Kia

“Are you coming tonight?”

Justin turned around to see that his question was pointless. Kia was wearing her headphones with her back turned, looking for a book on the shelf.

“Hey!” He waved at her. His second attempt not working, he walked over to face her.

She gasped, “Don’t sneak up on me like that!”

Justin rolled his eyes slightly and put his hands on her shoulders, “I’m sorry I startled you, but we were in the middle of a conversation in case you don’t remember.”

Kia took off her headphones but continued to look through her bookshelf. Breaking their eye contact. 

She didn’t like eye contact very much, it was top personal, and if Justin was able to look her in the eye, he would be able to read how she was feeling.

“Look. I know you don’t really want to go, but you’ve been stuck in this house for six months and the only person you’ve seen is me. I think it will be good for you to see some of your old friends again,” he began the speech she had heard many times before.

“I don’t need you to tell me all of this again,” she responded angrily. “I will tell you when I’m ready.”

“Fine, I will be downtown at seven if you change your mind. So will some other people that I’m sure would like to see you.” 

He left the house through the side door for work and a long day of thinking. 

Kia franticly searched through her music trying to find something that could calm her nerves. Reading had not helped. Maybe a change in her auditory experience would relax her.

Her boyfriend had left that morning angry with her. She understood where Justin was coming from, but he would never be able to understand how she felt.

Courage had always been one of Kia’s most prominent personality traits, but for the past few months, she felt nothing but afraid.

Afraid to go outside, to face her friends and let them see how she had changed.

Ten months earlier, the 24-year-old had been called out on active duty. This was something she trained her entire adult life to be able to do, but nothing could have prepared even the strongest of women for war.

The years of training and service, only for her life to implode at the first sound of enemy fire. No amount of training could have prepared her for that.

The only sound worse was the ringing in her ears that never ceased.

She carried that sound with her every day, and probably would for the rest of her life.

“Are you coming tonight?” She muttered to herself. If only it were that simple. 

How could she let the people she knew before her active duty see the person that had looked in the eyes of humanity's worst qualities. 

Kia was a name given to a strong woman who never backed away in the face of danger, but a single gunshot brought her to her knees, and never let her out.

On the other hand, what was one night out? There was no reason for her old friends to bring up her trauma. Her mind wandered, at least I got out alive. Some of her close friends were not as lucky.

Making her way towards the bedroom she shared with Justin, she landed opened the meditation app on her phone. Her psychologist said it would help her to listen to it whenever she was feeling nervous or any signs of PTS. 

She couldn’t understand how a lilting voice telling her to calm down was supposed to actually make her calmer. If anything, it aggravated her.

That voice didn’t know anything about what she had been through, it was not better than Justin.

The mindless app talked her through breathing exercises and stories about happiness while Kia looked through her closet. It droned on as her finger traced the articles of clothing she had left.

The camouflage, army-issued jackets, pants, hats, and shoes all antagonized her. Unable to go shopping after her duty she was left with only what fit her now that she was muscular. None of the cute clothing or going out wardrobe she once owned would cover her scars and new mass. Her entire identity was reduced to camouflage and sweats. 

Even if she wanted to go to the bar, she would not have anything nice to wear. She sure wasn’t going to wear green.

Justin worried for his girlfriend. She hadn’t been the same since she got back, and he couldn’t help but think that it was partially his fault for letting her go in the first place. 

He was the one who encouraged her to join the army and helped her pack her entire life into two standard-issue duffel bags. 

He watched her plane take off, unaware of where she was headed and when she would be back.

To his sureties, she came back much sooner than expected, but the siding face the hugged him goodbye did not greet him when he picked her up from the airport. 

The 25-year-old contemplated all of this as he drove to the bar downtown. Was he in the wrong for wanting her to see her friends. It could show her that people care about her and want to see how she is doing. It could also cause her to have an episode and never want to go out again. 

So, he gave her the choice, she was still her own person and could make her own decisions. He could tell that Kia was really thinking about if she should go or not. The only thing he didn’t know was if she actually would.

As he drove into the downtown area, he saw young people who were just starting out in life. They remind him of Kia and himself. Those teens and young adults would never be able to know what was ahead of them. And he couldn’t warn them.