April 11
Tayja
This time, I'm the one who wakes in the middle of the night to my housemate's nightmare. When I first heard the crash that came from outside the bedroom door, I assumed that the man who haunts my nightmares had found me. But when I heard Ryan's yelling, I realized something entirely different was going on. Most of his words were unintelligible, but then I heard him yell for Jeremy. That was the name of his best friend, the one he told me had died in the explosion that injured Ryan. If he's yelling for Jeremy, that must mean he thinks he's still in Afghanistan.
It's been about a week since he woke me up from my recurring nightmare and told me about the ones that plague him. I've heard stories about soldiers with PTSD holding their wives at knifepoint, thinking they're back on the battlefield, not recognizing the frantic cries of their loved one.
I'm afraid to leave the bedroom at first. If a man could mistake his wife for an enemy soldier, how would Ryan react to me, a girl he's only known for a few weeks? Ryan yells for Jeremy again and I hear the fear in his voice. I remember the terror I feel in my nightmares. I can't do nothing. I can't listen to him relive his worst nightmare and do nothing about it.
I step into the doorway between the bedroom and the rest of the cabin. The light from the dancing auroras in the sky dimly illuminates the room with a greenish hue. Despite the darkness, I can clearly see the source of the crash that woke me. The kitchen table is lying on its side and Ryan is crouched on the floor behind it. I'm relieved to see that he's not holding a knife, one of the guns, or any other sort of weapon.
In the darkness, a few moments pass before it dawns on me that Ryan's not wearing his mask. Uh oh. His right side is angled toward me, but I can't make out much of his face. His long, dark hair is hiding it from view.
"Ryan?" My voice sounds as unsure as I feel. He's not going to be happy with me when he wakes up from this.
Ryan jerks at the sound of his name and spins to look at me, still crouched behind the table. "Get down!" he nearly screams as he drops completely to the floor, covering his head with his arms.
I stare at his huddled form. I don't know how to wake him up from this. I should have stayed in the bedroom. The immediate cause for alarm must end after a moment because he scrambles back to a crouch and shouts at me again.
"I said get down! Can't you hear the mortars? Crawl over here, I'll cover you."
It seems that my refusal to move from a standing position is agitating him, so I decide to obey him. I lower myself to my hands and knees and awkwardly shuffle over as he pops up to peer over the table.
"Where's my gun?" he asks, sounding horrified.
I can't play along with this. I need to snap him out of this and get him to calm down. "It's locked in the gun safe, Ryan. You don't need it. We're safe." Now I finally understand why he insists on locking them away each night. And why he didn't seem to like explaining why.
He crouches next to me and looks at me, his face inches from mine. I bite my lip to keep from crying out. The right side of his face is... it's destroyed. From his hairline clear down across his forehead, cheek, jaw, neck, and disappearing under his flannel shirt, the skin is mutilated. The scarring is the worst I've ever seen. It looks like half of his face was burned off. His right eye is just as blue as his left but somehow lacks the clarity. It's dim and unseeing. That's why the mask only has one eyehole. His right eye is blind. Or maybe it's not even real. I can't see how far toward the back of his head the scarring continues, his long hair obscuring it.
"What do you mean, I don't need it? Are you deaf? Can't you hear the gunfire?"
I take a deep breath and drag my eyes away from the mutilated side of his face. I focus on his left eye and touch his left cheek, hoping maybe the contact will shock him into reality.
"There is no gunfire, Ryan. It's not real. We're safe. I promise you, we're safe."
"You're not Jeremy," he says. "Who are you?" he demands, his expression shifting to something both scared and confused.
"Ryan, it's me," I say rubbing his cheek with my thumb. "You're here with me. You're not in Afghanistan anymore. You're home."
"Saph?" he asks, the fear disappearing from his face, leaving just confusion.
What on earth is a saph?
"No, Ryan, it's Tayj-" I stop, remembering that he doesn't know me by my nickname. "It's Ana," I finish.
He only looks more confused. I switch from squatting to kneeling on the floor beside him. "You left Afghanistan years ago. We're home, in Alaska, remember? We're in your kitchen. This is your cabin. We're in America. We're safe. No one is shooting at us. There aren't any bombs. We are safe. I promise."
"Where's Jeremy?" he asks, his voice breaking. I look into his eyes. The raw emotion I see there tells me that he knows. He remembers what happened to Jeremy.
There are times when I've woken up and thought that maybe the death of my family was all just a nightmare. The pain I felt when I realized they were gone was like losing them all over again. In this moment, I'd like nothing more than to spare Ryan from that pain. But I can't. Jeremy is gone. Mom is gone. Dad is gone. Julie is gone. Johnston is gone. No comforting lies can bring them back, no words can undo what's been done. I have to tell him the truth.
"He didn't make it, Ryan."
"No," Ryan breathes. The devastation in his voice brings tears to my eyes as tears escape his.
