Battle Scars

This story is fictional, and involves two characters that stand in for me now and then.

I arrived at the airport at least an hour before the flight. Partly habit, but partly nerves, I have to admit. I didn't really know how I was going to do with this, didn't know what to say. All I knew is that I had to be there.

Some weird logic told me that it was supposed to be me returned from far away, an injured warrior returning to a loving friend.

Not her.

I had made it through two tours in the Gulf. I came back with a purple heart. I reached out for a friend who'd been hit by shrapnel from an IED, just as another exploded next to him. He'd been blown apart, and I was hit in the chest and face, as well as my left hand, losing the outer three fingers. At the same time, my best childhood friend was on a mission of mercy with the Peace Corps in the Sudan. I got home a whole year before I got news that Ann had gone missing.

As much as I'd like to say that I had headed a Rambo-like rescue mission to Africa to free her from her captors, the reality of it was that she had already been freed by a faction in opposition to the one that had kidnapped her by the time we heard of her disappearance. I'd found out a week ago that she'd been exposed to some contaminated water in Africa and gotten parasites, which required the removal of both her eyes.

That's all I'd known until three days ago, when a former boyfriend of hers called to ask me meet her flight at the airport in Medford. He said he "Just couldn't bear to see her 'that way". Now, as the flight taxied to the jet way, I found myself thinking of the not-too-distant past, when we'd been best friends.

Ann was tiny, even when we were kids. Two years younger than me, she looked like she was five when I was twelve. But then, everybody looked small around me. At 5"10", I was taller than either of my parents and most of the adults I knew. I leveled out at 6'7" when I was 19, but Ann had not broken five feet or 90 pounds. She became tiny Piglet to my huge Pooh.

She was the kind of friend who never cut anybody any slack, but was never mean about it. She took my teasing like a trooper, and somehow, I knew how far to push, never once going too far, either. She was my harshest critic while being my staunchest defender. She held my hand, huge compared to hers, while I cried after a girl broke my heart. I beat the snot out of a boy for breaking hers, then stood and took a pounding from her for doing it.

We told each other everything as we grew up, and looking back, it may have been a reaction to her leaving for the Peace Corps than drove me to become a Marine. My parents didn't show up for my graduation from boot camp, but she did. Came all the way from Ethiopia. She said she'd had vacation, but a mutual friend told me otherwise. Ann was afraid no one would be there for me.

We knew each other very, very well. I had spoken to a friend of mine, an Incident Debriefer for LAPD about Ann, and she'd told me what to do, how to do it, and had given me her cell phone number just in case.

Ann came up the jet way before the other passengers, holding the elbow of a female flight attendant. She had a folded-up white cane in her other hand. The flight attendant looked at me, and asked, "Are you Robert Akins?"

"I'm afraid he couldn't come." I replied.

"I can't release Ms. Taylor to anyone else, Sir," she replied.

I took a step toward her. "Is Ms. Taylor a minor, unable to make her own decisions, Miss?"

"Well no, but I have instructions to release her only to a Robert Akins."

Ann's face grew concerned beneath her dark glasses. I had been using my Marine voice, and I don't think she'd recognized me yet. As her sightless face scanned back and forth, she asked, "Who is it, Deborah?"

Smiling, I bent over and whispered in the worried flight attendant's ear.

She said, "It's an extremely large, intimidating man, who has just told me to say, "Hello, Piglet?"

Ann gasped and flung out her hands. I swept her up and spun her around, nearly knocking the other woman over.

"Oh my God! Pooh, is it really you?" she yelled. Her laugh quickly turned to sobs as she melted, the need to be tough having vanished when I wrapped her in my arms. I waved one-handedly at the woman, who surprisingly, blew me a kiss and retreated. I put my other hand under Ann's knees and cradled her to me as she sobbed.

"Shh, little one. I'm here for you. Pooh's here. Do you have any luggage?"

She shook her head, sobs turned to sniffles and hitches of breath. "Where are you going to take me, David?" she sniffed.

"We're going to my house, Annie. Is that OK?"

"That would be awesome. I didn't know you were home yet, so I called Robert."

"I know. He called me."

"He couldn't do it, could he? He couldn't stand to see me. I'm not sure I could stand to see me either."

"Are you done, squirt?" I said softly.

"What do you mean?" she asked.

"I hate to disappoint you, Piglet, but I haven't scheduled a pity party for ya. You should know me better than that. You've had four months to feel sorry for yourself. It's time to move on."

I felt, more than saw, the little smile on the face I suddenly realized that I loved.

"Can't blame a girl for tryin'," she whispered.

"Now, can I please put you down? You've gained a lot of weight." I put her on her feet, just in time to catch the flat of her hand on my chest as she swatted me.

"I have not gained weight! I've had a goddamned parasitic infestation, you asshole!" She swatted me again, then went pale and put her hands to her face and gasped.

"Annie! What's wrong! Did I hurt you? Oh, Jesus, Annie! I'm so sorry. I'm so sorry. Do you need a Doctor? Maybe I better find a phone. Wait. I have a cell phone. I'll call 911. Oh sweet Jesus, Annie."

I was on my knees in front of her, fumbling like an idiot through my pockets for my phone, when her hands finally found my face. She hugged me to her chest, disturbingly ample for such a small person.

"I'm OK, ya big doofus! I just moved too fast. The woman who took out my eyes was not a very good doctor. In fact, she was only about one step up from a witch doctor. She saved my life, but her technique left something to be desired. It just hurts if I move my head too fast. Oh. Oh No. Pooh?"

"What, Annie?" "Pooh bear, are you crying?" Her hands swept my face, gentle and cool. She lowered her forehead to mine.

