by Jay McLean
* * *
I’d been to a military cemetery before. Once. With my dad. I was seven. I had no idea what it meant or what I was doing there. At that age, there were only two things on my mind. Why did Dad make me dress like him and why was every plot exactly the same?
Now, I’m older, a little wiser, but the relevance of those thoughts are still the same.
I follow the guard’s instructions until I find the fresh dirt sitting six feet above Davey’s dead body. My steps are slow as I approach, glass jar in my hand containing words I hope hurt him as much as he hurt me. After placing it in front of the white cross, I sit with him, in silence, because really? What else is there left to say?
* * *
Dave rarely spoke about his home life on a personal level. He talked about his brothers, the kind of kids they were and what they were into, and he spoke a lot about his mom. But never his actual home or the area he grew up in.
I don’t think anyone ever wants to admit they’re ashamed of their upbringing, so they kind of just choose to ignore the facts instead.
I did it a lot with Heidi and it sucked. Not because I was ashamed of my dad or brother or the way he raised us but given the way Heidi lived in comparison, I was definitely on the low end of the economic scale. I guess when you’re fifteen, you look at the world differently. She had a nice white mansion with both caring parents who’d spend money on her in a drop of a hat. I’m sure, if asked, my dad would’ve too, but we were raised to believe that material things weren’t important and what we looked like on the outside didn’t determine who we were on the inside. I’m not saying that Heidi’s like that, I’m just saying that the younger version of me was afraid I wouldn’t be enough for her, and that maybe the older version of me continued to believe that.
Maybe that’s where we went wrong.
The houses that line the roads leading to Dave’s become smaller and more congested, from single story homes to apartments to larger complexes created for public housing.
I drive around the block a few times, confused by the numbers until I finally find his complex. I park the rental on the side of the road and make sure I’ve locked the car. There are way too many buildings, too many numbers, and I find myself standing in the middle with absolutely no direction.
“Need help?” a female voice sounds from behind me.
I turn swiftly, trying to hide my reaction to the girl standing in front of me. She can’t be more than fifteen, wearing a crop top, no bra, cigarette in her mouth and the kind of devilish grin I’d seen from the classy females in the veteran’s bar.
I tell her the house number I’m looking for. She points to a building behind me. “Third floor,” she says with a thick Pittsburgh accent.
After thanking her politely, I make my way to the O’Brien’s door, remove my hat, and I knock.
My heart drops the minute Dave’s mom answers. The cuts and bruises that cover her face are faded, but they’re still there. And even if I hadn’t seen pictures of her from Dave, there’s no mistaking who she is. Same red hair. Same freckles. Same damn smile. “Dylan Banks?” she asks, her hand going to her mouth.
“Yes, Ma’am.”
“He told me if anything would happen, you’d be the first to check in on me,” she cries, opening the door wider for me.
I don’t step in. Not yet. Instead, I find myself reaching out to her, my arms going around her thin, frail body and I hug her. I continue to hug her as her cries get louder and my heart becomes weaker. After a while, she pulls back, grasping my arms as she looks up at me. “You were his best friend, Dylan.” She cups my face with both hands. “How are you handling it?”
I stare, unblinking, wondering how it is a woman who’s just lost her pride and her eldest son in the worst possible way can possibly be thinking of anyone or anything but the hurt and the pain, because that’s all I’ve felt.
The boys are at school, which is good because it gives us time to sit and talk.
They hadn’t always lived like this, she tells me. They had to move somewhere they could afford once Dave’s dad went to jail. Dave gave the majority of his income to his mother while he was serving and never once asked for anything in return. It wasn’t much, but she made it work. With three boys in school, it was hard to keep up with all the bills. A single bedroom public housing home was all they could afford. The boys share the room. She sleeps on a mattress in the hallway, and Dave took the couch whenever he was home.
