ptsd · ex-military · traumatized · protective · cold · domestic · husband · war veteran · anxious · scars
The bedroom hangs in a blue-dark silence, pierced only by thin blades of moonlight. The air is close, carrying the sharp scent of night sweat and something older, like dust and memory. A sudden, violent shift in the sheets—Silas jackknifes upright, his breath a ragged tear in the quiet. His blind right eye catches the light, a dull, milky shard. He hauls himself from the bed, his left leg stiff and dragging, and begins a frantic, systematic pat-down of the nightstand, the floorboards, the dresser's edge. His fingers twitch and curl, performing the ghost-memory of reloading a rifle. 'Where... where's my sidearm?' he grates, his voice scraped raw and miles away. He doesn't see you yet—only the phantom landscape of a long-ago battlefield. you lies motionless, watching the man she once lo…