Free When I See You by Katherine Owen

something terrible is bound to be lurking. In this case, it's this undeniable fear I succumb to. I'm lost, out of sorts. I can't breathe.
    "Tell me anything you remember." Her coaxing is mesmerizing on some level; it brings me back. Her bedside manner is obviously her "A" game.
    I don't answer for a minute or two, trying to breath evenly again. I sigh, frustrated with the barrage of the same set of questions from two different doctors now. "All I can remember is this feeling of racing against time. That I needed to do everything I could to get back, taking the terrain triple time. I can't remember anything else."
    There's a long silence. I sway in the blackness, feeling light-headed and worn out all at the same time, while Major Richards continues to stroke my hand.
    "Okay, I want you to just lie back and rest. Listen to me."
    She doesn't talk though. She stops while I wait in this utter blackness, silently pleading for her to go on. I hear her sigh heavily and sense her sudden hesitation. I go on high alert. I brace myself, both mentally and physically, for what she's going to say to me next.
    "Lieutenant, you were ambushed—under fire with your partner Lieutenant Holloway. Do you remember?"
    "An ambush?" My mind races, but the images are no more than flashes of dark and light. "No."
    How can I not remember any of this?
    "Ethan? Is he okay?" I ask. She takes another deep breath as if playing for time. Apprehension begins to close all around me and my breathing gets more labored. "Tell me what happened."
    "I can only tell you what we have been able to piece together."
    Her qualifying statement seems to be some kind of warning for me. I hold my breath and wait for her to continue.
    "You and your partner were ambushed. You were under heavy fire. But, somehow, you brought all the gear and Lieutenant Holloway back to camp. You carried it all. All the gear on one shoulder and Lieutenant Holloway on the other back to camp. Ten miles back to camp in under four hours. You called out for the medics as soon as you arrived. Do you remember any of this?"
    "No. It was pitch black. Rough terrain." My voice is barely audible.
    A fear, greater than the one I have about the blackness, begins to swirl around me like an oppressive heat wave.
    "Where's Ethan? Lieutenant Ethan Holloway." I enunciate his name slowly, as if she's hard of hearing or merely a five-year-old child. "Where is he?" I choke out.
    She sighs again.
    I take a jagged breath, then hold it, and just wait.
    "Lieutenant Holloway is dead." Her voice is so soft that I strain to hear her words.
    It takes a minute longer for them to even register. Ethan is dead.
    The minutes go by. I breathe in and out and swim with the blackness. My eyes sting; I fight for breath and control. My mind seems to fracture into a million pieces, while my body embraces absolute stillness, like the tectonic plates of the Earth shifting underground, wreaking permanent destruction.
    Ethan is dead.
    Five minutes? I still haven't said anything. This stranger, this woman, continues to hold my hand, continues to stroke it back and forth. I breathe, matching the rhythm of her strokes. I still don't say anything. The darkness of grief is as unbearable as the one that envelops my sight. My best friend is dead and I don't even remember how it happened.
    "No," I finally say, making sure she understands that I won't accept this outcome.
    She grips my right hand tighter. "I want you to know how sorry I am. I understand you two were close. You grew up together?"
    How does she know that? Leave it to the Navy to provide a complete history in my case file. Bitterness fills me up.
    "In Austin. We grew up together in Austin. Signed on to the SEALS at the same time. Live together. Fight together. Shoot together." I recite our shared motto, as if by doing so, I can undo everything she's just told me.
    "What I also want you to know is that we're going to do everything we can to help you get your sight back," she says in this