by Jay McLean
I find the strength to reach for her, but she moves away.
“My mom once told me that the hardest part of her day was the few seconds her hand would cover my doorknob and…” She pauses, wiping tears with the back of her hand. “…she was so afraid I wouldn’t be able to find the strength to get through the day and I’d do something I couldn’t take back.”
“Ry, I’m not…”
“It must be hard—as a parent—to know that your child might have those thoughts and those insecurities.”
“I don’t.”
“Reach out to your dad, Dylan. Take away the worry, okay?”
I watch her spin on her heels, her steps rushed as she walks through the door. I listen to those same steps move across the hallway, and finally, the front door open and close, shutting me out of her life and out of her world.
Riley
Dylan,
I realized something today as I let the memories of the forever you’d created for us rip my heart in two.
I was wrong.
There’s no emotion greater than love.
No ache greater than longing.
No sound greater than you.
Fifty-One
Dylan
An entire week passes before I work up the courage to take her advice. I shower, dress, and do my best to look presentable. I call a cab to drive me the few minutes it takes to get to Dad’s house.
It’s hard to make eye contact with the people you hurt, especially when they love you as much as my family loves me. There was never a doubt in the loyalty and honor of the Banks men. Not until I went and changed all of that.
I disappointed them.
I disappointed myself.
I look up at my brother again, a man who’s always been there for me, and then over at my dad as we sit around the kitchen table, my leg propped up on the seat Riley used to occupy.
From the corner of my eye, I see Sydney’s arm move, her hand most likely going to Eric’s leg under the table, showing her support.
I hurt her too.
I hurt everybody. Riley especially—but no amount of apologizing will ever make up for what I did to her.
Eric blows out a breath.
I switch my gaze back to him. After a thousand different words run through my mind—reasons, excuses, all of them useless, I decide on the truth. “Fuck man. I’m so fucking sorry.”
“Quit cursing at the table,” Dad says quietly.
Eric shrugs, not giving anything away. Then he leans forward, his forearms on the table. “Remember that time when you were in second grade and you fell off your bike and broke your arm?”
“Yeah…”
“Two days earlier I heard you tell Dad that you’d seen me smoking out in the yard when he was at work and I was supposed to be taking care of you. So, I saw you out on the sidewalk riding my old bike, happy as a pig in shit and I picked up a stick and threw that fucker right at your wheel. I told Dad you must’ve hit a rock. I convinced you of the same. So I guess this is payback.”
Dad stands quickly. “We’re family, son. End of discussion.”
I’d created the chaos that brought me here and as easy as that, they offered me the calm to face reality again.
* * *
Jake’s car is parked out front when Sydney drops me back at the house. He’s standing at my door, back turned, hand raised as he knocks.
“What’s up?” I ask, getting out of the car and hobbling up to him.
He lifts the giant plate of food in his hand. “My mom wanted me to drop this off.” Then he sighs. “And I guess I just miss my friend. I’ve tried to give you time, like you said. But I don’t know. I guess the worry won out and now I’m here, offering you food I bought at the diner to make it look like my mom made it just so I had an excuse to see you.”
Without a word, I walk past him and open the front door, leaving it open as an invitation.
He stores the food in the fridge, along with the many others and sits in the living room with me.
“Lucy gave Cameron a black eye,” he says, and I make a sound similar to a laugh but I can’t be sure because it’s been that fucking long.
“How?”
“Story goes she read a book—”
“It’s always a fucking book.”
“Right? So she read a book and told Cameron he needed to be more assertive and dominating. He said he wouldn’t do it. She kept asking him to. And one night they were screwing and he told her, and I quote, ‘to take it like the filthy whore she is’. So yeah. Black eye.”
I make that weird sound again, only this time, my shoulders shake with it. “They’re fucking crazy.”
“Yep,” he says, and I glance over at him sitting on the couch opposite me, gazing up at the ceiling.
For a moment, I see the fifteen-year-old kid I met, the one who took in the new kid at school and quickly became my best friend, the only one who could read my actions when my words had failed me. “You ever feel stuck, Jake?” I ask, pushing away the memory from when I asked Riley the exact same question.
He lowers his gaze to mine. “What do you mean?”
“Like, sometimes I look out my window and see the world spinning around me, like time hasn’t stopped and a life hasn’t ended. I see people smiling, laughing, and I wonder how it is they can function and I’m just… stuck. I felt it when I came home on medical and I felt it after Dave died and I feel it now and I don’t know why.”
“Because you experienced near death twice and actual death once?” he says simply, sitting up higher in his chair. “I mean, when you think about it, time is just that… time. It’s what life is made of. So time stops when a life ends.”
Nothing in the entire world, besides Riley, has ever made more sense than Jake sitting in my living room right at this very moment.
He adds, “But that doesn’t mean you don’t fight to make time move again. If you want Dave’s clock to keep ticking, find a way to make it happen.”
“Like a legacy?”
Jake shrugs. “I did a little research… into your friend.”
“You did?”
“He has three little brothers, right? They’d be missing him something fierce.”
“Yeah, they would be.”
“So.”
“So?” I ask.