I lean forward and hug him, my face pressed against the damaged right side of his. The scarred skin on his face is rough but completely free of facial hair. I doubt he has any on this side of his face. Ryan's quiet sobs shake his body as I hold him close. His legs give out underneath him and he slumps down against me.
"I'm so sorry, Ryan," I say, my own voice thick with tears. "I'm so sorry."
When his nearly silent sobs finally cease, he still doesn't pull away from me. I hear him sniff a few times and take deep breaths.
"I get the dreams too," I say, echoing his words of empathy from last week. His arms go around me and pull me closer. His head bows and his soft hair tickles my face. For a split second, his embrace feels like safety, like home, and like something else I didn't know I wanted, but the moment is shattered when his entire body goes rigid.
"Where's the mask?" he asks, his voice low and tense.
"I don't know," I say. "It's probably by the couch - Ryan."
He abruptly pulled away from me while I was speaking and turned the scarred side of his face away.
I reach out and touch his cheek. His gaze flies up to meet mine. "It's ok."
For the first time, I can see his scowl.
"Look at me," I say.
He doesn't move.
"Ryan," I breathe. The lines on his forehead relax slightly. "Look at me," I beg.
His gaze drops to the floor. Slowly, gently, I reach out with my left hand and touch a patch of scarring on the right side of his face. In the dim light, I see his jaw clench and I feel him pull away by a fraction of an inch. Sensing he wouldn't appreciate it, I don't forcibly turn his face toward me. Instead, I slowly move to the left using my knees. When I am finally able to see his entire face again, I search his eyes. He is still fixated on the floor.
"Ryan," I say one last time and softly brush my fingertips through the long hair to the left of his ear. I almost gasp when his startlingly blue eyes finally look up into mine. I focus on that perfect, unmarred side of his face. He must have been extraordinarily handsome once. He has a strong jaw, well-defined cheekbones, gorgeous silky hair, and full lips. His left eyebrow is dark and frames his face nicely. His eyes are piercing. He couldn't have looked like this and not been aware of his attractiveness. To have lost it so completely and yet kept a piece of it must torture him.
I try again to remember the picture of the young celebrity who joined the military against his family's wishes. I still draw a blank on him, but remember the face of his striking older brother. The face in front of me may be washed in green light and half disfigured, but it's clear that Ryan was the better-looking brother. That thought about his brother reminds me of how he said his family reacted to his injury.
"Your family wanted to use what happened to you for publicity?" I ask quietly. He nods. I feel a spark of anger rise in my chest. It's not politically correct to call a disfigured or disabled person a monster or a freak, so they couldn't have used that wording, but I'm sure the effect would have been the same. Ryan's battered face would have been plastered all over the media, scaring small children in grocery stores across America. The tabloids would have found a grotesque image of him and used people's fascination and horror to sell celebrity gossip magazines. The media would have turned him into a monster, even if no one could explicitly call him that.
I hate them all. Ryan is kind, caring, and gentle, even when he's uncomfortable around me. What a bunch of horrid, self-centered, and vicious people they must be. How could anyone hurt Ryan like that? I suppose I should be feeling sad for his sake, but all I feel is anger at his awful family.
"They are monsters," I say, nearly trembling with rage.
The expression on Ryan's face is unreadable, even on the good side.
"But you," I say, looking intently into his eyes as if the intensity of my stare could prove my sincerity. "You are a hero," I state with ardor. Ryan's eyes narrow and his left eyebrow lowers. His right eyebrow no longer exists.
I suppose he's about to argue that assessment, point out that all his friends died and he wasn't able to help them. I'm not going to hear it.
"You are a hero to me," I say firmly. "You saved my life, Ryan. If it weren't for you, I would have died that day in the forest. You are my hero."
I realize in retrospect that my last comment sounded a little cliche and kinda dorky. I decide to stick with it anyway. It's true. The statement seems to have its intended effect because Ryan's face softens just a tiny bit. His eyes drop to the floor again. He pulls away from my touch, slowly and gently, like he's afraid of spooking me. He seems to avoid my gaze as he stands and begins to right the kitchen table and the chairs he knocked over. I help him pick up the few odds and ends that had been sitting on the table. Fortunately, I'd decided to bring the headphones and iPod into my room last night. With the room back in order, he seems at a loss for what to do next and runs his left hand through the hair at his left temple. He glances up at me for a brief moment before tilting his head off to the side just enough to obscure my view of his scars.
I return to the bedroom a few minutes later. Ryan still hadn't said anything since he realized he'd been unmasked. When he returned to his makeshift bed on the couch and generally ignored my presence, I figured that was his way of saying he didn't want to talk.
As I lie in bed, the excitement of the last several minutes chasing away all thoughts of sleep, I remember his ex. Tonight when he realized I wasn't Jeremy, Ryan called me something. Saph. Was that his ex's name? I think back on the pretty crying woman. No name stands out in my memory as belonging to her.
How did she react when she saw his face? The woman who wouldn't risk her own appearance just to show some genuine emotion. If she even has genuine emotion. I glance back at the door that separates me from the damaged man brooding in the next room. What did her rejection do to him?