patient. fine. balanced. kind.

“If it’ll make you feel better, then sure. I would happily welcome any kind of food you want to make.” He wasn’t hungry, in fact Ethan couldn’t remember the last time he had eaten a full meal. Heather made a point to wake up early to prepare breakfast for her and her brother, sometimes for her fiancé who would occasionally stop by the house to pick her up and drop her off at work whenever her car wouldn’t work. At that, Heather would also spend a little more time in the kitchen after work to make sure Ethan had a healthy meal to eat; he never touched the entrée or, if he would kindly begin eating the prepared meal to make her feel better, he wouldn’t finish it.

‘That had to change; you need to eat,’ this therapist would repeat whenever Ethan would answer her question.

Mathis. The last named sounded familiar. His brows furrowed slightly as he repeated the surname in his mind. Why does it sound familiar? he mentally questioned as a hand fell onto the counter. As much as he tried to rip the memories from the confines of his metaphorical locked mansion, nothing came about. This frustrated him. For the first time since returning to the town he had a fragment of memory – a sense of familiarity and he couldn’t retrieve the memory.

He ignored her description of his return to the town. He didn’t want to talk about it. In his opinion he shouldn’t have been worshiped. He was no hero but an unfortunate soul who had to endure torture from the enemy hell bent on extracting information out of him. Whether he provided the information Ethan was unsure of and he believed that was why he was still alive from the enemy and from his own brethren.

“You’re welcome,” the man mumbled with a nod. “I -uh. I don’t get much sleep during the night … nightmares and what not. But, um. I sleep during the day, a few hours here and there and come night time I’m wide awake so I take midnight strolls since I’ve pretty much watched everything interesting on tv.” Ethan shrugged, lightly pushing himself from the counter to stand up straight. “A part of me thinks I should keep doing it to make sure that dickwad doesn’t try anything funny with anyone else.” A small chuckle escaped his lips from his insult.

“You own this place?”

Grace’s hands readied over the counter top as if she were going to prepare the man something to eat, but she quickly realized she had no idea what he might have liked, and he had turned down the offer twice.  More likely than not be was obliging just to humor her, to be polite.  “Alright, maybe not,” she mumbled quietly dropping her hands back to her side and checking the electric kettle to see if it was nearly ready.  She slipped a hand packed tea bag into a mug, setting it aside for a minute or two later. 

It was obvious the man was trying to figure out if he remembered the name.  She instantly regret sharing her last name with him--he probably would have been satisfied with the first alone and she didn’t want to turn into some wounded thing he and the rest of the town felt badly for so quickly.  “My family has owned several business around town since we were kids,” Grace attempted to explain the familiarity of the name. “So you probably heard the name back before everything, or maybe since you’ve gotten back...”

She was glad he overlooked her description of his placement in the town.  It was inappropriate and it wasn’t at all what she’d meant. Grace still found it difficult to look him in the eye after she fumbled so badly, and instead focused on pouring hot water into two mugs so the pair could have a warm drink after walking through the cold.  She set one mug in front of him and busied herself squeezing a healthy amount of honey into her own drink. 

“Oh, I’m sorry to hear that,” Grace said quietly when Ethan mentioned the nightmares.  She listened quietly to what he had to say, and had to admit he definitely seemed much more alert than she did. She was exhausted, especially after edging on a potential panic attack, but she felt to anxious for sleep. “You know what Netflix is, right? Might be a good alternative to reruns on TV... for a while at least.” 

Grace tried to laugh or at least smile at the comment he made about continuing to patrol the streets in the case of any additional trouble, but it was a thin attempt. It had frightened her more than she cared to admit, and it was hard to make light of it just yet when she knew she was only fight because of Ethan’s intervention, and that if it happened again and she was on her own it would likely end much differently. 

Feeling a sense of relief wash over him knowing they were no longer bothered by the unknown assailant, a bit of dread soon replaced his relief; who was the next potential victim of the hooded man? As far as he knew, the small town he had lived in didn’t have major crimes happen. Small burglaries, thefts, store thieves and maybe the occasional DUI, but nothing in the felony and 25 to life kind of crimes. It was all he could think about in the last remaining duration of their walk; what if that same man chose his sister to stalk next, or worse, someone who couldn’t defend themselves like the small woman next to him.

