BREAK MY FALL CHAPTER 4

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BREAK MY FALL CHAPTER 4

Josh

I really should say something. Introduce myself. It feels really stalker-esque to think of her as her.

And when class doesn’t start because the projector isn’t working, I realize I have another opportunity to not be a fucking coward and actually talk to her.

I’m curious. Despite all my good intentions of keeping my distance, I want to know what on earth compelled her to approach me yesterday at the bar. I want to know what inspired her to stand and fight instead of try to downplay the situation on the street outside The Pint last week.

I worked with a female soldier back in my unit. She wasn’t officially assigned to us, which was why she was the only one around. She was badass on a weapons system but she never would have stood her ground like the girl next to me did the other night. She always traded cheap shots with the NCOs until they stopped hassling her. Deflection and de-escalation through dick jokes.

But the confrontation isn’t what has me intrigued. At least not completely.

I want to know why she approached me. Why she talked to me at the bar. Why she pretended to care.

Women don’t do that. And women who work in bars damn sure don’t do that. Not if they’re smart.

I know what she said. But people never tell the truth about stuff like that. They always have ulterior motives.

Funny, I can’t figure out what hers might be. I’m usually better at reading people but she’s got me stumped.

There’s something about her that draws my attention. Maybe it’s the tight curls that frame her face, drifting around her neck. Maybe it’s the way she observed the entire room with her golden eyes that give you the impression she doesn’t miss the smallest detail.

I steal a glance over at her, trying to be smooth and not completely fucking obvious.

She is focused on her paper, her right hand furiously scratching notes out in scrawling, neat penmanship. But her left hand is resting at the base of her throat. Her fingers sliding gently over her smooth skin, almost absently. Almost as though she wasn’t paying attention to the lecture but instead, lost in a fantasy.

For a moment, I’m enthralled by the movement. The slide of a single finger over soft, soft skin. The feel of your lover’s pulse racing beneath your caress. The power of a touch that says you are mine.

I haven’t been touched like that in a long, long time.

I look away, seized by a sense of loss almost as powerful as the panic from yesterday.

I have to admit, I’m mildly relieved when Professor Quinn pulls up the PowerPoint for his lecture.

Death by PowerPoint even in college. But sometimes, it’s the familiar that offers comfort.

Except that now I’m paying for the privilege of being lulled to sleep by slides.

Quinn is a short, skinny guy who looks like a fifty-year-old version of the aging hipster. Maybe he’s the original hipster. With his thick glasses and greying goatee, he looks like what I imagine Colonel Sanders of the KFC variety would look like as a college professor.

He finally starts his lecture. There’s no good morning. No here’s what we’re going to talk about today. No lesson objectives.

Guess I’m not in Kansas anymore. An Army slide would have been carefully scripted with lesson objectives, key concepts and a course guide.

Looks like I’m supposed to think for myself here, too.

Which is kind of terrifying in a lot of ways.

“So let’s talk about ISIS today. From your readings, you see they’re in the news this week because of their beheading of another American citizen. What do you think motivates these people to do such a horrific act?”

From the front left, a hand shoots up into the air. Spoiler alert, it’s Parker. Here we go. She’s what we call a spring butt in the Army. The first person to raise their hand and always has something they think is brilliant to say.

Her voice is pitch perfect in a super-annoying Elle Woods kind of way. Except that she doesn’t have the dorky charm of Elle Woods. And no, I’m not embarrassed for having watched Legally Blonde on my last deployment.

Parker is confident in a way that suggests prep school and a mother with a ruler and a strong look of disappointment if she so much as looked at something the wrong way or dared to have her own opinion about anything.

“They’re completely insane,” she says.

I look down at my paper. I do not want to talk about this shit today. Or ever, for that matter. This class is a massive fucking mistake. It needs a fucking trigger warning.

My advisor and I are going to have a serious discussion about why she thinks this class is necessary for my degree. I want to do Homeland Security consulting. I know more than enough about violence and conflict management.

I wonder when the drop deadline is. Or if I can change majors. Maybe I can bribe my advisor to let me take something else. I’ll claim psychological distress or something.

But then they might ask for a mental health evaluation and god forbid should the veteran have mental health issues. And I’m most certainly not doing one of those. They might discover my other problem.

Parker continues. “They’re using horrific violence as shock value, nothing more. If they were better integrated in society, they wouldn’t have run off to join this band of murdering psychopaths.”

She’s so wrong it’s not even funny. Guess a lack of cultural understanding isn’t unique to the Army.

“Mr. Douglas, you disagree.”

Fuck.

I look up to find the entire class has turned around, waiting for my answer.

I grind my teeth, wondering how the hell I managed to draw attention to myself.

Guess it’s my fucking super power.

I wonder what they’d do if I ran screaming from the room, yelling for everyone to take cover. It’s how I feel right now. Like they’re waiting for me to grow a second head.

But those are my issues, not theirs; because none of them know I’m a soldier. It’s all in my head. Most of them probably have no idea that I should have a blazing neon sign over my head that says Warning: Angry Veteran. May snap if provoked.

The only war they know about is the one they see on TV. Or the one that could happen if Starbucks runs out of their favorite espresso.

“They’re not psychopaths.” I keep my voice calm and level and speak extra slowly. I need to keep my emotion out of this entire exchange and that is getting more and more difficult by the moment. “Just because someone is willing to engage in violence does not make them crazy.”

Parker launches into her defense before I barely finish talking.

“No, I’m not willing to acknowledge that. Studies have consistently demonstrated that people who engage in this level of violence are severely mentally disturbed.”

