Chapter III: I Lost Myself, Along the Way

  Nathaniel sat still, staring at the wall. Not out of disinterest or defiance, but because sometimes silence was the only thing that made sense. The memory left a sour taste in his mouth, bitter and sharp, like copper pennies under his tongue. He swallowed hard, resisting the urge to speak. Therapy was meant to rip the bandage off—he’d heard that enough. But no one ever warned you what it felt like when the air hit the wound.

  He breathed in. Let it rattle in his chest. And when he exhaled, he picked up where they’d left off, reliving the crash and the hospital, the wreckage and what came after. Five of them had survived. Barely. Mac, left blind in one eye. Sarah—silent, haunted, fractured in a way Nathaniel couldn’t mend. The same PTSD that anchored itself in his chest had taken root in hers too. But unlike him, she drifted further with each passing month, as if the world was slowly losing color for her. She became distant. Withdrawn. After the crash, she didn’t speak to anyone. Not even to him.

  He never blamed her. Most of those who survived the wreck carried scars no one could see. Some like Nathaniel claimed to have seen something outside the car before it flipped—a figure, draped in dark cloth, standing impossibly still as the world around them shattered. But trauma twists memory. That’s what they were told. It rewrites the mind. Turns hallucinations into footnotes. Nathaniel leaned forward on the couch, his elbows on his knees, breath caught in the cusp of a sob he refused to let free. Talking helped. He knew that. Silence made it worse. Silence lets the memories fill the void.

  “All that time we… the way we felt…” he started, his voice paper-thin.

  He remembered the year Sarah left town. By then, he and Sarah didn’t even pass glances in the hallway anymore. He could still see her walking out the far end of the campus building—the last one to leave. He stood there in his football gear, helmet under his arm, cleats scratching against the tiled floor as the last light of the day streamed through the door. She turned. The glare made it hard to see her face clearly, but he could tell she was frowning. A lock of red hair fell across her eye. She didn’t move it.

  The look she gave him—it was the same expression she wore on the day of the crash. The same sadness. The same goodbye.

  “And that was it,” Nathaniel said. “She moved away. We never talked again.”

  His therapist scribbled something on her notepad. He couldn’t stop staring at her. Not in a lustful way. She just made him feel, even if only for forty-five minutes a week, like he might be okay. She met his gaze again, tucking a strand of hair behind her ear. “Good,” she said gently.

  “This is the first event that… from a clinical standpoint, may have set the tone for how you process trauma. For how you deal with loss. It’s not just PTSD. It’s also heartbreak.”

  Nathaniel dropped his head, eyes tracing the grain in the wood floor. She slid forward in her seat so their lines of sight met again.

  “We’ve talked before about your… let’s call them roadblocks. The relationships you’ve struggled to form since then. You’re still attached to Sarah.”

  She wasn’t wrong. Every day for the next four years, Nathaniel found himself glancing down that same hallway at the same time. Maybe he hoped she’d walk back through those doors. Maybe he just never figured out how to stop hoping.

  “You need to move on, Nathaniel,” she said. “You mentioned you’re Christian, right?”

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  He nodded. “Pentecostal.”

  “Well, God gave us the ability to accept the things we can’t change. Take me for example—I’m trying to buy a house. I can’t control the interest rates or whether I’ll get approved, but I can control my end of the process. I can show up. I can provide what’s needed.”

  Nathaniel sat straighter as she reached for her mug on the oak table. She took a sip and looked at him with that practiced gentleness.

  “You couldn’t control what happened to Sarah after the crash. You couldn’t stop her from changing, from leaving. But you can control how you adapt. You can decide not to let it define you forever.”

  He thought of three nights ago. Lying in bed, scrolling through old texts from Sarah while Greg’s bedroom shook with laughter and the sounds of wrestling with some girl he wouldn’t remember the next day. The therapist was right. He couldn’t control other people. Only himself.

  Her expression shifted, and became more serious. “Like what happened in training. Or… a few nights ago.”

  Blood. That was all he could see. Screams in his ears. Men he called friends, their faces mangled. His chest tightened. Breathing became sharp, shallow.

  I need to fix this before she sees it, he thought.

  “Nathaniel?” she asked, her voice barely above a whisper.

  He blinked. Flashes of red filled his vision. Not blood now. Hair. Sarah’s hair.

  He exhaled, the sound wet and raw.

  “Can we…” His voice cracked. He didn’t finish the sentence. Couldn’t. The sob was too close.

  She smiled, her hand resting lightly on his knee as she leaned back in her chair. “Our time’s up anyway. We’ll finish next session, okay?”

  He nodded and stood. So did she, making her way to the desk near the window, its white curtains drawn open to the now-faded afternoon light. She shifted folders aside and pulled out her tablet.

  “Did we land on Monday or Tuesday?” He hesitated. “Monday.”

  “Eleven A.M.?” He smiled. “Yeah.”

  “You want a card for the reminder?”

  “Yes, please.”

  —

  The sun was high as Nathaniel stepped onto the wet pavement. Its light tried in vain to peak over the clouds that had covered the sky. It had been raining like this on and off for the past few days. None of his weather apps worked recently so it was always a toss up on whether he’d be soaked, freezing or both. The weather had been abysmal for a few weeks now, he wondered if it had to do with the reports he’d heard. Storms on both coasts, entire communities wiped off the map like in Katrina. He pushed the at that point useless thought away. Wondering about such things wouldn't matter for him, if he couldn't help himself why should he worry about strangers miles away? His black and white Converse squeaked with each step toward his old red Honda Accord. Raindrops peppered his flannel shirt as he unlocked the door and dropped into the leather seat.

  The car sputtered to life. Warm air burst from the vents as Hayley Williams screamed about heartbreak over the radio. He popped open the compartment under the stereo. “Fuck, I need to clean this.” He was right. Weeks of clutter. Excusable, maybe, after what happened at work. The forced leave gave him more time than he wanted. But he never took advantage of it, days had already passed and yet he’d accomplished nothing. Just more of the same, staring at walls and ceilings, thinking doing so would let him hide in their confines.

  He lit a cigarette and rested his hand on the dash, eyes staring blankly through the windshield. Time was the last thing he needed. Time made you think. Time made you remember.

  Movement in his peripheral vision. A flash. He gasped, bending forward as a sharp screech filled his ears. Pain burst behind his eyes. Blood flowed freely from his nose. He fumbled frantically, grabbing the nearest rag—a crumpled band tee with “King Caleb” printed across it—and pressed it to his face.

  The image wouldn’t leave him. Like lightning it appeared, and yet like a mountain it stayed. A nightmare that haunted him even when his eyes were wide open. Lanky limbs. Shrouded in black. The thing from the crash. Or was it? His phone rang, high-pitched and annoying. He blinked the pain away, reaching into his pocket. The screen read: “James”. A smile cracked his lips. He swiped right. “You damn bum,” he said into the receiver.

  Silence. Just slow, heavy breathing “James?” Then a deep voice responded.

  “Woah. Someone’s voice got deeper.” Nathaniel grinned. That wide as James always called “Shit eating grin” that was contagious to anyone who saw. The Grin that Nathaniel used only for the people he loved, for his friends. The next words slipped out of Nathaniel effortlessly, like a task he’d been working on for years and years.

  “We still on for today?” And for a moment, just a moment, he remembered what it felt like to be okay.