You don’t know for sure if she can’t defend herself, Ethan mentally scolded himself for judging as he did remember one face from the platoon he was in. Soldier Kelly Ambrose. She was much smaller than he was, but a little taller than the woman walking beside him. With short blonde hair, piercing blue eyes which held a fiery passion behind them, and mousy like features, Ambrose was able to kick the asses of most of the men in her platoon – excluding Ethan as he was very skilled in combat.

His brief thoughts were interrupted at the sound of the woman’s keys jingling in her purse. Ethan noticed her struggle and hesitation before her childish but innocent expression caused him to smile as she silently asked him to open the door. He understood her worry and didn’t dare to judge her for her lack of control; Ethan happily inserted the key in the knob, unlocking it to reveal the inside of the café.

Almost immediately Ethan set down the bags where instructed; standing tall, he brushed off his jacket before placing his hands in his pockets. He examined his surroundings noticing he had never set foot in the little café. It wasn’t a place Heather, his sister, had taken him yet and, for a moment, he cursed her for it. It looked quaint and welcoming with a sense of home. It even smelled like home with what he believed was actually the smell of the pastries.

His blue hues averted over to where she stood, his thoughts mulling over her request. He could stay, maybe take her up on her offer of food and a drink, or he could leave and try to find the hooded man and save whatever target that man chose to settle with. As much as his instinct was to play the hero that night, Ethan realized he had already played the role once and could stop at that; no need to give anyone any more reason to worship the ground he walked on.

“I don’t mind staying,” the man answered finally, walking over to the counter. “You don’t have to make anything and dirty up your dishes. I’m Ethan, by the way … though I’m sure you probably knew that by now.” A tired hand moved to the back of his neck, giving it a quick rub as he leaned against the counter.

Grace had been fiddling mercilessly with her hands as Ethan considered how he ought to move forward, wringing her fingers together, rubbing her palms together in nervous anticipation. She didn’t know this man from Adam, she never had. It struck her as odd how differently she felt about the stranger on the street and the stranger some five feet away from her, but Christ she did not want to be alone at the moment.

The woman looked relieved when Ethan ensured her he didn’t mind sticking around. Grace seemed suddenly alerted to action by his agreement and pulled her coat off and lifted a hand to the back of her head before realizing the beanie she’d been wearing before bumping into Ethan wasn’t there anymore. She dropped her hand to the side looking pensive for a moment, but ultimately decided the hat was a price she was willing to pay for the lucky way things had turned out as she placed her jacket on the counter.

When Ethan denied the need for her to trouble herself to get him something to eat, Grace’s head fell to the side and her brows knit together. “You think I really care about troubling myself with a couple of dirty dishes after…” she didn’t finish the sentence. She didn’t know after what—what he had presumably saved her from. She didn’t want to think of the what. “The dishes really don’t—really don’t matter.”

Her perplexed expression faded as he gave her his name. Almost guiltily, she nodded in agreement that she was in fact aware of who he was. She suddenly felt shamefully nosey about his history, and she hadn’t even intentionally dug into who he was like many of the town pariahs. She wouldn’t forget his name after she’d seen him quiet and solemn at a child’s funeral for a boy he barely knew. She couldn’t have avoided knowing who he was in a town as small, nosey, or self-involved as the one they found themselves in.

“It’s… hard not to?” she offered with an apologetic shrug. She felt so invasive in that moment, she knew what it felt like to be invaded upon like that. Grace wanted to say something to relay that message, to apologize for the town’s self-given right to his privacy, to his pain, to say she hadn’t actively taken any part in it but she was still sorry it was happening. Instead she said, “It’s kind of like somebody dead came home, or somebody famous.” She looked like she regret it the moment it came out of her mouth, and she looked—or rather winced—away from him before mumbling. “Anyway, I’m Grace… um… Mathis?” She prayed the last name wouldn’t jog memories of the only thing the town could associate the last name with; pity.

“I’ve gotta, um…” She pointed to the bags in front of her, avoiding eye contact. “The fridge…” She collected the bags in her arms, more than happy for a reprieve from the conversation. Her anxiety had her wound extremely tight, feeling more vulnerable and more stupid with every word she uttered.  The cold air in the walk in refrigerator was a welcomed reprieve for her. She spent perhaps a minute or too longer inside than she needed too, trying to pull it together, to breathe deep, not to cry, before she emerged again.

He heard her concern and noted the tremble in her voice; she was right. The moment he sees her off to her apartment, the hooded man would then know where she resided. The possibility of the hooded man breaking and entering her home to harm her loomed in his mind and vivid scenes began to flash of the man doing unspeakable things to the woman; Ethan hated how imaginative he was. But his creative mind was all he had now a days. It was a blessing and a curse.

