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Grace put her hands on her hips. “How would getting help hurt the company?”
“Because they’ll say I’m…” I searched for a word that wouldn’t piss her off.
“Crazy? Unstable?” she offered.
I didn’t answer but, yeah. My family wanted me to get help but only discreetly. A group wasn’t discrete.
“So you think your fellow military brothers and sisters, who suffered the same things you did are crazy? Are you crazy, Hunter?”
I blew out a breath. “It’s the image we’re talking about here, Grace.”
“Do you think Sara and Chase are crazy?”
Huh?
“They had counseling. Are they crazy?”
I’d known about Sara, but not Chase. I knew Grace was trying to help, but the idea that even Chase needed counseling over losing his child made me feel worse than I ever had. Of course, it made sense now that he’d been so adamant that I see a counselor.
“Damn, I shouldn’t have said that,” she said. “The point is, Hunter, it’s not a weakness to need help. Society is sympathetic to veterans needing help after experiencing trauma in war.”
I scoffed. “People who haven’t served thank us for our service, but they have no idea what service entails. All they know is that we’re not quite right in the head when we get back. Raven Industries can’t have someone running security who is viewed as unstable.”
“You’re right, most people don’t fully understand what you went through. You know who does? The men and women in this group. They know about having nightmares and having to sleep with the lights on.”
I didn’t sleep with the lights on.
“They know about being embarrassed about having a panic attack at the sound of a helicopter or a car backfiring. They know what it’s like to live like the boogeyman is one step behind you, even though you’re now home safe.”
“I understand what you’re saying, but I can’t risk people talking about—”
“What about helping them?”
I stared at her, not sure what she meant.
“You are Hunter Raven. People look up to you and respect you. If you get help, others will too because they’ll see there’s no stigma to getting help.”
Fuck.
She pressed her hand to my chest. “Just go once. You don’t have to say anything. Just listen. Besides, since when you do care what others think?”
My lips twitched up slightly at that because she was right. I didn’t give a fuck what people thought usually, including my family.
“You’ll come with me?” I asked.
“I’ll introduce you to the leader of the group, but it’s for vets only.”
I frowned. “I thought we were going to do this together.”
“You do this, and when it’s done, I’ll be back and we can do something else.”
I took in her pretty hazel eyes and sweet lips wondering when I’d become a slave to my need for her. Because I was, I nodded.
She led me to a room where about a dozen men sat in a circle. A few looked old enough to have served in Vietnam, and a couple in the first Iraq war. Others were closer to my age, except for one who looked like a kid.
“This is a men’s only group,” she said as she waved toward one of the men who looked old enough to have served in the first Iraq war.
“Sexist, isn’t it?” I asked.
She grinned. “Since you like to speak in sexual innuendo a lot, I thought it might be better.”
I winced. “I can control that.”
She arched a brow. “Can you now?”
Busted.
She introduced me to the leader, who was named Jim, and then left me. I felt like a fucking fish out of water, but I sat. I think a few men recognized me, but they didn’t say anything except hello and welcome.
Since there was no way I was going to share my innermost secrets, I sat and listened. The first guy talked about having dreams, not much unlike my own. The other men nodded. Okay, so I wasn’t alone in that.
About halfway through the group, the kid started to speak, telling us about how he was picked on now by civilians and military.
“They think because I’m not missing a limb or something, I faked my injury to get out and come home.” The young man, Jacob, was trying to keep it together, but I could see he was upset and trying to hold back his pain. “Twenty-three and my military career is over, and I’ve got the rest of my life to be called a coward.”
“That’s fucked,” another man said.
“If I could open up my head and show them my scrambled brain and all the darkness in there, then they’d know,” he said.
“I was discharged for a traumatic brain injury,” I said. The minute it was out of my mouth, I couldn’t believe I’d said it.
The kid looked at me. “Really?”
I nodded. “I didn’t want out either.”
“Did people hassle you?” he asked.
Another man laughed. “No one is going to hassle a Raven.”