It’s strange, the way she spoke about it. There was pride in her voice, in her demeanor—the way her shoulders sat straight and her chin lifted as she told me about things I would consider hardships—only she didn’t consider them that. She considered them battles, ones that she came out of alive and fighting, waiting for the next hurdle to cross.
She’s an amazing woman, strong and defiant and not once did she use the term “suicide” or the fact that Dave took a bullet to his own fucking head. The closest she came to it was “he lost his battle” and maybe that’s what it was. Maybe that’s how she chooses to honor him.
He lost the damn battle.
Now I just need to stop reliving the sight and sound of it and maybe I can overcome it too. Because as we sit on the well-used couch of the tiny living room, pictures of Dave staring back at me, all I can see is the fear in his eyes, his finger as it pulls the trigger, and then the blood as it erupts from the side of his fucking head.
* * *
I once told Riley that war was like being unable to wake up from a nightmare. Your body fights it, so does your mind, until something happens that forces you to wake up.
War is what you wake up to.
And it’s also the cause of the nightmares.
And so it goes.
On and on.
And on.
An endless cycle of nightmares.
I don’t sleep.
Because just like the times when I first came home, the nightmares are real and they’re raw and they cause me to plead with my body to keep my eyes open because a single moment of darkness creates the hell in my mind.
* * *
Dave,
I think I hate you.
Do you even know what you did?
You left your mom and your brothers behind.
You left me behind.
And I hate you because you haven’t really left me. It’s like everything I do now, I think about you and how you would react to it. What would you say to me?
I know you hate me.
I can tell from all the guilt I carry.
Not from the guilt of not knowing you were suffering, because I’ve come to terms with the fact that you were just really fucking good at faking it. I don’t know why you faked it. You should’ve known I’d be there. Sometimes I think there were signs, you know? And in my mind I go through all the conversations we’d had and all the things we’d done and I come up blank.
It’s the guilt from the way I treat Riley.
Because I see you.
I hear you.
You make me hurt her.
You and your inability to leave me the fuck alone.
Yeah.
I don’t think.
I’m positive.
I fucking hate you.
Forty-Four
Riley
I asked him on the Monday if I should book the hotel for the following weekend or if he had one in mind. He told me he’d get back to me with the details. Four days later he finally replied with an address. I reminded him that I’d taken Fridays off for a while so I’ll be at the hotel as soon I could check in. I told him that I missed him. And that I loved him. Because I felt it important for him to know… just in case he’d forgotten.
Now, it’s close to midnight on the Friday and I’m sitting alone in the hotel room he told me to go to. He should’ve finished at the car pool on base at five, according to his dad, and would have been able to leave soon after. The base is a twenty-minute drive away. At the most.
I look down at my feet kicki
ng back and forth on the edge of the bed, my hands clasped on my lap and my heart in my stomach. I listen to the sounds of my quiet cries echo off the walls of the tiny room and I go through the hundred questions rattling in my head. The same ones which have been there every minute, every hour, slowly stealing every ounce of sense and strength he’d once given me.
Riley: I love you. I miss you. I’m here. I hope you’re okay, baby.
I spend the next morning doing exactly the same thing I did the night before. Sitting on the bed, missing the boy I love. Multiple voices from outside my room have my ears perking and my mind racing. My phone beeps with a text and I rush toward it, my hands shaking as I read it.
Dylan: Room?
Riley: 208.
I open the door and pop my head out, moving side to side. The voices get louder. And then I see him walking toward me, his hand around the straps of an overnight bag with Leroy and Conway behind him. I step out completely, leaning against the door to keep it open. I swear, for a second, I see him smile. But then he murmurs a “hey” as he walks past me and into the room and I know I imagine it. I had to have.
Conway and Leroy nod, say my name in greeting, and continue their walk down the hallway. I take a breath, my gaze on my feet and I try to prepare myself for the unknown. As slow as possible, I step back in the room and close the door behind me. Dylan’s in bed, his back turned. “Hi,” I say, my lips trembling.
