Coming Home

Do you ever just look at yourself in the mirror and hate everything you see? Staring at myself naked made me hate every part of my body. It was covered in scars and tattoos, plastered with freckles and stretch marks and cellulite. It was a body that had been destroyed by war, from the missing leg to the hole where my shoulder injury was to the shrapnel still stuck in my body. It was a war zone.

Looking at myself in the mirror just made me hate myself. I used to be a woman filled with confidence. I used to be a woman filled to the brim with love for myself. Now, I hated to look at myself and somehow two different, gorgeous men loved me. And I couldn't figure out why.

My body was tracked with shrapnel. There was a piece embedded in my thigh from my first tour. I had been fifty feet away from the IED, but it still got in there somehow. There was the chunk in my right calf from a bullet that had hit me during my second third. And then there were fourteen pieces in my lower back from when I had lost my leg.

My eyes moved to the scars. There were dozens of them. I had more scars than I did anything else at this point. There was the scar from the shoulder injury, a hole in my arm where a bullet had once been. Honestly, it should have kept me out of the Marine Corps. And then there was the scar from all the other bullets I had taken. My stomach had a huge scar across it from where they cut my child out.

And then there was the leg. It was the leg that wasn't really a leg. Six fucking years later and it still gave me pain like it was there. It wasn't there. It wasn't fucking there. There was no leg. I was a legless freak who somehow thought that being a social worker would make me feel better. When really what being a social worker did was remind me that I had lost two years of my life to rehab and physical therapy so I could get back in the Marine Corps. Being a social worker reminded me that I had lost six years of my life to a leg that kept me trapped. It reminded me that I had given up on true love and settled for a man I could never love like I loved Matt. It reminded me that I could never have children. And that was something I could never tell Matt or Charlie. Being a social worker reminded me that I shouldn't be helping others because I was just as FUCKED up as the people I was helping. I was worthless.

Tears streamed down my face as I ran my hand over the scar on my stomach. I hated it most of all. I hated myself for aborting them. I was as pro-choice as they came, but the pain and agony of giving up my children still fucking haunted me. And now I could never have them again. I never wanted them but to have that choice taken away from me was so fucking cruel.

The door to the bathroom creaked open and muscled, tattooed arms pulled me into a warm chest. I knew it was Matt. It was always Matt that came back for me. Sobs wracked my body as my fingers continued to trace the scar that haunted me more than the shoulder or more than the leg. It reminded me that Matt and I were always fuck-ups.

"Baby, you are going to be okay," Matt said, picking me up and carrying me into the room. "This... this is something you are going to overcome. This is something you will learn to process and handle."

I stared into those deep hazel eyes. "Matt, I am not going to be okay. You and Charlie have learned how to handle your PTSD and depression better than I did."

He chuckled, it was hollow and fake. "I tried to kill myself, Rae. I don't think that's handling my depression, at all. I still can't believe the Rev is gone." He stared at me. "So you think the fact that you hate yourself isn't handling your depression? Baby, you are doing so much better than me."

Charlie sat on the other side of me. I hadn't even noticed he was in the room. I thought he would have been at work. "He's right, honey. Matt did try to kill himself to escape the horrors racing through his brain. I... I drink a lot. I drink more than you have ever seen. I'm an alcoholic, Rae."

I stared at my blue-eyed angel. "Why did you not tell me that?"

"Because it's shameful to me." Charlie brushed his fingers through my hair. "I don't like to talk about it just like Matt doesn't like to talk about his suicide. You hate how you look, Rae, but you will learn it's okay eventually."

I squeezed his hand and reached for Matt's. "What did I do to deserve you?"

"Nothing, babe. The three of us fucking deserve each other." Matt pressed a kiss to my forehead.

"Sleep now, Reaper. Matt and I aren't going anywhere."

Notes

My fingers have a mind of their own, apparently.