The Best Is Yet to Come (24)

“The pain was comfortable: like my favorite pair of jeans,” Silas continued. “And convenient, too, which is why I turned into someone even my mother had trouble loving. I had no desire to move forward, let alone live.”

Cade hated to be obtuse. “I don’t think I understand what you’re saying.”

“Let me put it like this,” Silas said. “We know you lost your friends in Afghanistan.”

“They were my family, my brothers.”

“I understand, but you’re alive and they’re not.”

Cade didn’t need the reminder. He didn’t want to think about Luke and Jeremy, although they all too frequently made appearances in his dreams.

“If you’re talking about survivor’s guilt, I don’t want to hear it,” Cade barked. This was an excruciating mental path he’d walked all too often; it had left deep grooves in his brain like ruts in a much-traveled road.

“Not entirely. You’re where I was not that long ago.” Silas’s dark eyes focused on Cade, as if seeking understanding. “You’ve grown content in savoring your pain.”

“That’s not true,” Cade argued. If it was, he wouldn’t be feeling regret about turning down Hope.

“How are things going at the garage?” Harry asked, abruptly changing the subject.

“What does my part-time job have to do with anything?” Cade demanded. Being the focus of this discussion annoyed him to the point that he was ready to walk. As much as he wanted to, he couldn’t. These sessions were required as part of a condition for his probation.

“How many friends have you made at the shop?” Harry pressed.

Cade bristled at the question. “I have friends.”

“None that you’ve mentioned,” Ricardo said.

“Acquaintances, then.”

“Making friends threatens you in the same way Hope does.” Shelley made it a statement of fact.

“Hold on,” Silas said, raising his hand. “No need to get in Cade’s face about this. We’re all here for the same reason. If we can’t help one another, then we’ve lost more of our humanity than we realize.”

Harry leaned back and smiled, content to let Silas continue.

“By being loners, we feel like we’re handling life; we’ve built this fortress around ourselves. Involving others, inviting them into our pain, is hard. We resist. We don’t like it. We feel we can handle it on our own. We’re islands unto ourselves, not needing anyone.”

Silence filled the circle as they each absorbed his words.

“We hold on to our pain, our loss, our rejections, like a kid with a favorite toy. Why take the risk? Why get involved? It’s costly to let go of all the garbage we carry, the pain we’ve nursed like a colicky baby. That’s why we reject the very thing we want most. We’re afraid it might lead to something more, something good, and that’s what we find downright uncomfortable.”



* * *



—

Cade left the session with his head spinning. As hard as it had been to hear, he knew what Silas said was right on. He’d purposely avoided making friends with the other men at the garage.

Without fail, he went to work, did what was asked of him, and left at the end of the day, saying little to nothing to any of the crew. He hadn’t included himself in any casual chatter or jokes. He knew next to nothing about the others, and they knew zero about him. That was the way he liked it. Lunchtime was spent by himself, sitting away from the other guys, often eating in his truck.

It was the same at the animal shelter. Hope was the only volunteer he’d spoken to other than to answer questions. He had infrequent short conversations with Preston. The longest conversation he’d had with the other man was when Hope hadn’t been around for a couple days. And look what that had led to: bringing her provisions when she was sick, helping her with her slashed tire, turning down her dinner invitation and now regretting it.

Hope.

His mind all too readily flew to her and the sadness he saw in her eyes when he’d rejected her dinner invite. If he could turn back time, he’d gladly do it. He could picture himself sitting across the dinner table from her and laughing at something she’d said. A warm sensation filled his chest akin to happiness. Happiness he’d refused to allow back into his life. Feeling any sense of joy had died with his friends on a foreign battlefield. If what Silas said was true, it was all because he was afraid to let go of his loss, of his pain, for fear of what the unknown future might hold.

Cade needed to think. Needed to sort through his feelings. It wasn’t going to be easy to change the way he viewed relationships. As if his troubled mind had a will of its own, his thoughts zoomed to his mother. She’d come to the courthouse, and according to Harry, it wasn’t because of any connection with his father. It made him wonder if she had regrets over what had taken place between Cade and his father. If she had been looking to build a bridge back to his family, he wasn’t convinced it was a road he could travel.

The fight was technically between him and his father. But his mother had remained silent when he’d felt confident she’d stand by his side instead of turning a deaf ear to what he was saying. He’d been angry with her, furious that she hadn’t stood up for him when he needed someone to believe and understand that he wasn’t a clone of his father.