Reasons Only Time Allows by Micah Thomas

Author:Micah Thomas [Thomas, Micah]
Language: eng
Format: epub
Published: 2020-05-27T22:00:00+00:00

“Of course not. I was there when it broke.”

“I… I didn’t know.”

“I broke it when I got hit by an IED. More than that, they are designed to be in off mode when not activated on a mil network. You can’t hack these. You can’t jailbreak them. Even if it still worked and it was on a network, it’s keyed to my fingerprint.”

Thelon wanted to break down, break open, spill the extra beans he’d been holding. The secret seemed so arbitrary, yet it caused an unnatural fright in him. Why not tell? He heard his own breathing quicken, throat so dry there was a wheezy sound to it.

“You want to know what Henry said to me? What made me drop everything and go on the road with you?” Cassie asked, shifting gears on him.

The wind took the smoke away from them and the fire crackled its own affirmation.

“Yeah, actually.”

“He said that from the moment he met you, he loved you. That all the other stuff was confusing AF, but he trusted you and didn’t need to know anything else.”

Thelon ran his fingers over his eyes, pressing them there, relieving pressure. “He said that?”

“Yeah. You know what else? I did, too. I didn’t really believe it at first, but I do. Finding this,” she tossed the phone back to Thelon, “makes the same kinda broken sense.”

Thelon looked at the phone. “It really doesn’t work.” It was a lie.

“If it doesn’t work, throw it away.”

Thelon coughed, rough and bitter, then met Cassie’s steady eyes, her face kind and full of certainty. He asked, “Throw it away?”

“Yeah. If it doesn’t work, throw it away. That’s what I did. Pitch it right into the fire.”

“I want to.”

“Do it. Burn the past.”

Thelon closed his eyes and tossed the phone into the flames. His body shivered and his teeth chattered as a wave of fear and anticipation passed over him.

“Thelon, can I say something? And I’m really not trying to be offensive here.” She gestured for him to sit closer to her and he did.

Cassie rubbed his back with one hand and together they watched the phone’s rubber casing melt. “Psych isn’t my specialty. I was a triage nurse. Emergencies. Battlefield injuries. Most of what I know about the mind I learned in my own therapy for PTSD.”

“You think there’s something wrong with me?” Thelon asked, vulnerability in his tone. He thought about his Google searches and frightening mental illness self-diagnoses.

“There’s something called Generalized Anxiety Disorder and Panic Disorder. When we get done with whatever it is we are doing, maybe find a therapist who specializes in that? There’s things that can help when the feelings start to overwhelm you, you know?”

“Yeah,” he said, choked up.

Cassie sighed and patted his back a couple times, almost too hard. “How about this? When strange shit start going down, we do strange shit back.”

“What do you mean?”

“Like laughing at it when our nerves are shot. Stand on our heads, talk like Cookie Monster. Whatever. In therapy, that was one way of coping with trauma.

Download

Copyright Disclaimer:
This site does not store any files on its server. We only index and link to content provided by other sites. Please contact the content providers to delete copyright contents if any and email us, we'll remove relevant links or contents immediately.