via Daily Prompt: Tempted

“Lead us not into temptation, but deliver us from evil.”

The nightmares never stop. He’s woken up panicked and sweaty enough times to stop questioning if they will. The crushing feeling in his chest coupled with his lungs working overtime reminds him that he is both suffocating and alive at the same time. He buries his head into his pillow to try and quell the burning sensation and the dizziness. His mind races, and glass-like shards of his subconscious cut into him with every laboured breath.

He feels as if he’s drowning in the flow of images; friends, enemies, unknown men, women and children all killed in the crossfire. He looks down at his hands and can see the blood of the little girl he was ordered to shoot down. In this moment, he wonders why he ever thought going to war was a good idea; he’d been labelled as a hero but he knew he was just a glorified murderer. Knowing that the girl was already dead and not actually in his arms didn’t stop him from crying out for help. Then through the strangled words, the name of his wife forces its way out of his throat; calling her to stop the pain as if she could.

He looks up and through the tears a familiar shadow slips into the room granting him slight relief. He relishes in the solace of her cool flesh pulling back his sweat slicked hair. His face is drawn into the crook of her neck and he clutches at the peace she has given him; greedily drinking up the calm her presence offers. His name is ‘Steve’. He is reminded only by her constant whispering of it every time he gasps her mangled name for comfort. The sounds SteveSteveSteve rush over him again and again like cold water. It is then when he begins to wake, and he can breathe easier. His hands are clean when he looks and the guilt is slowly retreating.

He begs her to stay; to sleep by his side like she used to before he left, before he became this. He knows that for him sleep is out of the question but if he can hold her for the rest of the night then maybe he’ll be fine; they’ll be fine.

She agrees without hesitation, the idea of getting her husband back even briefly entices her. She knows he won’t remember this night; he doesn’t remember most of them. He’s had far too many night terrors that he’s lost count, so when he wakes up and she’s gone to take a shower and wake up their son, they don’t speak of it. If she doesn’t remind him of the events that went on that night, he can convince himself that they didn’t happen.

But for now, he’s shivering in her arms, trying to embed the memory of her into his mind. He’s not alone anymore and with every second that passes, she gives him another reassurance in the form of her lips pressed against his hairline and her fingers combing through the tangles. She’s here and that’s enough.

Though enough can’t last forever and soon her arms cannot protect him for long and soon her soothing touch is replaced by 20 mg of Paroxetine and two hours of Cognitive Behavioural Therapy a week. Whispers of his name become shouts when he loses another job and fails to pay his share of the bills. Angry, desperate make-up sex is the only thing holding them together; the only thing keeping them close. But when that results in an accidental pregnancy they both know that it’s over.

When she is having a cup of tea after a long day; he is on his fourth pint of beer in some dive bar down the road. Whilst she is taking care of a baby neither of them wanted; he is finding warmth in another woman’s bed. The love they had for one another has become exiguous and yet they hold on to the small moments; the glimmer of hope in a passing smile, in the ‘I love you’s’ uttered out of habit. They’ve been through too much for too long to let everything go.

He thinks of the love they used to share when he meets Andrea and then when he meets Lauren and yet again when he meets Marie. Over time his thoughts of that love fade and every time he meets another woman the images of his wife and kids dwindle in his mind until they are nothing but burned out specks.