“So reach out to them if you think it’ll help them. I’m almost positive it’ll help you.”
“What? You think I should write them a letter or something?”
He smiles and sits up higher. “Well you see, Grandpa Banks, there’s this little thing called email. You can access it on something called the Internet.”
Yeah. That weird sound is definitely a laugh. “I don’t have a computer. It was Riley’s.”
Now it’s Jake’s turn to laugh. “Well you see, Grandpa Banks—” He dodges the cushion I throw at his head. “—there’s this little thing called the Smartphone which has previously explained Internet.”
“Fuck you.”
We both pull out our phones at the same time. “So what do I do?” I ask.
“Well, this is tough. Riley ever get you to set up Facebook?”
I shake my head.
“Twitter?”
Another shake.
“Instagram?”
“Nope.”
“Tumblr?”
“Now you’re just making shit up.”
He laughs again. “Swear it.” He taps his phone and moves to sit next to me. “Let’s start with the basics, Grandpa.”
“Enough with the grandpa bullshit.”
“Pops?”
“No.”
“Gam?”
“No!”
“Fine. Gramps it is.”
I look over his shoulder and watch him pull up an app. “Dave O’Brien, right?”
“Yep.”
He types in: “Dave O’Brien USMC.”
He’s the first picture that pops up in the results. But it’s not just him. It’s us. We’re standing next to each other, our
smiles wide, head to toe in our combat uniform. I remember him getting Leroy to take the picture but I never actually saw it.
My chest tightens as I focus on his face, on his smile, and I remember the exact words he said after the picture was taken. “This one’s going right in the Banks spank bank.”
“You okay?” Jake asks.
No. “Yeah.”
“His profile’s set to private, but we can see his friends.” He types in “O’Brien” in another search window and boom. Two of his brothers are listed.
“Mikey—he’s the oldest. I mean now he is…”
Jake nods, tapping more buttons and then hands me his phone. “You can write him a message but I have to go pick up my sister from the movies so if it’s going to take you eighty years, Gramps, I’d rather you do a voice message.”
“I can do voice messages?”
He nods. “Hold down that mic.”
I do what he says. “Hey… uh… Mike. It’s Dylan Banks. I’m using my friend’s account. I don’t have one. I was just seeing… um… checking up on you… I guess…”
Jake takes the phone from me, his thumbs flying across the screen and hitting send then switching it off and pocketing it all before I even realize I’m no longer holding the phone.
“I gave him your number and told him to text you. I gotta jet.”
“How is Julie, anyway?”
He sighs, long and loud. “She’s dating.”
“What?” I ask, surprised.
He nods. “Yep. She’s fourteen now.”
“Shut up.”
He keeps nodding. “I keep a bat in the back seat so the kid knows I’m not fucking around.”
“So you don’t like him?”
He scoffs. “I fucking hate him. He’s a cocky little punk. Thinks he’s God’s gift to women.”
“So she’s dating Logan?”
His face drops. “That shit’s not funny, man.”
“If the shoe fits…”
“I’m going to fucking kill him,” he says, rushing to the front door. I follow after him, laughing under my breath.
“Hey,” he says, the door half open. “How’d you like the new workbench Riley got you?”
Fifty-Two
Dylan
I hadn’t been in the garage since I’d been discharged from the hospital. I had no reason to. It was empty. No cars. No engine for me to work on. Besides, when it came to avoiding memories of Riley, the garage was as bad as the bedroom, if not worse. Maybe that’s why it took an entire day and four hours of tossing and turning in bed, unable to find enough calm to sleep before I throw the covers off and make my way out there. I take a calming breath before opening the door and when I do, a million different emotions hit me at once.
Riley caught me on Pinterest once (shut up) looking at garage set-ups. I shut the screen quickly and told her I was just bored. Like most guys look at porn, I was looking at workbenches, dreaming that one day I’d have something similar.
Now the image that was on the screen is real and I’m fucking touching it.
I don’t know when she did it. I don’t know how Jake knew about it and I didn’t. Right now, I don’t know much of anything.
There’s an empty jar in the middle of the bench, just like the ones she used to store her letters to Jeremy. I pick it up, my eyes squinting as I read the letters written in black marker: DYLAN.
I’m not exactly sure when I stopped breathing, but reading my name makes me start again. Only now, each breath is heavier and harder to get through.
I lean against the counter, moving the crutches aside so I can hold the jar in one hand phone in the other. A picture of her shows up on my screen as I fight a war in my head over whether to call her or not. Hearing her voice might just be my undoing.
Dylan: I hadn’t seen the garage untilxnow.
Riley: ?
Dylan: Workbench.
Riley: Wow. I’d forgotten about it. I’m sorry.
Dylan: Why are you sorry?
Riley: You’re not mad?
Dylan: Whyxwould I be mad?
Riley: I thought you’d be angry at me because I got rid of your old one.
I read her text over and over, trying to figure out why the hell she would think that. Then I remember the smashed mirror in our bathroom, the times I’d yelled at her and used my anger to push her away, and it all makes sense.
Dylan: Thank you, Riley.
