Shot Throught the Heart

forty-seven

Mom, Peyton and Dominic all left a few days after the hearing. Before they did leave though, Dominic helped me get a new car. He ended up getting me a really good deal on a new Jeep Grand Cherokee, it came with all the bells and whistles. After they left, we were on our own for the first time since coming home from war. It was an interesting few days when I realized that I couldn't just yell out mom and have either of them come around the corner.

            It took us a few days in to really get a routine going. With Kuzma not in school yet, Morgan and I have been buying him work books to see where he is on par with the American school system. While English language arts was hard for him, Kuzma was excelling at math and science. History was a blank slate for him as his old schools didn't teach American history. Our mornings would usually started with him and I sitting together for breakfast while Morgan enjoyed sleeping in. From there, we would do two hours of school, usually math then English before we took a break for lunch and a bit of time outside. Then we would finish off the day with science and history.

            Even though we are both still out on medical leave, Morgan has been working from home, so she has mostly been filtering in and out of the room while Kuzma and I do school. I have been going to physical therapy three times a week to work on getting strength back into my chest and arms. Though most of my incision stitches have fully healed and I am almost completely off of all of my medications, I do have pain in my chest and ribs if I move to fast or try to lift heavy objects. But things were good, really good. I finally felt at peace for the first time since we have gotten home.

            It took about a month in our routine for the nightmares to start. At first, they were just of me being back in the car when the all the bombs fell around us. Then it shifted to the moment Morgan got shot and reliving it over and over again. It was getting so bad it finally got to the point where I wasn't sleeping.

            After a hard night, I finally had enough. When I woke up from the little sleep I did manage to get, I asked Morgan to take care of Kuzma while I took the car to base. I just needed to get out of the house for a while to try and reset my brain. It didn't take me long to end up at the gates of the base. The MPs waved me through after looking at my ID and I drove over to the cages.

            It was a small miracle that my ID swiped me into the building and that it even worked to let me into the cages. When I pushed the door open I was happy to see it empty. Looking at the room, it doesn't look like anybody has really been here since we got back. It made me happy to know the team was taking time to rest and not come in. Everyone's gear was haphazardly thrown into the cages, mine included. I walked over to my cage and used my key to unlock the lock I have on the door and opened it up.

            It didn't take long to find my rifle, still loaded, with a round in the chamber sitting upright in the stand I made. Quickly, I unloaded the rifle and put it onto the team table in the middle of the room. It needs to be cleaned as it was still dusty from the steal plant. With that out of the way, I opened up my camping chair and sat down in front of my gear trunk. After one deep breath, I undid the buckles and pushed the lid open.

            The first thing I noticed was that everything had a layer of dust. My helmet and ear protection were both still in tact so I set those aside. The next thing I pulled out of the box was my vest. Dark blood stains covered parts of the fabric and some of the pockets that were attached to the front were empty. It looks like it was knocked around a bunch and things just fell out of it while on the move. My eyes kept coming back to the blood spatter though, it was most likely mine. I knew I was going to need a whole new set up, there was no saving this one.

            From here, I made the decision to make keep and toss piles. I pulled the magazines and extra gear I had attached to the Velcro and put them in the save pile. Next came the few patches I had on the front and back. Even though blood was covering a good portion of it, I kept my name plate. With one more once over to make sure I didn't miss anything, I put the vest into the toss pile.