Ten Years Later...

In a marketplace of faded light and sandstone, children sidled between the wooden stalls. They vanished behind billowing tarps as the wind came whistling through the village. Nathan watched the images flash across his television screen. It was some spaghetti Western from the 1970s. As much as he wanted to forget the war, he was constantly reminded by everything around him. The images projected him back into that place. He could almost feel the sand getting in his eyes again. He could see in his mind's eye as Rifleman Steiner took point and signaled for the fire team to follow. He remembered elders and mules and faceless women floating past him in burkahs, their fingers stained with red henna.

The action in the film kicked in as a cloud of blackbirds lifted off one of the adobe houses. The cowboy reached for his pistol at the sound of it. Good reaction, Nathan thought. Know the signs, know the silence.

The westerns resonated with him in a way that none of his old comic book heroes could anymore. They were the only stories that made sense, men wasting each other endlessly over meaningless shit. The first-person shooter games, the shelves of graphic novels, and all the things he once loved did nothing but remind him that he once thought he could save the world. He used to believe in defying the evil despot and rescuing the princess. He knew better now, that princesses were either brainwashed or cruel, and most often they preferred their towers to liberation.

Massaging his wrist, Nathan clenched each time he found a bundle of scar tissue. The pain was half in his body, half in his memory. He tightened his hand into a fist. It would often spasm and the feeling would make his heart race in his chest. He tried to think of gentle rain, or the first time he unbraided Alex's hair.

His mom rapped on his door.

"Yeah?" Nathan swung his legs over the side of his bed, knocking over some beer cans and spilling the dregs of sweet water and spit.

Eleanor peeked her head in. She wore her poorly fitted dress and stained apron. Her tangled split-ends never fit the part of a typical mom, but Nathan liked that she didn't care so much about image. She stopped trying after Nathan's father passed. Most days she sipped wine and stared at the clouds, as if longing for her own admission through the pearly gates.

"Nathan," his mother said. "She's back. Either you come down or she's coming up."

Nathan had been turning Alex away since his return from the military hospital. She always left some form of baked goods, cookies or tea biscuits. At this point, it was evident she wouldn't stop trying until he went down and told her it was over.

"Give me a minute." Nathan waited for his mom to close the door before beginning the process of putting on his prosthesis. He turned his silicon liner inside out and rolled it up his thigh. Once his carbon fiber leg was latched on, he dressed his right foot with a sock and boot to match. He rolled down his pants legs and took a breath before getting up on both feet. Steady, he thought. You've got this.

The situation warranted a Xanax. He fumbled through pill bottles until he found one and swallowed it dry.

The stairs upset his balance, but he took them one by one, counting in his head each time his cane touched the next level. Alex waited for him in the entryway touching one of the fake flowers in a blue vase. A warm breeze came through the screen door along with sunlight brighter than any Nathan had seen in weeks. The light sparkled on Alex's elaborately braided hair. She always wore her hair like that, adorned with cloth daisies.

She was eighteen now. She still had that delicate frame that made her look as fragile as spun sugar. No matter how old she got, to him she would always be that same little girl who lived on the other side of the forest. Her green eyes still had their youthful luster and all the innocence of civilian life. When she saw the cane, her smile faded.

"Nathan." Her voice faltered. She set her basket on the end table. "Are you okay? What happened?"

All he could think about was how he hadn't written to her since before his accident. He hadn't made any effort whatsoever to contact her, and yet here she stood before him, glowing with love. "It's nothing," he said. "Pretty soon, I won't need the cane."

He waited for her reprimand. Perhaps she had too much pity to be angry. They stood in that hollow room for a long time before she came in for a hug. Nathan guarded himself with his cane and shrank into the embrace.

"You look so much older," she said, touching his face.

"I need a shave."

"Are you okay?"

"Yeah. I'm just not myself right now."

"I'm sorry. I didn't want to push in on you, but my friend just died. Do you remember Hannah?" Nathan looked at her. The fear in her eyes penetrated his guard and he couldn't help but let her in. "You know what happened, right? It was in the news last weekend."

"Right, yeah," he said. He didn't know much, but he knew enough to know he didn't want to talk about it. "She overdosed."

Alex cupped her elbows and looked at the floor. "We hadn't been friends since we were kids, but she used to be like a sister to me." Her eyes made him nervous. He had to look away.

