Some damages can't be undone... MARK Charlie thinks she's in love with me. She can't be. She deserves someone better, someone as amazing and incredible as she is. Someone who isn't a useless cripple, half a man. I thought my surgery would make me whole, but I was wrong. Now I'm worse than half a man. I'm a freak. Charlie deserves the best, and though I'd give anything for that to be me, it isn't. Now I know it never will be. So because I love her, I'm making the ultimate sacrifice. I'm walking away, so she can find someone as perfect as she is. CHARLIE Mark promised he'd always be there for me. He swore nothing could ever make him leave, nothing. Yet here I am, all alone, with an unrelenting pain that nothing can numb, because he walked away and crushed my heart....

Some damages can't be hidden... CHARLIE PTSD is a bitch. I lived through sadistic horrors no one should be forced to endure. After my medical discharge from the military four years ago, I thought my physical scars were the worst souvenir I'd have. I was wrong. Now, I teeter on an emotional razor's edge. I'm terrified of men. I can't handle darkness. I battle night terrors, flashbacks, and panic attacks, and I'm always armed to the teeth. Those bastards didn't just rape me. They destroyed me. MARK Career-ending, life-changing injuries are a bitch. An IED on a routine mission in Afghanistan left me fighting to survive. A lot of days, I wish I hadn't. I lost everything – my career, my home, my brothers-in-arms, my purpose. And of course, my...