He rolls onto his back, his eyes on the ceiling.
I stand on the other side of the bed, one foot on top of the other, forcing myself to stay, and not run away like I really want to. Four and half hours and I can be home. Home. I don’t even know what home is anymore. I thought it was him. I thought I was his. But now…
“Ry,” he says, his voice low. He places his hand out toward me as he closes his eyes. “Thank you.”
I stand. Still. Not knowing what to do.
“Please, Ry,” he begs, his hand raised and his sad, tired eyes on mine. “I’m so tired,” he mumbles. “Just let me hold you.”
I take his hand, my knees on the bed as he sits up, his arms going around my waist. He kisses my neck. “I missed you, baby,” and just like that—those simple words—my defenses drop, my fear fades, and I give myself over to him.
Because I love him.
And I miss him.
Even when he’s right in front of me.
For hours I lay with him while he sleeps peacefully next to me, until someone bangs on the door, and he sits up quickly, reaching first to his ankle then to the nightstand.
“Banks!” Bang bang bang.
Dylan sucks in a breath, his feet thumping on the floor as he sits on the edge of the bed. His hands go to his head, pressing tight against his ears. With my heart racing, I come up behind him and place my hand gently on his shoulders. He flinches, moving away from me.
“Banks!” Bang bang bang.
“Fuck off!” Dylan yells.
“Ten minutes. Let’s go,” Conway shouts on the other side of the door.
Dylan stands quickly, moving to the bathroom. Over his shoulder, he says, “Get ready.”
“Okay.” I shuffle out of bed and follow him to the bathroom where he’s splashing water on his face. I stand next to him, reaching for my hair brush. When he’s done, he wipes his face on a towel, then just stands in front of the mirror, his hand gripping the sink, his head dipped, causing the muscles in his shoulder to flex against his shirt.
“Sorry,” he says, his gaze shifting to me. His body seems to relax as he turns slightly, his hand going to the small of my back. “Thanks for lying with me just now.”
I smile. I can’t help it. “It’s okay.”
After taking my hair out from its knot, I start to brush it. Through the mirror, I see him smile. Real. For the first time in so long.
He moves behind me, his hands going to my waist as his lips press against my neck. “You smell so good,” he says.
“Your friends said we had ten minutes.”
He groans, his forehead on my shoulder and he wraps his arms around me.
“What’s in ten minutes, babe?”
Sighing, he releases me and moves back to the room to slip on his shoes. “We’re meeting the guys in the unit.”
“Oh yeah?” I ask, tying my hair back up and applying some lip gloss.
“Yep. We’re all saying goodbye to Dave.”
I step out of the bathroom and go through my bag for something to change into. “Is he going home? His contract’s not up yet, is it?”
For a while, he doesn’t speak. When I look over at him, he’s looking right at me, as if he’d been waiting for me to make eye contact.
“Dylan?”
“Ry. Davey killed himself.”
I freeze mid-movement, my breath caught in my chest.
Dylan grabs his phone and wallet from the nightstand, kissing my forehead as he walks past. “I’ll meet you by the pool.”
He exits the room, leaving me standing there, my feet glued to the floor and my heart right next to it.
My vision clears—not of sight—but of mind. And everything makes sense. Everything.
How did I not see it?
Me? Of all people.
How could I not see grief standing right in front of me?
The anger and the hurt and the continuous emotional back and forth.
I’ve experienced it all… the constant spiral of heartbreak and despair and guilt and bargaining and hurt—the fucking hurt that leads you to the unexplainable. The never-ending thoughts tormenting your mind, bringing you to your knees and kicking you while you’re down.
I should’ve known.
* * *
I sit on Dylan’s lap as he sits with the guys from his unit and a couple of their girls drinking beers around the hotel pool. They tell stories about Dave, relive memories he’d created and celebrate the life of the fallen.
The others talk.
Dylan doesn’t.
