Help Our Heroes: A Military Charity Anthology Read online

  Betty wanted me to stay with her, so she could help me raise my child, but I couldn’t stay in the village. Was it for my mother’s sake? To spare her the shame of having a daughter, knocked up by her sweet G.I? I told myself no, but I’m not so sure. I certainly couldn’t face the look of disappointment in the eyes of my father. So, I told myself it was for mine and my baby’s sake. A new life and a new start.

  I have a new job and somewhere to live, here in Leeds, all thanks to Betty. An old school friend of hers is in need of a live-in housekeeper and with two children, it’s quite understandable. While the husband, a military man, is away on service, the mother, a doctor needs all the help that she can get. They’re aware that I’m pregnant, although they’re under the impression that my young husband is just one of the many victims of war. I’m sure it took all of Betty’s powers of persuasion to get them to give me a chance. I’m hardly the perfect candidate.

  Maybe they pity me. For once, I don’t care. I know I’m one of the lucky ones to be given a helping hand, but I’m not too proud or stupid enough not to grab it with both hands.

  My only regret is leaving my father. From him I feel love, even though he wasn’t one to show it. My mother, well maybe the only love she will every have is for her beloved church. How my dad puts up with her, I’ll never know. If only he was stronger and stood up to her from time to time, maybe things would have been different. Then again, he wouldn’t then be my kind, gentle dad.

  Was I just another victim of this god forsaken war? I wouldn’t say that, I hadn’t had to fight. I hadn’t lost my life. In some ways, I had lost a love, but in reality, I was just given a different path through nobody’s fault but my own.

  Nothing I have been or will go though could compare to that of the men and women who are up there on the front line. Fighting for our country. Fighting for our freedom and our way of life. If I can muster up just an ounce of their strength, then I know I will succeed.

  So many lost and damaged lives.

  Will this war ever end?

  As I walk out of the station building, I notice a man in a black suit, holding up a piece of paper with my name displayed on it. Walking towards him, he gives me a subtle nod.

  “Follow me madam.”

  I smile, he takes my bags and leads me to a car that will take me to my new life, my new start here in Leeds.

  Although my life is under a cloud of uncertainty and it’s not going to be easy being a single mother. I’ll fight with everything I have, because I’ll be buggered if I’m going to let it get the better of me.

  The End.

  About the author

  I’m born and bred in Leeds, West Yorkshire, in the UK and love nothing more than curling up with a good eBook, or stroking and petting my signed paperbacks. By day, I’m an export manager. By night, a writer of hot and saucy romances, with a little angst and a smidgen of Yorkshire humour. Undoubtedly, targeted to the adult audience that love a hot ass guy and a real woman. I like to call it giggle smut!

  I love everything that the book world has to offer, including the charismatic fans, bloggers and authors who continue to amaze me. It has been a total revelation.

  My moto... Dreams Are Real, Imagination A Necessity - Love to Read. Live to Write. And I have the tattoo to prove it.

  Where you can find me:

  https://m.facebook.com/TL-Wainwright-137891269903535/?ref=bookmarks

  Amazon Author page:

  https://www.amazon.co.uk/T.L-Wainwright/e/B012PBC6GC

  Twitter: @wainwright_tl

  Instagram: wainwright.tl

  Bookbub: https://www.bookbub.com/authors/t-l-wainwright

  Email: [email protected]

  Wounded Hero

  by

  Ava Manello

  About Wounded Hero

  Ava first wrote about Declan in Declan (Wounded Heroes #1). This short story gives you a little more insight into his feelings, and gives you an introduction to the full-length story. As this anthology is in aid of Help for Heroes, she wanted to give you more of a feel for the PTSD that he suffers from, and how it affects him day to day.

  Wounded Hero

  The therapist sat across from me, just waiting for me to speak. This must have been the third or fourth session now, and I'd yet to say anything. Still, she sat, waiting. There was no judgment, no condescension; to be honest there was nothing. I'm not sure why I kept going back. There was a part of me that wanted to get all this turmoil out, but there was a bigger part of me that wanted to keep it locked away, safe from exposure. It was like a poison invading my soul, and I wasn’t sure how much longer I could keep fighting it.

  The nightmares weren’t restricted to my sleeping hours, not that I got much sleep. They’d started invading every part of my day. I knew that I had to do something; I almost killed a woman the other night before I came to my senses. Despite everything I’ve seen, everything I’d done in that hellish war zone, it’s that night that scares me the most.

  I was used to fighting a hidden enemy, but at least I knew they were there somewhere. I woke up every morning in that sand ridden hell hole knowing that each day could be my last. My life wasn’t perfect, but at least it made sense.

  And then, that day, it all changed. My life stopped making sense. I’ve not been able to shake the guilt that has plagued me since it happened. Every time I close my eyes I see the child’s face, and I feel physically sick as the memory of what I did plays back in slow motion.

  Gran threatened to kick my ass if I didn’t pull myself out of my downward spiral, and knowing that I couldn’t do it on my own was the reason I was sitting there in the therapist’s office. If it wasn’t for Gran I wouldn’t be there, I’d have given up on life already, just like Max, the friend I let down.