It couldn’t be a coincidence. The woman claimed the hooded man had been following her, and when the two had exchanged their unfortunate first meeting, the man stood away from them but kept his eye on the woman. Ethan saw this and immediately became protective; it was in his nature.  

When she spoke about her brother and her memories of Ethan, the man tried his best to rack his brain for a sense of familiarity as his eyes scanned her face. There was none. He wished there was a way he could remember her, or her brother but all he could get was blackness and a hint of football and baseball.

The woman’s rambling seemed to catch Ethan off guard. Even with his mind as twisted as it was, the man couldn’t fathom living in hers; what a world it must have been. But still he tried his best to listen, connecting the dots and mentally filling in what she was trying to say with each head nod. “Don’t trouble yourself with that,” he spoke sternly. “You didn’t pull me into anything; I was the one that ran into you. Besides, even if we hadn’t collided, if I noticed him following you like this I would have intervened regardless.” And that was the truth. Ethan was told he was in the Marines before his capture. He didn’t remember much of it, but he still clung onto the ‘serve and protect’ aspect of the Army in him.

“Just know that we will get out of this situated,” he promised, taking a quick glance behind him. Ethan intersected himself in his statement because he was now invested. He was now part of her story; part of her path. For the night being, anyway.

The hooded man still followed behind them, however, he no longer walked with a purpose. Previously the man’s shoulders were back his head slightly low with just enough to give him sight of both the woman in front of him and the ground below him with his peripherals spotting anything out of place. Now, the hooded man walked with a slump with his hands in his pockets and his head a little lower. This pleased Ethan as he was sure the man no longer wished to follow behind them and would halter the nightly shenanigans.

It took until three more blocks before the man ventured off a different road.  When Ethan noticed this, the breath of air he was holding was finally let out. He wasn’t sure what he was going to do, exactly, if the unidentified man would have approached them. His instinct would have been to retaliate; throw up his fists, puff his chest out and roar if he had to. But the crisis was averted and he was satisfied with the knowledge that she would be able to sleep better that night.

“He’s gone,” Ethan informed her, slowing his pace a bit so her legs could have a rest.

Grace’s half coherent babbling halted the moment that Ethan spoke to her in a firm tone of voice. She was silenced immediately, but she didn’t look upset by the fact that he had spoken to her so directly. If anything, his steady tone of voice and conviction as he told her that he would have intervened regardless of her plight for help grounded her again. 

The woman’s eye wasn’t quite as trained as Ethan’s. She wasn’t able to read the intentionality in the man’s posture or purposefulness in how he walked. All she noted was proximity, and in her mind that proximity translated to danger, even with Ethan around. She was diligent about keeping close to Ethan until the second the hooded figure ceased to follow them. When Ethan sounded confident that the two were no longer being trailed, Grace lifted her eyes from the concrete before them. She had been practicing breathing exercises, a coping mechanism she’d been taught long before to try and help ward off panic attacks. She peered over her shoulder to find that the two were in fact alone again.

Grace could feel her heart rate slowing again almost immediately. She didn’t realize how fiercely it had been pounding in her chest until she slowed her pace and felt the alarm and anxiety of being followed subside. And she was nearly home. 

The woman considered taking the bags from Ethan at that moment and insisting she would be able to make it home on her own just fine now, but her anxiety warned her from the back of her mind that just because she couldn’t see the unnamed person didn’t necessarily mean they weren’t following. Not to mention, her body felt exhausted from the output of fright, she felt like she was dragging herself home now, and the added weight of the bags Ethan had taken for her would have been too much.

Even by the time the two had gotten to the door of the cafe, nestled in an older building on which the only place ivy didn’t vine up the walls was where there were windows, Grace hadn’t recovered an entirely calm state of mind. Her hands were shaking still as she tried to unlock the door, and after three missed attempts at inserting the key she relinquished the job to Ethan. Inside, she nodded toward where Ethan ought to leave the bags on the cashier’s counter next to the display case of cakes and pastries.

In the few weeks he’d roam aimlessly around the small town, Ethan had never once seen something out of place or suspicious. In a large city one would expect it; muggings, auto thefts, burglaries – they were common, but in the small town he resided in of just over a thousand residents, crimes were rare. It was the reason behind the town having one full-time sheriff and one part-time sheriff for when the other goes on vacation. Both local authoritative figures grew up in the small town and knew everyone as if they were family. And though Ethan couldn’t remember much about the little town and the people in it, the smell of the wet asphalt gave him some kind of familiarity but the man looming by the shops in a dark hoodie – hood up – gave him a feeling he surely was familiar with; dread.