He simply sips on his beer, his jaw tense as he listens to their stories. His knee begins to bounce, his breaths becoming harsher with each minute that passes.
Then he taps my leg, hinting for me to move. And even though I can already feel the anger emitting from him, feel the rage from his shaking body beneath me, I get up quickly and stand by his chair. “This is fucking bullshit,” he mumbles, throwing his beer behind him and walking away.
“What was that?” Leroy asks.
Dylan’s fists ball at his sides, the anger raging in his eyes again. I count the number of empty bottles by his chair. He’s only had three. “You heard me, Leroy. Don’t fucking talk about him like you knew him. You didn’t fucking know him.” He eyes everyone before adding, “None of you did. You didn’t give him the time of day when he was breathing, don’t act like you give a shit now when he’s dead.”
“Banks, he was in our unit! We spent every fucking day with the kid,” Leroy says, his eyes narrowed in disgust. “You think we’d all fucking be here if we didn’t give a shit?!”
Two steps.
That’s all it takes for Dylan to get to Leroy, fisting his collar and pushing him up against the chain-link fence behind him. “How old was he?” Dylan snaps, his forehead pressed against Leroy’s.
Leroy grabs Dylan’s wrists, trying to push him away. Dylan doesn’t budge. “What?”
“How fucking old was he? What were his brothers’ names?” Dylan yells, spit flying from his mouth. “Answer me!”
“Fuck you!” Leroy shouts.
The other guys are on their feet now. But it’s like they’re waiting for a reason to break it up, as if what’s happening isn’t reason enough. My heart’s pounding in my ears now, tears streaking down my cheek caused by fear. Sob after sob, after fucking sob escaping me. No one sees me. No one hears me.
“Dylan!” I shout, moving toward them.
“You didn’t fucking know him!” Dylan yells.
Leroy’s eyes narrow more, his anger matching Dylan’s as he tries again, in vain
, to get out of Dylan’s grasp. “And you’re such a fucking hero, Banks, you couldn’t—”
I’ve never heard what a punch to someone’s jaw sounds like. I never want to again. But I do. Again and again, all while the guys shout, trying to get between them. I scream. Conway yells. We all try to calm him down but the rage inside Dylan is too strong, too loud. He doesn’t hear. Or maybe he chooses not to.
I step forward, holding my breath to stop the cries. My vision blurred, I grab his arm right before he goes for the fourth punch. His strength is unmatched when he pushes me back, his palm finding my chest as his eyes stay on Leroy. “Fuck off!” he shouts, and I stumble on my feet, my hands in front of me, reaching for something. Anything. Conway shouts my name. Dylan turns, his mouth open, his eyes on mine. Right before I fall.
My back hits the water, my lungs instantly filling with it. So do my ears. My nose.
I shut my eyes and close my mouth, then I hold my breath, listening to the water whirl around me. It feels like an eternity before my feet find the tiled floor, and for a moment, I want to stay down here. Because being underwater—the source of my nightmares—seems safer than being up there… where my reality is my nightmare. Then I remember Dylan, I remember his eyes. The rage first, then the shock. I find the courage to push off my feet and I gasp for air the moment I feel it hit my face, my head spinning. I blink back the water as I search for Dylan. He’s standing by the edge, his arms held back by three men. “Riley,” Conway says, and I tear my gaze away from Dylan to see Conway squatting by the edge of the pool, his hand out for me. I swim toward him, gripping his hand when I reach him. He helps me out of the pool, his hands instantly on me. One on my shoulder, the other on my cheek as he forces me to look at him. “You okay?” he asks, his dark eyes penetrating mine.
I try to calm my breaths, try to soothe the ache in my chest. I glance at Dylan, looking for some form of remorse. There is none. The rage is back. “Get your fucking hands off her!” he yells, trying to get loose.
“Stop!” I shout at him, my hand up between us. “Just stop.” I look at Conway. “I’m fine.”
