He suddenly goes completely still and his eyes pop open. I hold myself above him and stare into his eyes until they finally focus on me.

“You’re okay, baby, you’re okay,” I tell him softly as I rest my forehead against his.

I let go of his arms and he quickly wraps them around me, pulling me down fully on top of him. His heart beats like a drum against my chest as he tries to slow his breathing. After a few seconds, I pull back and look into his eyes. They immediately go wide and he gasps in horror, bringing his hands up to my face.

“Oh, God, what did I do? Baby, what did I do?” he cries as he examines my cheek and the bruise I’m sure is forming there.

I cover his hand with mine and shake my head at him. “It’s okay, I’m fine. I promise, I’m fine, Fisher.”

“I’m sorry, I’m so sorry,” he softly sobs as he leans up and gently kisses my cheek. “Lucy, my Lucy. I’m so sorry.”

I move down to rest my cheek against his chest, listening to his heartbeat as I wrap my arms around his body and squeeze him as tightly as I can.

“You didn’t mean it. You were just having a bad dream. It’s okay, I’m fine,” I whisper again.

We’ve only been married for two of the six months he’s been home after his second deployment, but this isn’t the first nightmare he’s had. Each one is worse than the last and I don’t know what to do to help him anymore. I want to take away his pain, to stop the hurt that fills his heart and his mind, but I feel like I’m so far out of my depth that I’m drowning.

“Please, talk to me, Fisher. I want to help you, but I need to understand,” I speak softly against his chest.

“There’s nothing to understand, Lucy. It was just a bad dream. They’ll go away after a little while, just like they always do,” he promises me, running his fingers gently through the long strands of my hair.

“I need to know, Fisher. You don’t have to go through this alone.”

He slides out from under me and pushes himself up to lean his back against the headboard. I get up onto my knees and scoot closer to him, hating the distance he’s trying to put between us.

“Don’t ask questions you don’t want to know the answers to,” he speaks softly, thumping his head against the headboard to stare up at the ceiling.

“That doesn’t make any sense. Of course I want answers. I want to know everything. That’s why I’m here. I’m your wife, Fisher, and I love you more than anything. We’re in this together, every step of the way,” I remind him.

He’s quiet for a while and I see every emotion from sadness to frustration skate across his features before finally settling on anger. I don’t want him to be angry with me for asking him to share his troubles, but I don’t know what else to do. How can I help him shoulder his burdens if he doesn’t share them with me?

“So, what do you want to know?” he finally asks, the sarcasm lacing his voice making the hair on my arms stand up. “Do you want to know what it’s like to find the mutilated body of the little girl you brought food to yesterday lying in the street? What it’s like fighting a war against people who will kill children to drive home a message? Or do you want to know what it’s like to be walking down a deserted street on foot patrol, making sure it’s clear for the convoy, talking to one of your friends about football and then mid-sentence his head explodes and his blood and brains are splattered all over your face?”

He speaks in a monotone voice that is like nothing I’ve ever heard before. Tears flow down my cheeks and I have to hold my hand against my mouth to stop myself from sobbing. I shake my head back and forth, wanting him to stop, but knowing that I asked for it. I wanted to know everything and now he’s giving it to me.

“Maybe you want to know what it’s like to get orders to take out an enemy sniper and right when you pull the trigger, a nine-year-old boy runs in the line of your shot. I’m sure you’d like to know what it’s like to watch his mother hold his lifeless body in her arms while she screams and cries and tries to hold together the hole in his head with her hands. Do you know how hard it is to try and shove someone’s brain back into his head after you’ve blown a hole in it the size of a softball?”

He finally stops talking and I squeeze my eyes closed, trying to block out the visions of what he’s told me from my mind. I can’t breathe, I can’t make my heart stop hurting and I can’t stop crying. He warned me and I didn’t listen. I just wanted to live in his mind for one second, learn more about him so I could be a better wife and give him whatever he needed, but I can’t help him with this and it kills me. I can’t take away these memories because they are burned into his brain and his soul. I’ve always known he lives an entirely different life when he’s away from me, but this is almost too much to handle. I don’t know if I’m strong enough to get him through this. I don’t know if I’m enough to make him forget.

“Oh, Jesus. Fuck, Lucy. I’m sorry. I shouldn’t have said any of that. What the hell is wrong with me?”

When my sobs break through the hand clamped over my mouth, he suddenly comes back from whatever trance he was in. He moves towards me, sliding his legs around either side of my knees and wrapping his arms around my body. He cradles the back of my head and brings it down to his shoulder, smoothing my hair down my back as he rocks us back and forth.