  The therapist reached for the water at her side, taking a sip before placing it back down on the table. I stared at the drink, watching a slow but steady drop of condensation meandering down the outside of the glass. Its path was full of twists and turns against unseen obstacles. Is that what was happening to me? I was fighting against things I couldn’t see or understand. I didn’t know which way to turn. If I was honest with myself, I wasn’t sure there was a way out of this spiral of despair I was trapped in. When I contemplated what I'd done, I knew that I didn’t deserve to find a way out. I didn’t even deserve to be sitting there.

  The clock above the fireplace quietly chimed the hour. I rose quickly, relieved that the day’s session was over, whilst disappointed that once again, the words failed to come. The therapist was polite and professional as she booked my next appointment. Still she didn’t judge me. I almost told her not to bother, but the memory of that night stopped me. I had to see this through before I killed someone. I took the appointment card and headed for the parking lot where I'd left my bike, clutching the heavy paper as though my life depended on it. It may well have done.

  The next session still hadn’t produced any words. What would I say? What could I say? I’m a failure. I failed my guys in Afghanistan, I failed Max to the point he took his own life, and I failed Georgia, his widow when she turned to me in her grief. The result of that night haunts me almost as much as the face of the child.

  It was raining again and the somber and moody sky on the other side of the window matched my spirit. I was thankful for the rain, the drops of water trailing down the pane gave me something to focus on, a distraction from the silent appraisal of the therapist sitting across from me.

  I desperately sought out distractions, anything to avoid having to feel, to think. My fingers fidgeted uselessly in my lap, bereft of the iPhone game I'd been losing myself in. When I did sleep, what little sleep I had that wasn’t haunted by nightmares, my mind conjured up the repetitious movements of the match three games I’d been avoiding life with. Like the memories from my nightmares it played out in vivid technicolor, the ‘You've failed' message at the end of the level mocking not just my ability to focus on the game, but my failure to focus and participate in life i
n general.

  I’m sure that the low, steady tick, tick, tick of the clock on the mantel piece was soothing to most of the therapists patients, instead I tried to lose myself counting the seconds, failing as always because I couldn’t seem to concentrate on anything other than the iPhone game for longer than a few moments. The gentle thrum of the rain comforted me a little. There were days in Afghanistan when I longed to be home, sat on Gran’s porch enjoying the rare thunderstorms that lit up the sky in my childhood. Back then we’d complain that the weather got in the way of camping out or other boisterous adventures, but in that barren wasteland of death and destruction I’d have given anything to have experienced it again.

  Have you ever watched a raindrop slide down a pane of glass or a droplet of condensation travel down an ice-cold bottle of beer? If you haven't you're missing out, it can be quite mesmerizing, especially when you're head deep in avoidance. The raindrop disappeared as it reached the sill on the windowpane and I realized with disappointment that the rain had stopped. The clouds were thinning out and there was a tantalizing hint of blue sky peeking through. I wanted to shout for the rain to come back. I wanted the world outside to be as gloomy as the world I was currently residing in. I didn’t want the flash of blue to be there. That cerulean ray of hope for the outside world reminded me that I was supposed to be able to function out there. I couldn’t. For fuck's sake, I couldn’t even get the words out in the therapist’s office. I’d come in, respond to the cheery greeting from the therapist with mumbled acknowledgments, then sit there trying to lose myself in silent insolence for the hour, and mumbled some more as the next appointment was agreed. I'm not sure why she put up with it, but I guess it's what the army paid her for.

  The chime of the clock sounded the end of the session, another hour wasted, another reminder that I was a failure.

  The silence in the room was starting to taunt me; I'd lost count of the number of sessions I'd remained mute in. The need to let this poison out, to release the fear, the self-loathing, got greater every session. The guilt always outweighed the need. I didn’t deserve to be free of the weight that I was carrying. It was my fault. Max was dead; Georgia could have been too. The child was dead. That was all on me.

  The sudden noise from outside startled me. I rose quickly, hands searching the empty air for a gun that was no longer there to protect me. The therapist talking quietly to me, soothing me, her words easing me back into the sofa from my defensive position. There was no rain that session, or any condensation on the therapist's glass of water to distract myself with. My foot tapped with nervous energy against the oak flooring, and my fingers sought out a loose thread in the stitching on the arm of the leather sofa. I couldn’t regain the fleeting sense of calmness I sometimes felt in that room. For an hour at a time, it was a temporary reprieve. Whilst the negative thoughts never left me; they somehow seemed less invasive in that room.

  “Declan?” The therapist asked quietly. “Tell me why that noise unsettled you.”

  This was the way our sessions went. She’d ask a question occasionally, and every time I would fail to respond. Gran would have told me off for being ignorant, she'd say that even now I'm not too old for a clip round the ear. I can almost hear her voice saying the words. It's a sobering realization. She's one of the reasons I was there, that and the fact I almost killed Georgia. A moment of insanity, a desire to ease the grief of Max's widow, a sexual release that I shouldn't have let happen, and then… then the car backfired and I almost strangled her. What started out as a sensual massage became something more. Animal instinct had taken over for both of us. Grief, survivors’ guilt, a need to not feel so alone. It had all contributed. Then that one noise had triggered a violent reaction. My fingers had tightened around her neck, pressing into her throat. She'd managed to break through the nightmare that had taken me back to that place, and I'd come to my senses to find my hands forcing the breath from her, almost to the point of suffocation. I'd run, leaving her naked and crying on the bed. A coward. A guilt-ridden, good for nothing coward.