I stare at the screen, my hands gripping the phone tighter as I wait for her to respond. When enough time passes and I realize she has nothing left to say, I place the jar and the phone on the bench and stand in the middle of the room, my hands gripping the crutches as I circle slowly, getting lost in the memories created in this space.
My gaze catches on a stack of boxes in the corner of the room. All labeled Jeremy. I didn’t stop her from bringing them with her when we moved in. And now they’re here and she’s not and it makes no sense. I make the decision to give them to Jake next time he comes by so he can give them back to her.
It’s only after I’ve struggled—my leg aching and my chest burning—to move three of the boxes that I see more jars filled with letters stacked behind them. They’re not Jeremy’s, though. They have the same writing as the one on the bench, same black marker, same name.
I drop the box in my hand and stare at the jars. There are over twenty of them, all filled to the rim. I don’t think twice. I grab two. Sit down on the cold concrete of the garage floor, and I do what I can to prepare myself for my heart’s imminent destruction.
Dylan,
I love you.
I miss you.
Bryce, that vet from work, and Heidi are dating now. It’s serious. Not sure why I wanted to tell you. I just did. I think there’s a part of me that wonders if you worry whether she’s happy. She is. At least, that’s what they both tell me. And I’m happy for them.
Riley.
Dylan,
I love you.
I miss you.
So… don’t be mad, but I brought a cat home from the shelter. (Sorry.) She was just so sad and cute and I couldn’t help it. I named her Maple. Bacon and Maple. Get it? She was home two days before the Kline kids next door saw her and I guess they started giving her milk and food because they thought she was a stray. She does look like one. They named her—wait for it… Dog!
I spoke to Mrs. Kline about it and said I’d be happy to take her back but she said her kids would be devastated. Her kids had gotten super attached to her in the two days they’d had her. So, now I guess the neighbors have a cat. They’re coming by tomorrow to look for a friend for Dog the cat. That’s two cats I’m saving. I know it’s nothing like what you do… but I kind of feel like a hero in a sense.
Riley.
Dylan,
I love you.
I miss you.
I went to your dad’s house today for his birthday. It wasn’t anything big—you know your dad—but Sydney and I made him a cake and got him presents. Did you ever buy your dad presents? And if you did, did you wrap them? Because swear he looked like a kid on Christmas morning when he unwrapped them. It was so cute, D. I wish you were there. Eric got him some fancy new version of that board game Battleship. I assume it means something to you guys because I swear he teared up a little. Sydney and I—well, we spent five hours at the mall trying to think of something for him and we came back with flannel shirts, socks and an old car calendar! I know, we suck, but your dad is the hardest person to buy things for. Mom was there too. She got him a beard grooming kit. I spent five hours at the mall and she came up with something that was actually useful to him.
But the best part of the night was when we brought out his cake. His smile got so wide. Then when we sat the cake in front of him, he looked up at me and did something amazing.
He offered me his wishes, babe.
I told him I couldn’t, and that he should make the wish.
He took my hand, got up from his seat and made me sit down. Then he said, “I have ever
ything I need right here. I have my family.”
I know it’s wrong to reveal your wishes, but I wished for you to come home to us. To all of us. So we can all be a family again.
I love you, Dylan.
I love you and I love your family.
I love that they accept me for everything I am and they care for and protect me and I just miss you.
I miss you so much, babe.
Forever yours,
Riley.
Dylan,
I love you.
I miss you.
I spent the day in bed with Bacon. I had this horrible dream last night and I guess I woke up and wasn’t really up for functioning like a human. It was four in the afternoon when I got up to use the bathroom when I felt weak and got dizzy. I had to hold on to the sink in the bathroom to keep standing. I realized it was because I hadn’t eaten all day. I still couldn’t eat.
I think it’s because I saw on the news last night that a life was lost out there, where you are. They didn’t give names or which branch of military—something about respecting the families. It’s dumb. Now all the other military families are out there wondering if it’s their loved one.
Then when I finally got to sleep I had the worst nightmare ever. It’s not like it was the first time I dreamed about it… me under water… my body weak, lungs and eyes burning, searching for the body… tasting the blood in my mouth. Only it wasn’t Jeremy down there. It was you. Your face was white and your beautiful blue eyes stared back at me. I woke up in a cold sweat and ran straight to the bathroom and puked—which did nothing to take away the taste of blood in my mouth. I tried washing it out. It didn’t work.
Most days I can be strong. Or at least strong enough to fake it. I didn’t have the strength to fake it today.
You’ll never read this.
I never want you to.
And I know that you’re doing something important to you and I’m proud of you. Really, I am. Maybe I’m being a brat but I hate it, Dylan. I fucking hate it. I want you safe. I want you home. I want you in our bed. In our home. I want you in your truck. I want the horizon with you. I want everything with you and I can’t have that if you don’t fucking come home.
Riley.
* * *
My leg aches, my lungs burn. Everything hurts. I don’t know how I manage to keep standing long enough to knock, but the second the door opens, I lean against the frame releasing my grip on the crutches. They fall to the ground with a loud crash and my eyes drift shut as I force another round of air in my beaten lungs. “Dylan, what are you doing?” Holly says, her hands on my upper arms as soon as she opens the door.
