to change.
“You deserve far better, Mariah, than I am ever going to be able to give you.”
“Knox, I love you,” she said, crying softly. “I married you because I wanted to spend my life with you. If I’d had any idea I was going to be giving up my husband, I never would have agreed to you going to Afghanistan!”
“I signed on for every bit of it.”
“But it’s not fair,” she said, barely able to get the words through her tears. “It wasn’t supposed to mean that we sacrificed our life together for it.”
“I know,” he said, wishing he had more to offer her. But he didn’t. He simply didn’t.
Emory
“You need to spend time crawling alone through shadows to truly appreciate what it is to stand in the sun.”
