Just Remember to Breathe (Thompson Sisters)

the edge of the desk, and grabbed my cane. A few steps to the door of Forrester’s office. I didn’t hear any sound inside at all. Jesus, I hoped he was alive. I quietly opened the office door and looked inside.
    Forrester was passed out at his desk, a little bit of drool pooling on the papers under his face.
    Guess we didn’t need to ask if we could go. I closed the door and turned back to him.
    “Is he writing?” she asked.
    “Yeah,” I said.
    She looked surprised. “Really?”
    “No. He’s passed out.”
    “Oh. My. God.”
    I shrugged.
    Depending on your point of view, experience, and attitude, we made our way to the coffee shop in either a companionable silence or an oppressive, awkward one. I’d prefer to think it was the former, but the pessimist in me says it was definitely the latter. About two thirds of the way there, she said, “You seem to be doing better today.” She nodded toward the cane.
    “Yeah,” I said. “New physical therapist.”
    “Oh yeah?”
    “He moonlights, I think, as a dom. Advertises on the back pages of the Village Voice .”
    She threw her head back and laughed out loud. “You’re crazy,” she said.
    “No,” I said, shaking my head. “I’m dead serious. I think I caught sight of leather straps hanging out of his desk yesterday. I’m going to have to give you my emergency contact information, in case I ever disappear after one of my appointments.”
    “How often do you have to go?”
    “Twice a week. And I’m supposed to walk at least a mile every morning. I think he’s going to make me start running soon.”
    “What exactly happened?” she asked.
    By this time we were at the coffee shop, so I said, “Let me get our drinks, then I’ll tell you the whole story.”
    Five minutes later we were both seated out front, coffee in hand, and I said, “It happened back in late February. We were out on a patrol. Basically, our job was to go out and draw fire. Drive around until someone shoots at us, then the quick reaction force dives in and gets the bad guys. Or at least that’s the theory.”
    She nodded, encouraging me to go on. “Anyway, that particular day we’d been in a small village, about three miles from the FOB.”
    “The FOB?” she asked.
    “Sorry. Forward operating base. Remember Fort Apache? It’s basically where you take a small part of the army, plant them on a small target in the middle of hostile territory, and hang them out to dry.”
    She leaned back, looking shocked. Probably more at my bitter tone than the words I’d used.
    “Anyway, the village was about three miles away, and we went through there all the time. It was supposed to be friendly territory, but that’s all relative. Friendly means we didn’t get blown up there every day, just maybe once a week. The kids could get candy from us, and we were pretty sure they wouldn’t be killed for it, and that they wouldn’t be secretly holding grenades or whatever.”
    A sad expression passed across her face. Almost a pitying expression.
    I didn’t need her fucking pity. I leaned forward and said, “Listen, whatever you do, don’t ever give me pity. I don’t want to see that expression on your face, all right? I walked out of there alive. That makes me a fucking lottery winner, okay?”
    Her eyes widened, and she nodded.
    “Anyway… We got held up that day. One of the shopkeepers… okay, that’s a stretch. This guy ran what was basically a cart beside the road, selling stuff to us, or to truck drivers who came through. Probably made fifty cents a day. I think he realized he could make a lot more working for the Taliban, because he held us up that day, telling some bullshit story about insurgents leaving the area, and he knew where they were going to be moving to, and so on. We finally finished with him, which gave the bad guys enough time to set up an ambush along the road back to the FOB.”
    “So… what happened?”
    “I don’t remember much. We were about halfway back when my Humvee ran over the bomb. My friend Roberts was driving, and it hit mostly on his side. Everything went white, very suddenly. I couldn’t see anything, couldn’t hear anything, and then it was all gone. I woke up in Germany three days later, very lucky to be alive. Shrapnel had cut most of the way through my thigh and calf muscles. I got some permanent ringing in my ears, though the docs say that might go away in a few years. And… well, I spent a long time in the hospital. First in Germany,