Heartbreak Warfare

by Heather M. Orgeron

“Trauma creates change you don’t choose. Healing is about creating change you do choose.”

“Katy,” he says softly as more commotion sounds above. Sensing the tension in his posture, my gaze finds his. I’m searching his depths for fear. Instead, I’m lulled into their warmth. In his eyes, I see it, the peace he’s made with his fate as my soul begins to scream with loss. “No,” I beg. “Please don’t say it.” “Being here with you was worth every minute…just to know you. I’m so glad I know you.” “Briggs…we don’t know…” Desperate breaths come fast as I search for words that matter, and fear stifles them. “It was worth it. You are worth it.”

There’s a reason we were thrown into that bunker together. I have to believe that. You were destined to be a part of my life. You’ve changed me. No matter where this journey takes us, when I close my eyes, it will be your face I see. When I breathe my last breath, your name will be on my lips. I need you to know that—for you to know how incredible you really are. In another lifetime, I know we’d have been perfect together, and I’m certain you feel that too. I see it in your eyes, and I felt it. I still feel it. And I have half a mind to beg life to repeat that hell, just to be with you. I’d do anything to keep you with me.”

“Run far and fast, dance that sexy dance, have that second baby. Smile, Scottie. Lighten up, tell jokes, live a long and happy life, for me.” “Please don’t hate me.” “Not a fucking chance.”

People use up all their sympathy and understanding in the first few days and weeks, and then they move on. They expect you to do the same. Suddenly your sadness makes everyone else uncomfortable, so you hide it. You hide it deep inside and let it eat away at you.

It shouldn’t be this hard to love someone so much.

We are perfect, and we are impossible. I can’t ask her to leave them, and I won’t. If it had been just Gavin, maybe. No, definitely. I’d drop to my hands and knees, and I’d beg. But, Noah needs his mother, so I simply nod my head in understanding. But I don’t—I don’t understand at all. Love is supposed to be enough. It’s not supposed to rip you to fucking shreds.

“I need you to break my heart,” she declares, wringing her hands nervously. “Give me a reason to hate you, because wanting you this way is…it’s ruining me. It’s ruining my life.”

How much can a heart handle in one lifetime? I’m pretty sure I’ll never know the exact answer to that question, but the scars that mar mine make me hate the fucker for continuing to beat. I’m lovesick, strung out, and so over it.

“I’m not watching you do it again. I can survive being a soldier, I can survive another war, but it seems I can’t survive loving you. If I have to let you go, you have to let me go too.” He leans in on a whisper. “I love you, Katy, let me go.”

We’re often told how war and trauma can change a person, but it isn’t something you could ever fully comprehend until it happens to you and your family. Until you kiss your wife goodbye, only to get back a different woman a few months later. I’m still mourning the loss of the woman who left and learning to love the one who returned in her place.

“This is my confession. I went to war loving one man and came back in love with another. I can’t apologize for it anymore or make excuses, blame the circumstances. I fell in love with you. The guilt behind that is a different story. I may never forgive myself, but I want to eventually. I don’t want to spend another second of my life making plans without you. So, if I’m not too late, I’m in need of a cowboy.”