I pull my arms over my head to stretch them out. “She’s upset I’m joining in this work-up. We’ve been fighting about it. We’ve been fighting a lot, actually.” A work-up is all of the training trips and the readying for a deployment. In other words, months and months of ignoring home life.
Moose throws some plates around and gets his weight on the bar. “Everything okay?”
“You know women, man. You never really know until it’s too late.” I laugh. He chuckles as he lies down and adjusts his lifting gloves. “I forgot you wear your little lady gloves. Have to keep your hands soft. Jacking off isn’t the same with calluses. Right?” I grin down at him.
He smirks. “Keep your eyes on my lady gloves. Watch them beat your PR. Spot me,” Moose says.
One of these days I’ll beat him. Today won’t be that day.
Typically I avoid looking at the floor-to-ceiling mirrors that cage us into the gym on our base, but today, I’m feeling okay—excited actually. I give myself silent praise as I let my gaze flick over the muscles that I built from nothing. Again. I keep Moose in my peripheral vision as he grunts and groans. “You got this. You’relooking stronger than last week,” I say. He is. He loads the bars with more weight and gets the massive amount up and down with little struggle.
Moose Perry is an all-around good guy. The size of his muscles is comparable to the size of his brain. He’s handsome, like I used to be, and cocky because he is one of America’s elite, but he’s also funny and old-fashioned. He doesn’t sleep around. Moose is on the proverbial hunt for Mrs. Right. Dating in this century caused him to lose faith in humanity, or so he tells me any chance he gets. I’m pretty sure the only person he lets set him up is his mother or his Aunt Ethel. Which should be illegal. I’m told on a semi-regular basis how lucky I am to have a woman like Megan. I guess if you hear it enough, you start to believe it.
I high-five his lady glove after he finishes, and we make our way to our cages. The cages are in a huge, dark, warehouse-like room. Each SEAL has his own cage with a lock to store our gear in. It doesn’t house a quarter of our shit, though. Most of mine is stacked in bins piled in my garage and in every spare closet in our house. Megan doesn’t complain, but I know most wives and girlfriends do. One even requested a house with an additional bedroom so boxes of survival gear and cold-weather clothing wouldn’t litter the rest of her house.
Moose is in his cage right next to mine. We share a wall. “I have to tell you something. You can’t repeat it,” I say, peeking behind a jacket hanging in front of my face.
Moose moves his head so he can see me through the bars that separate us. His eyes widen. “Oh shit. What?”
My mouth curves upward. “It’s not always something awful when I want to talk.”
“It’s not usually good, bro. The suspense is killing me. Out with it.”
“I met this woman,” I say.
He plugs his ears. “Do not tell me anything else, Smith. Don’t breathe another fucking word.”
“Oh, come on. She’s a writer, and she wants to interview me. Anonymously,” I explain. I leave out that she’s beautiful and intriguing and sad. How my curiosity about her piqued the moment our gazes locked.
He sighs. “Why didn’t you start with that? Don’t you even think about screwing up what you have with Megan. You don’t realize how lucky you have it, man. She’s stuck by you through everything.” He shakes his head, eyes closed. “Megan is the needle in the haystack.”
I feel sorry for him that he’s still wading in the haystack, because no one deserves a great woman more than he does. If I didn’t remember my friendship with Moose, I’d think he carries a flaming torch for Megan.
“It’s truly just an interview?” he asks. Moose draws his eyebrows in as he surveys me, trying to peg a lie.
“Yes. I’m not lying. You don’t have to watch me like that. Remember I took that course too. I’m reading you reading me. What do you think? It’s a good idea to talkabout it, right? She is writing a book or an article or something.” I feel guilty because I don’t have more information. I didn’t ask.
Moose stares at me, his blue eyes unblinking for several odd seconds. “Maybe.”
“Maybe? Who are you? Confucius? A lot has happened since the accident. Sure, I’ve talked to the Navy psychologists, but this is different. I’ll be able to talk about the details. Stuff I haven’t wanted to share before now. I’m healed. I’m on the other side now. Not that I look back with fond memories to the day that turned me into a gargoyle, but I still can’t remember anything, Moose. Not anything outside of my military career and my parents. And you. You motherfucker.”
He runs a hand through his hair. “Still? The docs made it sound like you were making improvements. You still don’t remember Megan?”
I swallow the lump in my throat. I need to talk about this. It’s obvious. “Made improvements in pretending to be the man I was before, yes. If that’s what you mean. No. I still don’t remember her. I probably won’t at this point. The doctors aren’t sure because selective amnesia is such a rarity. I don’t want to do psychotherapy. Megan respects that. She makes it a point to remind me of everything to do with our former relationship. Whether I ask her to or not.” I pause to take a deep breath. Hearing the words spoken out loud makes my palms sweaty.
Moose looks at the floor. “Go talk to her then. Theauthor, that is. It could help you remember. I’m sorry. I had no idea.”
Because I haven’t told anyone. Why would I? I don’t want pity. Especially from my friends. It’s hard enough to believe I’m their equal looking the way I do. My selective amnesia is something I need to distance myself from.
We say our goodbyes, and I head for the showers alone with my muddled thoughts.
I knew right away something was off when I woke from the coma. There’s a certain face people use. It’s an expectant face. You know immediately they expect something from you. It’s a subtle human cue that most take for granted. Megan had that face about her when I woke and gazed into her unfamiliar eyes. Of course, now I know why the expectant look was tangling her features. I had no clue who she was, of course, and she assumed I would. Megan expected me to wake up and cry with happiness upon seeing her. She expected Smith. She expected love.
Selective amnesia is bitter that way. You tend to forget hobbies and relationships. I was happy to realize I knew my parents and all the memories that went along with them. I was even happier when my skills as a SEAL were deemed fully intact and functioning. Out of all the things I could have lost, Megan came with the least casualty. Is that because I don’t remember our relationship, though? I’ll probably never know.
I think about these things frequently. More than I leton to anyone. It’s my cross to bear. I think of Megan with her boxes of photographs and photo albums she’s put together in chronological order, all the hours she spends focusing on the life we used to have together. The guilt is enough to crush even the strongest man. So I pretend to remember. I laugh at the memories with her. I get wistful when I read that sentiment on her face. I laugh when I’m supposed to. I go gooey-eyed when it’s prudent, because it’s not her fault. Not at all. She doesn’t deserve this any more than I did.
The lump in my throat is the size of Texas by the time I park in the café parking lot and fist my car keys in my palm. My house key pokes the sensitive skin that will never be the same on my hands. I’d compare it to a baby’s ass. It’s red and always raw. The skin grafts to get me to this point were painful. Everything about this experience is painful. That brings me to the present. Walking through the door to meet a woman I’m merely curious about. Guiltily so. I should be curious about the seventy-five photo albums that hold photos from my past with Megan.