  Some days I could barely lift myself from the bed, the burden of guilt weighing so heavily on my soul it was almost tangible. Some days I gave in to it, drugging myself into unconsciousness with a bottle of Jack. It didn’t help; no matter how much I drank the nightmares still haunted me. Is that what happened with Max? Is that why he turned to drugs? Is that why he chose to end it? Someone said he’d chosen the coward’s way out, I don’t think he did. I wasn’t brave enough to do it. What he did takes more courage than I possessed, no matter how much I wanted the escape and oblivion of death.

  I wanted to answer the therapist, I really did. I wanted to end this waking nightmare. The words wouldn’t come. How could I say anything when I didn’t understand it myself? How could I explain the visions that played on repeat in my head? How could I voice the self-loathing that accompanied my every waking moment? How could I share the failure that I was? I let my men down. And now Max was dead, that was all on me.

  The therapist seemed to sense something, some subtle change in my demeanor perhaps and repeated her question.

  This wasn’t how it was supposed to be. She asked the questions, I ignored her and we’d sit the session out in silence. She wasn’t allowed to get inside my head. She wasn’t allowed to know my fears. She couldn’t. I needed them. They were mine. They fuelled the guilt. If she discovered my fears she’d find a way to allay them. I couldn’t have that. My fingers moved faster, I was no longer fussing at the loose thread on the sofa arm; I was pulling at it, trying to draw it free. I could feel my anxiety rising. I was scared. I was angry. I was defensive. I was also struggling to maintain my façade of silence.

  She said my name softly once more. “Declan?”

  Something inside me snapped, I jumped up from the sofa startling her.

  "What do you want from me?" I yelled. "I fucked her, I fucked my friend's widow and then I almost killed her!" The words were torn from my throat and yelled in anger. Something inside of me broke. It was like a dam being opened and I fell to the floor, curling in on myself, trying to hold back the flood of grief and sobbed like a baby.

  I’m not sure which was harder, sitting in the therapist’s office unable to get the words out, or staring at the empty page unable to write. I’d planned a road trip with Cam and the therapist had suggested writing a journal might help in lieu of our face-to-face sessions. She’d still be on the end of the phone if I needed her. I wasn’t sure if that was a help or not. If I couldn’t find the words to express myself when I was sat opposite her, how would a faceless phone connection help?

  The blank page was mocking me. I knew she wasn’t looking for war and peace, but there wasn’t even a hint of a skirmish in front of me, just bright white empty pages. A part of me believed that I didn’t deserve to feel better; I didn’t deserve a ‘normal’ life. Max was dead. Georgia’s life was ruined. The child was dead. What right did I have to enjoy life when I was the reason that they couldn’t? Guilt consumed me.

  After my breakdown in the therapist’s office, I'd felt a little relief. It's like the pressure that builds in the air just before a summer storm, the hot oppressive, almost stifling feeling that’s released as soon as the first downpour hits. But like the relief that follows the storm, it was short lived. For those few moments after breaking down I’d had someone listen without judging. I was tired of being told I'm not to blame. I am. This is on me. The therapist never told me that. To be fair she never told me anything, she just asked questions and left me to analyze my answers, on the rare occasions that I responded.

  The empty sheet annoyed me, so in desperation, I’d picked up the pen and sketched the route we were planning on taking the bikes. We were heading to some place called Severed, near Mildura in Victoria. I'd never heard of it but Cam had some old family friend who lived there and it was an excuse to take the bikes on a scenic route along the coast. Being out on my bike was one of the few times I could forget. No, not forget, that’s the wrong wor
d. I can never forget. Out on the bike though I had to concentrate on the road, on what I was doing, and for that short period of time my guilt wasn’t at the forefront of my mind.

  Gran had given me her blessing; she just wanted her grandson back. I was hurting her, and that was just one more reason to feel bad. I was a failure in so many ways.

  The first day out on the bike had found muscles I’d forgotten about. The gentle ache was a reminder of how out of shape I’d allowed myself to become. The hum of the road beneath the bike wheels had probably been as therapeutic in one day as the multiple sessions I’d had with the therapist so far. I could tell that Cam was struggling with knowing how to act around me; he was there after all. He lost a friend in Max as well, but he didn’t have the guilt that was my burden alone to carry. To be fair to him he wasn’t telling me to pull myself together or buck my ideas up. He just treated me like he always had; I’m just not convinced that I deserved it.

  The journal still had no words on the page, but there were several more sketches. I’m no artist, to most they would be an unintelligible squiggle, but I knew what they represented - the sun hitting the tree at a certain angle, the creek where we stopped for a break and the lizard that watched me carefully from its hiding place in the shade of a rock. It was a five-hour ride to Albany and we had chosen a backpacker hotel with basic accommodation. Compared to Afghanistan it was almost luxury.