Therapy

There was a road alongside the farm that in the summer was a tawny dusty strip alongside the greens of the fields...but in the winter or when it rained it darkened until it almost matched the brown shades of her eyes...and he always tried to drive by it every time it rained.

He visited her once after his first deployment.  Before he headed back to his second tour.  The one where he got hurt.  Badly.

But this was the summer before, and he was with her, her brother's truck stopped alongside the fence of her father's farm.  She was sitting in the bed of the truck, the gate down, her bare feet hanging over the side.  He was standing, balancing a few rocks on the floor of the bed.

What are you doing?  Her voice was only slightly above the few cicadas that chirped in the trees...they hadn't been talking...rather it was like a transfusion...her mind caressing his...soothing his.  He just kept trying to hear her breathing, and time his to hers.  It was calming.

Balancing.  Trying to get these rocks to balance.

Why?

Because this is peaceful to me.

He could smell the shampoo from her hair...the ends still dark and wet.  He had interrupted her with his arrival and she quickly put on clothes to come see him, waiting on the porch.  She had keys in her hand and they gathered into her brother's Ford 150 and driven a bit down the driveway and turned out onto the adjoining road.  She had an FM station out of Virginia Beach playing songs he remembered but hadn't heard in awhile.

The rocks keep tumbling each time he got more than four and he looked around the road for flatter ones to balance easier.  He saw her regarding him, her head tilted in that familiar manner...like she was amused.

What?

Nothing. She smirked a tiny bit.

He found a couple of flatter rocks and he got up to six total, larger to small, the top one about the size of a marble.

Well there you go. 

He looked up again and she was smiling.  Yeah, he said, I was just hoping it would take me just a little longer.

Why?

Because I like this.  He lowered his gaze to the rocks.  I love this.

A few summers ago they had both used that word.  They had used it in the quiet and they had used it between a kiss.  But when he told her he was going to be deployed it snapped something between them...perhaps irrevocably.  

So now, in the sounds of an afternoon, balancing rocks in the bed of her brother's truck he still felt that word in his head.  He just didn't allow it to come out as much.

Me too.  She said softly.

Beside her in the sun he placed his hand slightly under her foot, holding it softly.  He had cleansed her before...soaping and softly washing her.  Again that was before.  Now she was clothed except for her feet.  So that's where she was naked and that is where he felt he could touch her.

I feel he started...that this is what you do for me...you bring me this balance...this shape.  You keep me still.  Just being beside you.  

He continued when I was far away...from here...from you...it was hard.  It was pretty much its own planet...its own place....fucking Mars...

...each day I knew you were somewhere...knew you were out there...but I was unbalanced.  I was adrift, despite having the platoon and the pilots and the noises that kept me moving and working...but so unbalanced.

He took off the top marble-sized stone...and then put it back.

Just even now, being near you...is some form of therapy...some bit of removal of things that were weighing me...he laughed quickly...sorry if I sound like I'm a bit of a flake and not some combat soldier.

The cicadas were white noise again...and another truck drove by, stirring up the silt and the dust-motes...they both turned away from it and soon the vehicle went past.

She was quiet.  Until...

This is therapy for me too.

He heard one of her favorite songs come on the radio and he went around and opened the door, turning the volume knob so she could hear it better.

His rocks remained balanced, throwing a tiny shadow against the bed of the truck as the sun tilted behind them.

He remained as well.