Nathan had known Hannah from the neighborhood. She was Tom's girlfriend for a few months in high school. Now she'd been found dead on the beach with an arm full of heroin, left out there like garbage, left her to die alone in the sand, like so many kids in Afghanistan. Nathan had cut Hannah's picture out of the newspaper and put it in his wallet, with all the other friends he'd lost.

"Jacob was supplying her," Alex said. "He might have even been there when she died."

Nathan's heart sank. He envisioned Jacob standing over Hannah's body, smiling that crooked smile of his as she drew her last breath. A shrill frequency penetrated his head. He felt Alex's hand on his back and his body made an involuntary jerk.

"Hey," she said. "Let's sit down."

Nathan showed her into the living room and took a seat on the couch. Alex plopped down beside him, her perfect posture disintegrating as she nestled her head into the crook of his neck. She was looking at the pattern of T-shaped scars running up Nathan's forearm. His tattoo was warped by scar tissue and the medieval broadsword pointing toward his wrist was now broken across the middle.

"What happened?" she asked.

He didn't want to go there. Not today. Not with her. But already it was too late. The door to that world swung open, and the images rushed in like a sandstorm. He remembered the gore painted streets and vehicles on fire. He could taste black smoke on his tongue. Limbs strewn about the twisted metal. Don't think about it.

"When your letters stopped coming, I didn't know what to think," Alex said. "I was scared. For a long time, I thought—"

"Sorry," he said, meaning it for a number of reasons. Writing letters had helped him through so much homesickness and fear. Then in those last few weeks, everything changed. Violence spiked after Ramadan. Morale plummeted. And when he hit that IED, he lost everything. "I thought you would figure it out."

Alex shook her head. "Figure what out?"

"That I need to be alone."

"Oh," she said. "For how long?"

"I don't know, but you can't keep coming over here." He propped himself up on his cane and headed into the foyer.

Alex followed him and softened her voice to a whisper. "I don't understand."

Nathan couldn't think of what to say that wouldn't make this harder, so he just stared at her shoes. The words were trapped inside his head and all he could do was wait for her heart to break.

"Nathan? Did I say something wrong?" The tears came running down her face and she wiped them away with her fingertips.

As much as he wanted to console her, he knew he couldn't. He tried to imagine some perfect excuse to spare her pain. She was young, but after all those years of letters, that didn't seem to matter. She was out of his league, but she'd never accept that. As for the truth, that would destroy her.

"Tell me why," she demanded. "There has to be a reason."

"Alex, you've got to just walk away from this."

"I can't believe you," she said. "All this time, I never went with any other boy. I waited for you. And you don't even care." Alex checked the pins in the back of her hair, inhaling sharply. She was her mother's daughter. She knew how to restrain herself from making a scene. "I shouldn't have come."

"Alex. I'll always look out for you."

"Don't." The word struck like a match to his heart. She went out the screen door and was gone. Her basket remained, its contents concealed by a red napkin. Nathan felt a rush of torment within, but the chemical influence of his Xanax tamped it down.

He carried the warm basket into the kitchen and set it on the countertop. He kissed the top of his mother's head absentmindedly. She stood at the window, gazing listlessly outside. She would watch those clouds for hours if he didn't intervene. His mother had a Ph.D. in Medieval French Literature, but like a lot of women with a heart and mind for the humanities, she had landed in suburbia.

"Did you take your pills, Ma?"

"Yes. Did you?"

All he could think about now was Alex. He couldn't help but imagine her in Hannah's place, dumped in the sand with purple track marks running up her arms, her glassy eyes reflecting the sky birds overhead.

He lifted the red napkin covering the basket. Artfully made and sprinkled with sugar, the blueberry muffins gave off a sweet fragrance. Alex had a talent for baking. He could imagine her in a little apron, checking the oven, consulting her grandmother's recipes. She would be all right. She'd make someone happy someday.

He brought the muffin to his lips, but couldn't bring himself to eat.

"What's wrong?" his mother asked.

Nothing was wrong. Nothing except that he continually felt a pit in his stomach, and everything he ate left him feeling sick. Nathan realized there were tears in his eyes.

"Nothing," he said, and turned to go back upstairs.

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Music: "Blackout" Muse