Everyone is quiet as that sinks in, but not one face staring back holds any doubt in my claim. They accept what I’m saying as truth. While they may not understand it to the full depths, they do realize they can’t truly know what I’ve been through.
Lucas nods, his eyes warm with sympathy. “I can see that, brother. But you know you can share anything with us. You can tell us what you’re feeling. You can get things off your chest if you need to. I can’t even fucking begin to imagine what you went through for all those months—”
I’m shocked when Lucas goes silent, his words choked off by emotion. It causes my chest to tighten. I reach out to my left where he sits to clamp my hand on his shoulder. I don’t dare look at Simone, because I know she’ll have tears in her eyes.
It’s in this moment I realize I’ve done a disservice to my siblings. They were all there for me when I returned six weeks ago, but they dared not ask me to share my experiences back then. I was too weak, sick, and traumatized. They were there in silent support.
But they must all be carrying around the worst of imaginary nightmares, wondering what befell their poor brother. While I’ve been diligently working with Corinne over these last three weeks to battle my demons and my fears, they’re all mired in the ones they’ve had the entire time I was missing.
And that’s my bad for taking me this long to realize.
“I think,” I begin carefully, scanning around the table. “It might be good to tell you what happened to me. Not just so you understand, but also so you can start to move past this the way I have been working to do. I think the fear of the unknown might be worse than actually knowing.”
“Lay it on us,” Max says.
Lucas and Van nod somberly.
Simone blinks back her tears, puts on her big-girl panties, which she has never in her life had a problem wearing with three rowdy and overbearing brothers, and nods as well.
Over the course of two more beers, I tell them everything. It’s not like I can talk for that long about what I went through as there wasn’t that much to say. I may have been held captive for months, but my routine was the same every day.
What took time was in answering their questions. Honestly, I’m glad they asked them. Because they did so in a way that didn’t make me feel weak or vulnerable. There was no pity or even soft-around-the-edges sympathy. They were matter-of-fact in their curiosities because they want to understand me, and they knew I’d respond best if this was treated more like a standard debriefing than a hug-it-out kumbaya session.
Of course, explaining what happened in the firefight before I got captured elicited sympathies for Anna.
“It’s awful,” Simone says in regard to Jimmy. “I suppose she knew the risk when he left, but she probably never really thought he wouldn’t come back.”
I shrug as I wouldn’t know. Anna and I haven’t talked about that, but I’m sure we will at some point. The one thing that helps me keep the guilt at bay is in the knowledge she knows I’m willing to talk about Jimmy with her, and vice-versa. I don’t ever want to walk on eggshells around the fact she loved another man so greatly she gave her life in marriage to him.
“This thing I have with Anna,” I say quietly, commanding everyone’s attention again. “It was really complicated at first because I thought it was my fault Jimmy died.”
“How?” Van asks in confusion.
Which I need to make note of to tell Corinne about. It’s a milestone, because it hits me now that the mere fact he has to ask me says when I told them the story of how the firefight went down, I didn’t place any blame on my shoulders.
I clarify how my thinking had been. “I thought it was my responsibility to keep Jimmy and Sal safe. That my choice—rather than engaging the known enemy to my front—should have been to merely protect them at my rear because they were my teammates.”
“But you understand now that’s not the case,” Lucas presses. “Right?”
“I think I do,” I admit. “I’ve been told time and again that I did all the right things. It still makes it hard to look at Anna sometimes and not feel weird I’m with her and Jimmy isn’t.”
Simone reaches across the table to take my hand. “Or maybe it’s just the way things were supposed to work out, Malik. I think I’ll choose to believe Jimmy wasn’t supposed to be hers forever.”
“Wish we could have met her, bro,” Max says earnestly. “She sounds like quite a woman.”
“She is,” I agree, holding up my bottle in silent tribute to the golden-haired woman who has so quickly invaded my heart. “Next time, though.”