He didn’t like the feeling and it brought a drop in the pit of his stomach that seemed to put a lump in his throat. What bothered him even more was the woman brushing it off as if he wasn’t already aware of the situation. He might have been mentally unstable, but Ethan knew the tell-tale signs of fear and anxiety; he was no stranger to anxiety. The shake in her voice, the light perspiration just under her hairline and the tremble of her hands gave everything he needed to know she was frightened by the situation; and why should she be?

Almost immediately Ethan offered his help, grabbing onto some of the bags held tightly on her arms. “How far is it to your place?” the man questioned as he beckoned for her to follow him in the direction she was walking. “I’ll help you to make sure he doesn’t try anything,” he explained. Waiting for her to begin walking. He knew what it looked like; one man following her while the other is beckoning for her to basically show him where she lived. Why should she trust him in the first place?

“I promise I’m not like that asshole still standing over there; the asshole that really needs to move along.” The last portion of his sentence, he had raised his voice in hopes the unidentified man would hear and walk off. Though Ethan could tell the man had clearly heard his voice, the hooded man stayed where he was.

Grace was still half bent over from fishing all the heavy plastic bags off the ground, internally scolding herself for being foolish enough to think walking was a good idea simply because she had enough time to complete the chore before the marker closed on foot, when she felt a slight tug at her arms. Perhaps a little too quickly due to her heightened state of anxiety she looked back toward Ethan. It took her a moment to realize he was trying to help her by taking some of the bags off her hands—that or he was interested in robbing her of a few cartons of heavy cream and sacks of sugar. Grace lifted her one of her elbows slightly and straightened her hand so the man would have an easier time taking his share of the bags from her. Her gaze seemed to be one of questioning—and it was; despite what she’d heard about his capacity to remember things, she found herself wondering how word had not gotten to him that she was the second craziest person in town.

As soon as Ethan began to walk away, the startled woman began to walk at a quick clip to stay at his side. Grace was a proverbial rubber neck as she peered over her shoulder in an attempt to keep tabs on the stranger’s respective location at all times. “You know the coffee house on Beecher street?” she asked quietly. Grace didn’t want to risk the third party hearing anything she was saying. “There’s an apartment in the second story above the shop.”  Grace pulled her gaze from the hooded figure behind them and turned her brown eyes up toward Ethan again. “I need to drop all this off for the kitchen tomorrow, but I live upstairs and if he follows there,” Grace whispered, pausing for a second. “He’s going to notice I don’t leave, and know I’m there.” Her state of alarm kept her from thinking straight, from coming to the obvious conclusion that the police could be called if there was still cause for caution when they arrived back at Cool Beans.

Grace also missed the not-so-subtle subtlety Ethan shot back at the hooded man, and clung to the first part of his statement instead. She felt her heart give a little kick start when it became apparent he clearly didn’t remember her. They had never been on a first name basis, but she had recalled his name and face clear as a bell over the last fifteen or so years even if he had never known hers. Even so, she felt a sudden urgency to assure him she did indeed know he didn’t pose any sort of threat. “I know that,” she said in a hushed, quick voice. “We grew up together—well, not together exactly. You were a few years ahead of me—but we were in high school at the same time—for a year… maybe two-no. One, one year, you graduated when I was a freshman so you probably didn’t—I mean, you wouldn’t have, uh… I mean… I knew who you were, but I don’t think you really knew who I was… Because, um, well, I didn’t… I never actually met you directly but—sports, you played a lot of sports and my…” The jumble of speech stopped for a second before she said the word, her heart catching in a throat. How long had it been since she was it? Brother. Was brother the right word? Were you still a sibling if your only sibling died? “We never, um, we just never met each other directly really.”  Her voice was quieter, slower after the pause.

Somewhere in the calm of the night was where peace had been found. Residents of the little town slept soundly in their beds, creating a desolate illusion of an abandoned atmosphere. This was exactly how Ethan liked it and it was what he yearned for.

The loud voices from the sidewalk would carry into the living room where Ethan would reside, his ass planted on the red loveseat as his distant eyes watched the news playing on the flat screen television screen. His therapist had recommended he get reacquainted with what he used to practice before being shipped overseas to defend a country going to hell. According to his sister, the only family member willing to take him in, he would watch television in the morning before his morning run.

