Just Remember to Breathe (Thompson Sisters)

covered it right anyway. If you really want to know what it was like, walk into your kitchen right now. Grab a handful of sand. Close your eyes, stick your hand in the garbage disposal, and turn it on. That should give you a pretty good idea of what Afghanistan is like.
    Anyway, long story short, Columbia apparently has a soft spot for reformed dropouts and combat veterans. So here I was, and it was the first day of classes, and I was pent up, tense as all hell, because the one person in the world I didn’t want to see, the one person I wanted to see the most, all at the same time, well, she was here.
    Thankfully, University Housing got me in with a couple of graduate engineering students. I don’t think I could have stood living in the dorms with a bunch of eighteen-year-old freshmen right out of high school. I was only two years older, but two years was a world of difference. Especially when I’d seen my best friend killed right before my eyes. Especially when it was my fault.
    When I got in town, I met my new roommates: Aiden, a bookish twenty-four-year-old mechanical engineering PhD candidate, and Ron, who introduced himself as “Ron White. Chemical engineering,” then disappeared back into his room.
    Perfect.
    So here I was, limping across the street like an old man, my cane helping me stay upright. Some asshole yuppie bumped into me, in a hurry to get to his business meeting or his mistress or whatever the fuck it was he was after. Whatever it was, it precluded any common courtesy.
    “Watch where the fuck you’re going, asshole!” I shouted after him.
    I was barely halfway across the street when the light changed. Jesus. Talk about humiliating. Most of the cars waited patiently, but a cabbie who looked like the cousin of the guy who blew away Roberts kept honking his horn at me. I gave him the finger and kept going.
    Finally. Somewhere on the third floor of this building was my destination.
    I was early, but that was for the best. For one thing, I’d gotten lost several times already today, and was late to my first two classes. This, however, I could not be late for. Not if I wanted to be able to pay for college. Of course, the VA was footing most of the bill, but even with the GI Bill a college like Columbia cost a hell of a lot. It still didn’t even seem real that I was here. Like I really even belonged in college, much less in an Ivy. But every time I heard my Dad’s cheerful voice in my head saying I was a little shit who would never amount to anything, I pushed forward.
    The elevator, made sometime in the nineteenth century, finally made its way to the ground floor and I boarded. Most of the other students in the building were using the stairs, but I had to take this route if I wanted to get there before sunset.
    I patiently waited. First floor. Second floor. It seemed like the elevator took five minutes for each short trip. It finally stopped on the third floor, and I pushed my way between the other people crowded in the elevator.
    Out in the hall, it was crowded. Jesus. It was going to take a lot of getting used to being here. I looked around, trying to spot room numbers. 324. 326. Oriented, I turned in the opposite direction, looking for room 301.
    I finally found it, tucked into a dark corner at the opposite side of the building. The hall down here was dark, one of the fluorescents burnt out. I reached for the door.
    Locked. I checked my phone. I was fifteen minutes early. I could live with that. Better than fifteen minutes late. Slowly, I slid my book bag to the floor, and tried to figure out how to get myself down there without ending up sideways or upside down or something. I inched my way down, leaving my gimp leg slack and in front of me. Halfway down, I felt a sharp pain and muttered a curse. I put my hands to my sides, palms flat, and let myself drop.
    Seated. Now the only trick would be getting back up. Carefully, I kneaded the muscles above my right knee. The doctors at Walter Reed said it might be years before I regained full function. If ever. In the meantime, I went to physical therapy three times a week, took lots of painkillers, and kept going.
    I sighed. It had been a long, stressful day. I kept wondering if I should have stayed home, waited another year before trying to venture out. Doctor Kyne had urged me to go.
    You’ll never recover if you stay locked in at home. He wasn’t talking about the leg. Doctor Kyne was my psychiatrist at the VA in Atlanta.
    I suppose he knew