My dad had brought me outside. Called me through the screen door with a cigarette between his lips. I came running down the stairs and went outside, unsure of why he called me. We walked to the back of the house, a trail of smoke following him.

We sat down, two seats placed overlooking the lawn.

"Shelly," he said. His hand running over his beard. "We...should talk."

I help my breath, just looking at him. My mind began to race. Who died? Whose sick? Where's CJ? What happened?

"With children there comes a day where they wake up, look at themselves in the mirror, and decide whether or not they like themselves," he flicked his cigarette, the ashes catching the wind and floating over our gate. "And parents have to prepare their children for that day. Because they never know when it's going to happen. In your eyes, I see...I know that your mother didn't prepare you for that day."

I could feel my palms getting sweaty. I did not want this talk right now.

"Shelly, I love you. And you're not a bad person," he licked his lips and looked me in the eye. "You're hurting. And you don't like who you are, but you're ok. There's nothing wrong with you. You're ok," he placed his hand on my shoulder.

He empathized. He understood. He cared.

He saw me when no one else did. When my mother ignored my fleeting worries whispered to her before I went to sleep. When my brother and sister didn't want to hang out with me because I was too "different."

I hated myself. I hate myself. But he loved me. And he told me so.

"What you do now, this isn't going to change how you feel about yourself," he said. "The Air Force can't fix this."

This I know, but I need some structure. Need something to keep my mind off of this. Off of how I feel. I know this isn't going to change anything. I know that fixing myself has to start inside of me, but so far, through everything, it hasn't worked.

"Bart," my dad said, "He sees you're hurting. You need to make a choice. Stay with him and hurt or let him go and fix yourself. You can't fully love him until you really truly love yourself."

And I nodded. He told me to think about it. So I went inside and cried. Cried two days straight. Let it out. And in the end I felt a bit better.

But I knew what I had to do. So the next day, I made up some bullshit excuse. Told Bart I needed to breathe. To get my head straight. I couldn't bring myself to tell him that deep down I felt like shit, because after I was better, would he want me? And I slowly rebuilt my wall around my heart. To protect myself as we both lashed out baring our fangs. We aimed to hurt. And hurt each other we did.

In the end we were both beaten and tired. He couldn't do it anymore, and so he protected his own heart. And in noticing this, a part of me shattered. I regretted my decision and reached out to him, only to have him lash out at me. As I had done to him so many times before. I missed him. I needed him.

I still do.

But I still look in the mirror, and the woman staring back at me is just as shattered as she was when this all began. Where do I begin to fix this? Can I? He tells me yes. But I doubt it. And that is something I need to understand.

That, I cannot change. But I need to take the time to fix me.