That day Ethan had managed to clock in a few hours of television time before he napped on the couch, a ritual he seemed to have had. Though he had his own queen sized bed in the guest room, the man preferred  the couch, eventually moving to the floor. Two years sleeping on nothing but ground and rocks, sleeping on anything softer than concrete was going to take some getting used to. He was thankful for the pillow-top mattress and soft pillow to rest his head on and even the Egyptian cotton comforter his sister provided, but the feeling of the hard ground comforted him more than being engulfed in what felt like a cloud.

It was no secret to his sister of his nightly escapades; she had surveillance surrounding her home as she was a bit paranoid about someone taking her red ‘67 Impala. Every so often she would watch the video feed and witness her brother leave the home with his jeans and hoodie; returning a few hours later. It did worry the woman of his whereabouts and the possible outcomes of his treks, but she trusted his healing process and only questioned it when he would be gone for more than three hours.

This night Ethan had started his nightly walks around the town a little earlier than normal. On a normal night the man would begin his walk around town closer to midnight and return anywhere from two to three in the morning. This night the television stations all played re-runs and obnoxious commercials; he needed a break from the screen.

Ten thirty came around and Ethan had been roaming for almost an hour with his hands in his jean pockets and head hung low. The smell in the air and the feel of the cool breeze caressing his reddening cheeks told him it would rain soon. Just before Ethan moved to peek at the trees, investigating if the leaves were overturned, he felt something soft hit his chest. Looking down, Ethan realized he had completely drowned out the sounds around him, walked into traffic without looking and ran right into someone.

Her groceries littered the sidewalk as the woman fell onto the ground. His mind had been preoccupied with a million and one other entities crawling away in it, but he had enough time to notice a hooded man slowly walking himself away from the two. If that wasn’t suspicious enough, the woman’s pleas for help only caused Ethan’s adrenaline to pump, not from excitement but from anger. How dare a man try to take advantage of a defenseless and innocent human being.

Kneeling down next to her, Ethan began helping her with her groceries, putting them back into the bags. “Has he been following you long?” Ethan asked quietly, keeping his eyes on the man.

Grace’s attention shifted back to Ethan as she saw his figure shift from her peripheral vision. He was kneeling beside her, helping her collect the scattered contents of the bag. The woman tried with all her might to will her heart rate to slow down and her mind to clear. Everything felt so jumbled, like her stream of thought was like the sight and sound of static on a too-loud TV. It made it difficult to breathe, to know where to look, what to say… And he seemed to misunderstand the request for help.

The heightened state of anxiety Grace was experiencing—though nothing novel to the woman—caused it to take her a moment to process the question the man directly next to her had asked. It felt like the question was travelling through some sort of barrier, like water, fuzzy and warped before she was able to understand. Grace pulled herself into a more upright position on the sidewalk and brushed the back of her hand against her other cheek. She tried to swallow her fright, but the response still came out in the thick, low tone that marked the razor thin line crossed before one really began to shed tears.

“I’m not sure,” she managed to admit. Grace tried her best to take a deep breath, but her effort resulted in something much more akin to a shudder. She managed to free her wrist from the last bag. “At least since I left Farmer’s Market,” she answered as she reached for a can that had rolled a few feet from her on the sidewalk and clocked where her unwelcomed shadow had pretended to wander off to over her shoulder. If she wasn’t so preoccupied with fussing over an unknown man having trailed her forcing her to put her trust into the town golden boy turned town loon, a particularly judgmental label on her part, Grace might have been nauseated by the fact that the owner of the town’s market carried the last name Farmer—almost too quaint a name to be a coincidece. “I don’t think he was following me before and I don’t remember seeing him in the store…” As if she had to make excuses for the sake of a stranger who had followed her halfway across town.

Once the groceries were collected and socked away into their respective sacks, Grace pushed up off the ground to regain her footing. She cringed slightly as she did so. Her eyes shifted to the side of her hand as she lifted it to inspect once she was back on her feet. Her palms and the sides of her hands were scraped from her attempt to catch herself as she fell and having been weighed down by the groceries during her fall. She attempted to be dismissive about this and brushed her hands against the front of her jacket before she bent low to collect the bags again. If there were any time to make a break for home it was now. Grace hoped her unlikely friend was distracted or scared off by Ethan’s unexpected presence, and if she was able to make it home before that scare wore off she’d be fine.