2. daegan

2

DAEGAN

I'm back in North Carolina, where I'm stationed for the time being, to work with SEAL Team Executioners. The best of the best Navy SEALS as the head sniper on the team.

I don't like being home; the noise gets loud, but it gives me an opportunity to visit my mother's grave.

After landing in North Carolina, I went straight to her tombstone. I sat there for an hour, and instead of placing her favorite flowers, I placed her favorite chocolates.

Margaret Hannibal

Died on Valentine's Day.

Every year since I became a SEAL, I do the same thing. I visit her and tell her all about what war is like, what I've seen, and how evil the world can be.

My mother had postpartum depression after having my little sister but never sought treatment. My father discouraged it and said to seek God instead.

Everyone saw her in a bad light. Everyone in my mother's family treated her like she was overdramatic, ungrateful, and idiotic for feeling that way after she gave birth to my baby sister. She didn't ask for it. She didn't ask her mind to turn into a prison she couldn't escape.

She killed herself. And all my life, I resented her for it. How could she leave me? How could she be so selfish as to leave her children and husband? How could she be that cruel?

I stare at the wall in the dark.

"I think I get it now, Mom." I laugh out loud to myself with no one around but a dark room in my lonely one-story house.

No one will want me like this. A man full of scars. The scars on my skin and the ones engraved into my soul.

Ever since I was tortured, these thoughts haunt me from time to time. I don't think about it too much, but they're there.

I understand my mother better now.

I get that you can be in so much pain that you want it to end. To become so numb with zero percent chance of hope, it'll go away.

You just feel so fucked and alone.

Nobody talks about how lonely it feels when you come back home after what you've experienced at war.

Death after death.

And when you think you've seen it all, you haven't.

"You weren't alone, Mom. You had me. You had me, Mom…you had me."

You had me.

You weren't alone.

You were strong.

You weren't alone.

I wonder what she would think about.

What were the last thoughts that drove her to kill herself?

Mental illness is as real as any other illness, and it ate my mother alive…because she felt like she couldn't get help. She felt like if she sought help, she would have gotten her children taken away from her.

I wish there were more awareness and empathy for women who experience postpartum depression.

Sometimes, I do get angry at her for taking her life, but at the same time, I get it.

I fucking get it now.

She was in pain, she was lost, she was so far gone that she felt like killing herself was the only escape from the pain. She didn't mask her pain with anything. One day she said it was enough and slit her wrists.

I was five years old. Five. And I remember that day, every single detail of the day my mom was no more, from the moment I woke up until the moment I fell asleep that night. Every single detail.

I remember pouring myself cereal that morning because, for the first time, she was still in her room. I thought it was odd but didn't think much of it. So, I served myself breakfast. I imagined she was still sleeping. But then I got this weird feeling like something was wrong. I acknowledged that gut feeling when she hadn't stepped foot outside her door past noon. She hadn't checked up on me yet. When lunchtime came around, all the morning cartoons were over, and my father came home.

My father rushed through the front door, swinging it open with massive force, making a hole in the wall. I sat by my piano, and I stopped mid-play. He ran to their bedroom down the hall, and all I could do was listen.

I heard his erratic shouting, calling her name over and over again…and all I could do was play music and hum. My mother does that when she's sad, so I do it too.

Minutes later, lots of police officers barged in, and I still continued to play my piano.

Minutes later, my mother was carried out on a stretcher, blood falling onto the floor profusely from her wrists as someone was on top of her, performing compressions on her chest.

In those few quick seconds of getting wheeled out of the house, I saw the origin of the blood.

Slashes on her wrist, blood dripping down onto the wooden floors in a trail. Every time, the medic pushed on her chest. Her arms would jolt like she was being electrocuted, sending blood flying everywhere.

My father held his cross the entire time as he walked with the paramedics. He prayed to God, reciting a handful of prayers, begging Him to revive his wife. His pale skin was evident. He held his cross so tight that his knuckles were white and his palms bright red. I thought he was going to make himself bleed from how tight he was holding it.

