Chapter 11

I linked my fingers together in my lap as my leg bounced up and down, my body full of anxiety.

What happened a week ago has had me on edge every moment of every day since.

I stared at Dr. Browning as she took in everything that I had just told her. About the drinking, taking care of a man going through the same shit I do, and it not ending well.

"Kyle," she snapped me out of my thoughts.

I meet her stare in response, saying nothing. I'm exhausted with talking about this.

"I assume there's more of a backstory to you than just being upset about this one night with this man you seem to care a lot about."

Care? That's a strong word.

I hate that she's right though.

"I was married, around 7 years ago. I would rather not talk about him though." I hesitantly explain.

"Was it a bad marriage? Abusive?" She writes something down in her notebook on her lap.

"No. It was fine, it just ended horribly. It gives me nightmares, and I can never go back to sleep after I wake up from them."

"And when was the last time you had one?" She looks back up at me, concerned.

"This entire week. I haven't gotten a full night of sleep in a while. Maybe a few power naps here and there." My fingers tighten around each other.

Her eyes shoot down to my hands, and she moves her notebook off her lap, and reaches across the table and gently rests her hand on my clasped ones.

The small gesture calms me down slightly.

"Try to sleep tonight, please. I know you don't want too, but the only way to move past this, and get yourself in better shape, is to get sleep. No more diets of large cups of coffee and anxiety medication." Dr. Browning gives me stern look that says 'don't you dare say no to me right now.'

I give her a small nod, and she pulls her hand away, satisfied she got some sort of response from me.

"You're opening up to me fast, which is a good sign. It means progress, which is what you and I need. I won't make you schedule another appointment with me, but I would highly recommend it." She gives me a comforting smile, and I stand up, ready to leave the room.

Sure. I'll set another appointment.

———

I pull up to Jaden and Berkeleys house, and shut off my car. I sigh, and rub my eyes. Not sleeping was really catching up to me.

I get out of the car and jog up to the door, knocking.

But much to my surprise, it slowly creaked open from the pressure of the knocks my hand gave.

Narrowing my eyes, I slowly walk in the house, all the lights turned off, the house dim, and the only light illuminating the room came from the windows.

"Hello? Jaden?" I call out wearily.

I hear a painful groan in response to my call. It sounded like it came from the kitchen.

I slowly walk into the darker room, and see someone laying down on the kitchen floor tiles.

My eyes widen, and I rush to the persons side.

"Jaden! What the hell happened..." my voice slowly trails off as my eyes adjust to the darkness and I don't see my best friend.

I'm in another nightmare.

I attempt to stand up, to look around for anything to put pressure on his wound that I know will bleed out no matter what I do.

It happens in every dream, and I can't stop it.

He weakly grabs my wrist, and it shocks me, as I give a small flinch back.

He tugs me down, my face close to his.

He mutters something, something hard to understand due to him bleeding out right in front of me.

"Say it again. I can't understand." I plead. Anything he says in my nightmares I always remember.

He repeats himself, but it's a lot clearer this time.

"Changes are coming, be careful."

I pull back, my eyes wide. What the hell? What does that mean?

"Explain. Please explain what's going to change." I shake his shoulders, and he weakly shades his head. He opens his mouth again, but it wasn't his voice.

"Wake up."

———

I jolt awake, my arms resting limply on the steering wheel, Berkeleys hands on my shoulders.

"Huh?" I mumble, now even more tired then I was before I fell asleep and had another nightmare.

"Come inside, right now." She demands, and she doesn't sound happy.

I shrug her hands off of me, and I stumble out of my car.

She leads me inside, and I want to get out of her house as soon as possible from my most recent nightmare.

Berkeley crosses her arms, clearly in a pissed state.

"Care to explain what happened between you and my brother?"

I feel a pang in my chest.

No. I don't want her to know anything. It's in the past, and it clearly meant nothing to the both of us.

"Nothing happened, I just stayed the night with him. Like you told me to do." I don't budge, she can't know that I technically 'hooked up' with her brother. "Why do you ask?" I continue.

Her angry expression drops to one of pure panic. She turns around and picks up her phone from the coffee table in her living room, and scrolls through it for a few moments.

She pulls up a text, and hands it over to me.

It's from ransom.

My eyes skin across her phone and the very few texts exchanged between them. I feel my blood turn cold as I finish reading the texts.

"When does he leave?" I looked up at her, as she tries to blink back tears.

"He left yesterday. Kyle, he cant go on a third tour again. He's not healthy enough for it. He convinced his commanders somehow for them to send him to another country."

I hand her back her phone, my body going numb.

He may have fucked me over, but I refuse to let Ransom be stupid again.

"Do the people over his deployment know he has a sever form of PTSD? They can't know if he's deployed." I whisper.

"Exactly. Those were my thoughts as well." Berkeley tells me.

"What if we go and tell them? Give them proof or something that he's not fit to be out there for god knows how long?" I try not to panic.

Why do I care so much? I sound like a lovesick puppy to a guy who has been nothing but trouble to me.

"You and I both know he'll hate us forever if we do that. We can't just rat him out. That'll absolutely wreck him."

"He's already wrecked, Berk! If you care about him, you would turn him in with me. So he doesn't fucking die out there, or make himself worse." I almost plead in frustration.

She shakes her head. "We can't do that Kyle. No matter how much we may want too."

"You can't? Or you won't?" I challenge.

She shakes her head.

"I won't."

———

(Yo!

Hi! Sorry this update literally took forever!

Life took a wild turn lately. Competition season started for my color guard team, I found out I have a stressed bone in my left foot, so I have to wear a medical boot thing for a month, got rejected from my top college (🤪✌️), got a callback for a drum corps, a lot of work, etc.

Anyways, life is wildin rn 😂

Also I had to redo my entire plan for this book and I still have to write it down in my notes because I am a hardcore procrastinator. It's not fine, but it's fine.

Thanks for being patient with me! Hopefully I can be quicker with my updates lmaooo)