I smile at her and it is as cold and dead as I feel inside. She has no idea what life outside the smooth stone walls of this campus and her gated community is like.

“So explain all of human history,” I say. “We used to gather in the town square for stoning as Saturday night entertainment.”

I made that up. I think. But she’s wrong.

She’s fucking wrong.

The girl next to me shakes her head and lifts her hand. “Whether or not members of ISIS are mentally ill is irrelevant, isn’t it? I mean, we’re not going to assess their mental health before we launch drones at them.”

Professor Quinn motions to her, not dismissing her remarks like he’s done to mine.

She is rapidly becoming my obsession. “Go further with that, Ms. Hilliard. What do you mean?”

Hilliard.

At least now I have her name.

Abby

I have a rule about talking in class. If I wouldn’t say it to the whole room, I don’t say anything. And now, I’m diving into a conversation that is incredibly uncomfortable. Well, that’s what I get for opening my mouth in class.

Here goes nothing.

“We’re engaged in a drone war across half the Middle East and those are the countries we publicly know about. We know ISIS are cutting people’s heads off. We’re not going to capture them and put them on trial; we’re going to bomb them. So what does it matter why they’re doing what they’re doing?” I shift in my seat so I can see Mr. Douglas—because thanks to Professor Quinn I actually know his name now—and Parker at the same time.

I am shocked by the transformation in him. Before where he’d been dark and brooding, he’s…different now. Something energized. Something…else. The veins in his neck are standing out and the muscles are visibly pulsing. He looks worse—if that is actually possible—than he did at the bar yesterday.

And just like yesterday, I have a striking urge to ask him if he’s okay.

Instead, Parker draws my attention from him. “I have to agree with Abby. I don’t think it matters. But I think they’re cray.”

I roll my eyes but he speaks up.

“I think calling them ‘cray’”—and he practically sneers the word—”discounts what they’re doing and what they’re capable of.”

Professor Quinn tips his chin at him, either completely unaware of the tension radiating off him or ignoring it. I’m not sure which one would actually be better. “And what are they doing, Mr. Douglas?”

“They’re building a movement,” Douglas says. “These people are not psychopaths. They’re deeply motivated believers in what they’re doing.”

“Ha, so it is religious,” Parker says suddenly.

Douglas frowns, as though the point were never up for debate. “I don’t think there’s any doubt in that.”

“And we know that religious brains have less functioning in the areas that promote rational thought. They’re more emotional, less reasonable. They are actually quite different from normal people,” she says.

He is shaking his head again. “That’s fundamentally the wrong way to look at this. Just because you can’t imagine belonging to something else so strongly that you’d die for it doesn’t mean that people who do are mentally ill.”

Well, this just took a turn for the worse. And by worse I mean personal.

My hands are slick with sweat.

Violence and mental illness and religion are not things I want to dig up and explore in some sanitized classroom. They’re not theoretical abstractions in my world.

There’s silence in the classroom now and it spreads like an eighth-grade rumor.

Professor Quinn holds up his hands, silencing the debate. “This is fundamentally the problem with all extremist movements,” he says. For a little man, he’s got a strong voice. Reminds me of my Uncle Richie, who was the quintessential child of the ’60s, who refused to shave his white beard or his gray ponytail long after that glorious decade of debauchery was over.

The disparity between Professor Quinn’s voice and his body isn’t easy to overcome, but he’s put his voice to good use by drawing all of our attention to him.

“Anything that can motivate individuals to sacrifice themselves for the group is toying with a dangerous ideology,” Parker says. “It’s brainwashing.”

Everyone turns as Mr. Douglas cuts Parker off. “Show me the evidence where it’s brainwashing.”

There’s violence radiating off him right now. Stress is a palpable thing. I want to interject, to stop this because I can see so clearly where this whole thing is going and it’s not going to be good.

Quinn has a reputation. He likes to start massive arguments in his class, then when things get out of control, he’s likely to throw your happy ass out of class with a quickness.

“I’m sorry,” Parker says and her voice is dripping with condescension. “But that’s exactly the problem. These groups trigger something in people that make them lose their sense of self. It’s completely irrational.” She shifts back toward Professor Quinn. “It’s like when people were protesting us leaving Iraq. It was stupid to leave soldiers there. We had no business invading, and leaving was the most rational thing this administration could have done. No boots on the ground is smart.”

Douglas leans forward, his eyes dark and flashing. Professor Quinn has shifted, folding his arms over his chest. Watching. Waiting.

“We damn sure do have boots on the ground.”

Parker makes a noise. “We don’t have any soldiers in Iraq anymore.” There’s casual arrogance in her answer, and it grates on my nerves even though it’s directed at Douglas for once and not at me.

“Really? Check your news, there, princess. We’ve got almost five thousand troops on the ground and more on the way.” I hope Professor Quinn can’t see his fists bunched in his lap. “We continue to be and have never stopped being at war,” he says quietly. “And violence is the only way to deal with some people.”

“Violence is never the solution to problems,” Parker says. “We need to figure out what ISIS is really after and negotiate.”

He tenses then. His fists are tight beneath his desk, his knuckles are white against his skin. “They have told us what they are after. Your refusal to believe them is your problem, not theirs.”

“That’s not true,” Parker said. “These people only want jobs and normal lives like the rest of us.”

“That’s a stupid and naïve way to look at the world,” he says and his tone is ugly and hard.

I can’t look away from the tension radiating off him. This is not anger at a debate gone wrong.

This is personal.

And I have a burning need to know why.

**ONE CLICK BREAK MY FALL**