He cried uncontrollably, utterly unaware that I saw everything. Unaware that his son was playing the piano, they left me alone in the living room.

I continued to play, not registering what had just happened. I was scared, confused, and, most of all, oblivious to my mother's actions as a child.

The sun had just set, and the living room began to darken with ominous shadows, but I couldn't stop playing. Something about music calmed me, even when I was all alone.

Minutes later, my neighbor came rushing in. Her blonde hair was tucked back in a ponytail. She was wearing a red kitchen apron, most likely cooking dinner for her own family.

She bent down so we were face to face. Her cheeks were damp from crying, but I could not stop playing. She grabbed my hands and forced me to stop playing, which only angered me. And with red eyes, she searched for mine.

"Are you okay?" She asked me with a shaky voice and forceful smile. Her mascara was smudged underneath her blue eyes.

"Where's my mom? Is she going to be okay?" I asked with a trembling voice. She's forcing me to ask the questions I was trying my hardest to avoid.

I wanted her to come back and tell me that my mother was coming back, that she was going to be okay, and that she was going to play the piano with me and we'd hum music together.

Mrs. Rivers held my hands in her palms and gave me a gentle squeeze. She was always kind and baked cookies for me and my best friend. She would let me go over and play with her son every weekend.

Mrs. River's fake smile fell down so fast at the mention of my mother, and I knew right then and there that my mother was gone.

I'm humming the same song my mother would to me when her episodes would come on.

I'm staring at my bedroom wall while one of my favorite movies, The Devil's Advocate, end credits flow down the screen.

Paint it black plays on the screen.

The tune I sing when I shoot and kill bad guys. If I can't hum it out loud, it's in my head because my mother would do this.

She would sing to herself in an effort to calm her anxiety. That habit has clawed into me. I don't sing, but I'll hum tunes whenever I need to deescalate the turmoil in my head.

We were sent home after another well-done mission and deployment, but I'm ready to return.

Fortunately for me. I've been placed on a special mission, and I've been doing extra homework that keeps me busy and intrigued.

My hand tenses up; there's one bullet in the chamber, and my fingertip slides onto the trigger gently. I don't know why I'm holding my gun, but I think it's a part of me always to have something on me, ready to defend myself…even when I'm home.

Like if, at any moment, someone will bust open my door and try to kill me.

The sounds of explosions, bullets spraying, bombs going off, dying kids screaming, and blood splattering echo into my mind.

"Another day, another scar."

Those words are in my head every fucking day.

The visuals and sounds of evil, the darkness, the stress. The layers of war interrupt and overload my brain like a plague without a cure.

Even with what I've experienced, I'm still addicted to multiple things.

I'm addicted to war, the adrenaline it gives me to work, to defend and protect, and take bad guys out. I'm addicted to numbing the darkness that creeps in with bourbon, cigarettes, sex, and painkillers.

But then my phone buzzes, snapping me out of the dark thoughts I always get consumed by when I return home. Exhaling the intense breath I've been holding, I look at the television, and it's gone black. It only runs black when I haven't been flipping through channels or touched the remote after thirty minutes.

Fuck.

How long have I been holding this gun, staring at the wall? I swear I blinked, and time flashed by.

I drop the gun, placing it on my thigh, turning the safety back on.

My phone chimes again, and I give in. I checked my missed notifications and was unsurprised to see Kane on the screen. I tolerate Kane. He's the one I talk to most on the team. I hardly speak, so that's saying something.

It's the group chat I'm in:

Kane: Whispers?

Whispers is a popular strip club in downtown Bloomings. Service members tend to occupy the lounge very often. It's known for that.

Two minutes later,

Kane: Phantom of the Opera, you there, bro?

Me: Already miss me? I'm flattered.

Lopez: I miss you bebecito. Come out to Whispers tonight. Let's celebrate another fucking job well done.

Me: Fine, I'll come out to play. Only if we stop by El Devine first.