Page 15 of All That We Never Were

Leah returned. and with her, the closed door, the silence in the house, the furtive glances. But something was different. Something was new. She didn’t take off running when dinner was over; instead she stayed sitting there awhile, distractedly balling her napkin in her hand or offering to do the dishes. Sometimes, in the afternoons, while eating a piece of fruit and leaning on the counter, she would look at the sea through the window, distant, lost.

That first week, I asked her three times if she wanted to come surfing with me, but she rejected the offer, and after what happened last time, I didn’t force it. I didn’t say anything when the tricolor cat came to visit me and Leah went to give it leftovers from dinner. I didn’t say anything that first Saturday night when I was lying in the hammock and I heard her steps behind me. I had put on a record, and I don’t know why, but I had this thought that the chords in the song that was playing had grabbed her by the hair and pushed her out on the porch, note by note.

“Can I stay here?”

“Of course. Want some tea?”

She shook her head and sat on one of the cushions on the wooden floor.

“How was the week?”

“Same as always. Normal.”

I had lots of questions to ask, but none that she would respond to, so I didn’t bother to bring them up. I sighed, relaxed, contemplating the starry sky, listening to the music, living that instant, that moment.

“Axel, are you happy?”

“Happy…? Of course.”

“Is it easy?” she whispered.

“It should be, right?”

“I used to think it was.”

I sat up in the hammock. Leah was sitting up, hugging her knees against her chest. She looked small under the darkness of the night.

“There’s something wrong with what you just said. Before you were happy because you didn’t think about it, and who does when they have the world at their feet? In those moments, you just live, just feel.”

There was fear in her eyes. But also longing. “Will I never be that way again?”

“I don’t know, Leah. Do you want to be?”

She swallowed and licked her lips nervously before taking a deep breath. I knelt beside her, took her hand, and tried to get her to look me in the eyes.

“I can’t…breathe…”

“I know. Slow. Easy…” I whispered. “I’m here, babe. I’m right beside you. Close your eyes. Just think… Think about the sea, Leah, about a choppy sea that’s starting to calm down. Are you seeing it in your mind? There’s almost no waves left…”

I wasn’t even sure what I was saying to her, but I got Leah to breathe slower, more relaxed. I accompanied her to her room, and something quivered in me when she said good night at the door. Compassion. Impotence. What do I know?

That night, I broke my routine. Instead of reading a little and going to bed, I turned on my computer and pushed aside the things I had on the keyboard before searching for anxiety. I spent hours reading and taking notes.

Post-traumatic stress disorder: a psychiatric affliction that appears in people who have experienced some traumatic moment in their lives. I took more notes: Sufferers have frequent nightmares and recall the experience. Other typical signs are anxiety, palpitations, and increased sweating. I went on, incapable of sleeping: A sense of distance, paralysis in the face of normal emotional experiences. Loss of interest in hobbies and pastimes.

I found out there were four types of post-traumatic stress.

In the first, patients constantly relive the triggering event. In the second, they are hyper-excited, constantly perceiving danger or surprise. In the third, they focus on negative thoughts and their sense of guilt. And in the fourth…shit, the fourth was Leah, one hundred percent. They adopt evasion as a tactic. Patients show and transmit emotional insensitivity or indifference about daily activities, and avoid places or things that make them remember what happened.

* * *

On Sunday I got up at dawn, as always, though I’d only slept a few hours. It was a sunny day, but the temperature had dropped. I made coffee, let Leah sleep, grabbed my surfboard, and walked down to the beach. But when I saw the dolphins so close to the shore, I retraced my steps, because I couldn’t let her miss that, and I needed her to be there by my side in the waves now that I was starting to understand her, like a riddle I wanted to crack or a puzzle I was still missing a piece to.

I knocked on her door, but she didn’t answer, so I opened it softly. That was my first mistake. I took a breath when I saw her in the bed on her back, wearing nothing but a T-shirt and white panties. Her naked legs were wrapped in the sheets. She moved a little and I closed the door and left.

“Fuck,” I said while I was putting on my leash.

I spent several hours in the water.

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