Dog Days

Chapter 37

As I sit in the tub, something comes to mind and I tell Hela "At some point in the next couple of weeks, I'm going to get my honorable discharge paperwork."

She sighs "What?"

I take a deep breath, before explaining "Just the official report of the incident, my severance letter, and also my first disability check."

She immediately asks "Disability check?"

I sigh as I state "Yeah, it's probably going to be a grand or two a month."

She scoffs to herself, before remarking "Thank you for your service, marine! Here's a grand a month for serving for eight years and getting blown up! Hope you have a great life, even if you might never function properly, ever again!"

I sigh, before telling her "I don't care about the money, Hela." I stare down at the water and declare "The money is nice, but I don't care."

She takes a long moment, before stating "I'm just saying, you could have died. What would this government do? Absolutely nothing."

I take in a deep breath, before taking a deep drag and reminding "I didn't enlist because of the government."

She scoffs "Yeah, I would have talked you out of it if you did. Fuck the government."

I take a long drag and look at her for the first time since I started talking to her "Are you kidding?"

She gives me a confused look and I scoff at her as the anger bubbles in my chest "Are you really no more than a pot smoking hippie? Are you really content with saying fuck the man and getting stoned as balls in the woods?"

She gives me a concerned look as I remind "I enlisted to save this community! I poured every last ounce of myself into staying alive, and I did it to insure that this place kept going!"

I shake my head at her as I feel everything bubbling up. I hiss "I don't care about the money! I don't care about this commune! I don't care about your anti political views! I don't care about any of it!"

She sits there for a moment, before asking "What do you care about then?" I set my jaw at her and she motions her hand out to me as she states "You come home, and you get drunk! You're obviously in pain, but you're too stubborn to admit that you need help! You bite the hand that feeds you, and you don't want to even look at me!"

I furrow my brow and rebuttal "I can't stand to look at you, because you remind me of the only thing I care about!" I narrow my gaze as I raise the joint to my lips "And now I see what a piss poor excuse for a human you are."

She sets her jaw and states "Thor, I know you're hurting, but that still doesn't give you the right to try to hurt me."

She stands up and takes the joint from me to take a puff. She hands it back and takes a seat on the floor, facing the tub "I'm happy being a pot smoking hippie. We all are, and we live in peace and harmony."

She smiles at me as she states "You used to be happy being a pot smoking hippie right next to me."

I sit there for a long moment, trying to feel anything other than anger. She sits there for a moment, before she asks "When are you going to allow yourself to let go of your anger?"

I sit there for a minute as I allow myself to remember our childhood. How her anger would get the better of her with the simplest of situations. She would go into rages with absolutely no reason.

Before she started smoking weed, she would just lose her mind, and beat on anyone in her sight until she ran out of energy.

And I would sit with her when I could tell she was about to lose it. Sometimes, I would hold her down until she ran out of energy, and I would ask her when would she would finally calm herself down.