Chapter 47 - The Husband I Buried

Then

Luis

For a while after I left the center, I tried to do things the regular way.

I got a job. A routine. A life.

But I couldn’t seem to make it stick.

I landed a job on a construction site, until I mistook the sound of a power tool for a grenade and dropped an expensive power drill mid-shift.

They asked me to go home, and my name wasn’t on the roster the next day. Or the day after that.

The walls of my apartment seemed to close in tighter each night, my excuses for not paying the rent on time growing thinner. Empty takeout boxes took over the bench space. Half-empty bottles of beer were left wherever I passed out. The hum of the fridge was louder than my own heartbeat.

I couch-surfed at friends’ places. The nights were the worst. The quiet pressed too close and I drank to knock myself out. Sometimes it worked.

My dad offered me a job at his company, said it’d ‘straighten me out.’ I told him I’d rather drown. He said he’d cut me off completely if I didn’t sort out my life.

I didn’t think Mom would let that happen, but she did.

I was in the parking lot of the liquor store, head down, when I heard someone join me.

It startled me so badly the bottle dropped from my hand, shattering on the curb.

I was as drunk as I was going to get with empty pockets, so I looked up and said hello. It was him. The man from that wellness place whose name I couldn’t remember. Sil— Sil-something.

‘Luis,’ he said, like we were old friends picking up a conversation mid-sentence. ‘You didn’t come back.’

I rubbed the back of my neck. ‘Yeah. Not really my scene.’

He smiled. Teeth like porcelain. ‘You think you’re broken.’

I laughed under my breath. ‘I didn’t say that.’

‘No,’ he said, still smiling. ‘But they did. And you believed them.’

I stood, swaying on my feet, but he held out a hand to steady me.

‘You wake up every day wishing your body didn’t remember what your mind tries to forget. You think that means you’re damaged. But you’re not.’

I kicked a piece of broken glass, the alcohol trickling down the gutter. ‘Then what am I?’

‘Your body’s fighting itself,’ he said softly. ‘It’s trying to destroy the part that’s still holding on. We can help you stop fighting.’

His voice was . . . smooth. Like warm water. Like sleep. I didn’t want to believe him, but I also didn’t want him to stop talking.

‘So, you think I need therapy? That’s what my girlfriend thought too.’

Sofia had told me that when she left. She didn’t like the new me, returned from a hell I couldn’t escape.

‘Not therapy,’ said the man . . . Silas. ‘I want to show you how to break the cycle. Let me help you. No more fighting.’

That night, I slept. Not all night, but better than I had in months.

When I woke up the next morning, I called Silas, telling myself I wasn’t committing to anything. It was just a follow-up. I could still walk away if I decided it wasn’t for me.

We met at a café by the river. He ordered for me – black coffee, no sugar – and somehow, it didn’t feel presumptuous. It felt like he was paying attention. Like he saw me. Food, too. A burger and fries.

‘After the state you were in last night,’ he said, ‘I figured this might help.’

He wasn’t wrong.

Silas had a way of talking that made everything else fade. He didn’t interrupt, didn’t fill the silences. He was patient, like what I had to say was worth waiting for. I told him things I hadn’t told anyone else, about the army, and the explosion. Things I couldn’t say in the group therapy session. About the guilt that sat in my chest like shrapnel.

‘If you’d tried to save Thomas, you’d both be dead,’ he said. ‘All you would’ve achieved by going in would have been to give your squadron two shitty phone calls to make back home to your parents. But you were smart enough to know the better of the two options. You don’t have to keep reliving it, regretting something you couldn’t have changed. You need to go easy on yourself.’

‘Yeah, that’s what the army therapist said.’

I’d spoken to one briefly, when I left the army.

Silus nodded. ‘Therapy tries to reason with pain. We teach you that it might be there, but it doesn’t have to rule you. We teach it obedience.’

‘Obedience?’ I repeated.

‘Your mind’s a soldier that hasn’t stopped fighting,’ he said. ‘We’ll show you how to make it stand down.’

Silas slid a business card across the table. No name. No number. Just a familiar address.

‘Come tonight,’ he said. ‘You’ll see what I’m talking about.’

‘Why do you care?’ The question surprised me, slipping out before I could stop it.

Silas didn’t answer right away. He looked out toward the river, watching the current move like it had somewhere to be.

‘Because I’ve seen what happens when men like you are forgotten,’ he said finally. ‘The world doesn’t know what to do with you once you’re done being useful.’

I snorted softly. He turned back to me then, really looked at me.

‘You remind me of someone,’ he said. ‘Someone I failed.’

I was already feeling down, and I didn’t want to be his redemption project. ‘Yeah?’

Silas’s gaze was lost in the river, dredging up old memories.

‘I don’t make the same mistake twice,’ he said under his breath.

The resolve in his voice caught my attention.

‘You don’t know me,’ I said. ‘You don’t owe me anything.’

‘I know enough,’ he replied. ‘You don’t need to be fixed. You need to be understood. And you need structure. Purpose. People who won’t flinch when you tell the truth about who you are.’

He stepped closer to the water, throwing a rock in and watching it sink. ‘Most people want to change you – or want you to be their version of you.’

‘And you’re different?’ I said, the sarcasm heavier than intended.

He folded his arms. ‘You’ve spent your whole life following other people’s rules. The military. Your parents. Doctors. Therapists.’

‘That’s what happens when you screw up,’ I said.

‘No,’ he corrected. ‘That’s what happens when you’re powerful enough to survive and no one teaches you how to use that power.’

Was this guy for real? I was ready to walk away, my back already turned, but he continued.

‘I think you survived something most people wouldn’t,’ he said. ‘And instead of being honored for it, you were punished. Drugged. Pacified. Told to make yourself smaller.’

He slid the card closer to me with two fingers. I’d thrown away the last one.

‘I care,’ he said, ‘because men like you either destroy themselves . . . or they learn to belong again.’

I stared at the card.

No name. No number. Just an address.

‘Come tonight,’ Silas said. ‘You don’t owe anyone anything. Just come and see.’

I looked up. ‘And if I don’t?’

His expression softened – not disappointed. Patient. ‘Then I’ll know I was wrong,’ he said. ‘And I’ll let you go.’

But the way he said it told me he didn’t think that would happen.