"I'm sorry Annie. I thought I'd hurt you. I didn't know what to do. I couldn't stand that."

"Silly old bear," She cooed, kissing my nose. "Take me home."

I gave her my elbow and walked out of the terminal. As we walked we were quiet, just happy to be alone together. I helped her into my pickup (it is Oregon. We all have pickups.), and described the night as we made our way south to our hometown of Ashland.

As we drove, her hand felt it's way across the seat, reaching for me. When she found me, she released her seatbelt and slid over next to me, then searched for, and found, the belt for the center seat. She leaned her head against my arm and sighed. I put my arm around her shoulder and held her to me.

By the time we reached my house, in the southwest hills of Ashland, she was asleep. I held her to me carefully as I got out and opened the door. I carried her upstairs and put her on my bed, covering her with a down comforter as I slipped off her shoes. I picked up a chair and put it down facing the bed. I thought as I drifted off that maybe I should turn off the light, but then realized it didn't matter.

"POOH BEAR! DAVID! WHERE ARE YOU?"

I awoke to Annie screaming. She was sitting up in bed and her arms were wind milling, reaching for me.

"I'm here, Annie! I'm right here!" I said, lunging onto the bed to hug her to me. She sobbed for a while and settled down. She suddenly reached to her face, and clapped her hands over her eyes, realizing her dark glasses were gone.

"Where are my glasses, Pooh? Did you take them off?

"No, Annie, I didn't. Let me look. Oh. You're sitting on them. Move over a little you must have knocked them off when you sat up. Uh oh, they're broken."

"Oh, no. What will I do? You can't see me without them, Pooh. I'm too ugly." She continued to hold her hands over her eyes.

"I've already seen you, Piglet. Trust me, you're still the most beautiful girl I've ever known. You want ugly you should see me," I said, and instantly wished I could take it back. " Shit. I'm sorry I said that, Annie."

"It's OK, Pooh. Really. You shouldn't feel the need to change how you talk around me. You never have, why start now. I guess I'm just disappointed with the way I look. Most people who lose their eyes can have prosthetics. I probably can't. The woman who removed my eyes cut off the eye muscles clear at the back of my sockets. In a civilized country, they would have left enough muscle to fasten onto an insert so prosthetic eyes would track. Now I'm stuck with these huge empty holes.

She was right. Where her eyes were, there were only open holes, her eyelids collapsed inwards into them. Occasionally, the lids would twitch, in a parody of blinking. As she tilted her head down, tears that had puddled into the gaping sockets sloshed out and dripped onto her blouse.

I held her head in my hands and kissed her face, including her butterfly-like eyelids. She reached up and put her hands on my head. Realizing that I had not told her about my injuries, I pulled her hands away from my scarred face.

"Wait, Pooh. Let me see."

Annie put her hands on my thighs and scooted closer until our knees touched, until she was a foot away from my face. Her hands went to the top of my head and began to "see" me.

Her hands moved lightly but thoroughly over my hair, a look of puzzlement occasionally crossing her face. I looked carefully at her, watching her brows knit and relax as she found new things, the familiar parts of my face. She smiled when she found the notch on my nose, probably remembering that I had gotten it defending her honor against the onslaught of a particularly aggressive suitor. Her fingers found my lips and I playfully bit at her.

"Quit it. I'm reading!" she smiled.

When she reached the scars on the left side of my face, the smile disappeared and she breathed in sharply.

"Pigl..."

"Shut up! I'm not done," She breathed.

She finished her scan of my face and moved down my neck, her fingers delicate and fleeting on the wrinkled, raised scar tissue. I thought she would stop at my neck, but her fingers opened the buttons on my shirt one by one, until she pulled my shirt out of my pants in front. As she leaned against me to reach the rear of it, her stiff nipples brushed my belly, swaying gently with her movements.

I pulled off my shirt, still kneeling in front of her on the bed. She started, smiling again, at the back of my neck, spider like and swift against my skin. As she rounded my shoulders, her frown returned. Her face pointed over my shoulder as if, though sightless, she couldn't bear the sight of my damaged body. When she reached my hips, the tears fell out of the wells of her eye sockets and streamed unchecked down her face.

Instinctively, I took her face and began to kiss away the tears. I licked her cheeks delicately, gently. My tongue circled her openings, the tip sampling the velvet skin of her lids.

And then, in.

Into the reservoirs of her tears, behind the silken layers of her lashes. On, into the former resting places of her blue-green eyes. As I touched a slight protrusion at the smooth rear of her eye opening, she moaned.

"Are you OK?" I asked.

"Oh, yes. Yessssss. When you touch that spot, I get flashes of light, flashes of things I've seen. It's amazing, Davie. How did you know to do that? I love it."

"I don't know. I just wanted to touch every part of you. I've missed you so much, Annie. You are all I thought about in Iraq. If I could just make it back to see you again, I knew everything else was easy."

"Why me, Dave," she asked, her head tilted to one side like always, but this time, there were no smoky eyes looking through me. Not ever again.

"How can you not know, Piglet? Oh, Annie. You're the one. The only girl I've ever loved. I have loved you since I was three years old. I just didn't know it until I saw you today. I'm sorry to drop it on you like this, and I'd totally understand if you want me to go away."

"There are a couple of problems with that whole thing, Pooh.

"One. Why'd you wait to fall in love until you were three?

"Two. It's your house, I can't really ask you to leave. "Three. I am so totally in love with you."

She found my head with her hands and pulled me to her. Her kiss was unlike any kiss the world had ever known before. Sweet and full of hope and promise, but very, very sexy. She pulled back a little and pretended to look into my eyes.

"Are your eyes closed?"

"Nope."

"Silly old bear."