I hurried out there to make sure she was all right and found an entire drawer from the refrigerator had fallen out and broken onto the ground. There were milk, eggs, and numerous other foods all over the floor, with Ana standing over them and looking very confused.
“I’m so sorry,” Ana said as she looked around the room for something to clean up her mess.
There was blood dripping from her hand and it was shaking. She hadn’t even noticed that her hand was cut badly and bleeding all over the place.
“Let me see that,” I said as I grabbed the kitchen towel and took a big step over the mess of food all over the floor.
“I’m sorry,” Ana said quietly as she looked down at the ground.
“It’s okay. Are you all right?”
I took a deep breath in and could smell her flowery scent as it came off of her. It took everything I had in me not to close my eyes and just inhale deeply so I could smell more of her. I had read about people being attracted to someone based on their smell, but I hadn’t thought it was true until I was around Ana. There was a visceral attraction to her that went beyond what she was wearing and how she looked.
“I’m sorry,” she said again as her hand shook in mine.
She wasn’t looking at me and I felt like she wasn’t even really there with me. She was off in her head. I had seen that look from my guys who I worked with, and I had probably even had that same look in my own eyes plenty of times before. Ana was lost in her own thoughts and that wasn’t anything I wanted to mess with.
From my experience, it was best to let someone who had severe PTSD deal with their thoughts without interrupting them unless they were doing something dangerous. Their mind had to learn how to work through things and how to build on the skills it already had so they could process things better the next time they came up. It was a long process, but no one else could do it except the person who was suffering from PTSD.
“Let me clean this,” I said quietly as I brought her around the kitchen and we walked to the bathroom in her room.
There were stacks of things I had purchased for her at the store, but I knew I had a first aid kit under the sink. I held her hand in mine and continued to apply pressure to the cut as I used my other hand to pull out the antiseptic spray and Band-Aids.
Ana’s eyes continued to look down at the ground, and I couldn’t help but wonder what was going through her head. She had been through so much, her body and mind just needed to rest. I was going to get her cleaned up and then get her to bed so she could sleep.
“What were you doing in the kitchen? Are you hungry? I can make you something,” I offered as I cleaned her hand and bandaged it.
She didn’t answer me. She didn’t look up from the ground and she didn’t seem to even realize I was standing there with her. Ana was in a full, dissociative state and it had lasted at least five minutes that I knew of. That was a long time for someone to stay in such a state.
People with post-traumatic stress syndrome tended to have periods where they would disassociate from what was going on in front of them and flash back to something else. I had them all the time, but they seemed to happen to me less and less over the years. I was aware enough that I knew what situations I would have them more in. Anytime there were gunshots, I had to be vigilant to try and avoid having an episode. Luckily, my episodes only lasted a few seconds and I was able to quickly bring myself back to the present time. But Ana wasn’t having as much luck.
“Let’s get you to bed,” I said quietly as I walked in front of her and guided her to her bed.”
She lay down and I left her there while I went to the kitchen to make her something to eat. That must have been what she was out there for and I really didn’t know when the last time she had eaten was. I made up a ham and cheese sandwich and grabbed some juice and chips for her before I set them next to her bed.
By the time I returned to her room, Ana was curled up in a ball on top of her bed with her eyes closed. I didn’t dare wake her up; she probably needed her sleep. Her eyes were closed and I grabbed a blanket off the bottom of her bed to put it over her to make sure she would be warm for the night. The house got very cold sometimes at night, and even though I really liked it like that, I didn’t know if Ana would feel the same way about the cold.
“What are you doing in here?” she screamed at me as she sat straight up in her bed and pushed herself back into the corner.
Instantly, I dropped the blanket and took three steps back to give her the space she needed. I didn’t answer her right away though. She needed to learn how to manage her disassociation, and that meant she was going to be confused as she tried to figure out what was happening.
“Answer me,” she continued. “Why are you in my room? Get the hell out of here!”
As she screamed at me, she pointed toward the door and then noticed the bandage on her hand. Slowly, she looked at her hand and then at the sandwich I had placed next to her on the nightstand. The confusion on her face was horrible and I wanted to tell her exactly what had happened, but I knew it would be no use. She wouldn’t remember any of it.
“Goodnight, Ana.”
I simply took a few more steps out of her room and shut the door. There was no use arguing with her in the state she was in, but I wasn’t going to stay in the room and get yelled at, either. I felt physically ill that she had thought I was in her room for some horrible reason. The look in her eyes had chilled me. Even though I knew I hadn’t done anything but help her, I hoped she would see it the same when morning came.
My heart was pounding with what had just happened. Of course, I wanted to understand what she was going through, but the way she looked at me… The fear she had in her eyes and disgust in her voice, I couldn’t take it. I felt myself starting to get angry with her. I knew it was wrong to feel that way, but the anger just kept building.
Who was she to think I would be in her room for some rotten reason? She didn’t know me; she didn’t know that I would never hurt a woman like that. As I made my way outside into the dark of the night, I couldn’t help but let out a scream of my own.
The deep, frustrated scream came from pure emotions. I was a good guy. I had taken her into my home out of the goodness of my heart and she was looking at me as if I was some sort of criminal.
“Uggggh! She needs to go to Chase’s house. I can’t keep her here. Look at how she was toward me. She thinks I’m some sort of monster,” I said under my breath as I walked toward my shed in the back of the house.
It was pitch black outside, but I didn’t care. There wasn’t anything in the dark of the woods that could scare me, all my fears were stuck in my own mind. I opened up the shed door and made my way into my gym.