Page 102 of The False Flat

I’d been wrong and naive. This wasn’t easy. I wasn’t the new person I’d told Chad I was. That Old Pen had remained lurking under the surface, waiting for the trouble, the I love you, the I want my brother to die. I wanted to crawl out of my body; I was sick of myself. Because I knew Grant loving me was a good thing. But I didn’t deserve his love, and even if I could convince myself I did, he didn’t deserve to be tied to all my emotional issues, the ones ready to spring forward at the worst moments. And I knew Kellan was joking, but her words had been a knife, barely having to touch my old wounds before they ripped open and everything poured out.

William came in, and there was hushed discussion I only half paid attention to. When the interior of the tent fell silent—the outside still annoyingly loud—Grant whispered, “Good night.”

His hand squeezed mine.

I squeezed his back, words wedged in my mouth like a shoe that wouldn’t come off.

His breath on the side of my face was warm and as soothing as anything could be for me in that moment. And I wondered if I should let him go, free him from all this, from everything inside me that would put that look of pain back on his face. He’d been through just as much as I had. He didn’t need anything else. He didn’t need me.

On my back, I tucked the edge of the sleeping bag under my chin and stared at the top of the tent. A warm tear tickled my face as it slid down my cheek. I resisted the urge to wipe it away.

The cackles and gasps of the others outside the thin fabric were far away. Kellan’s drunken, thoughtless comments had taken me back to my childhood home, when my mom had sat down on the edge of my bed and told me my big brother had gone to heaven. Just before, I’d put away my toys, loaded the dishwasher, eaten my vegetables—even the ones I didn’t like—because I’d told God that’s what I’d do if only Brandon could come home. But he didn’t come home; he was never coming home.

I swallowed the ball of bitterness that had crawled up my throat and turned onto my side, wishing I’d had more of that moonshine.

CHAPTER 39

LIFE REALIZATION #17: LIFE ALWAYS LOOKS BETTER IN THE MORNING

The next morning, Stealth, the man in charge of this trip, stood with a spatula hovered over a cast-iron skillet in the outdoor kitchen he’d created. “The pig’s a-flyin’. And coffee’s over there.” He pointed Grant and me to the metal container dispensing piping-hot life juice.

I cradled a cup of coffee in both my hands. I wasn’t sure when my memories had faded into sleep, but it wasn’t early. I shook my head, trying to loosen the remnants of the dream clinging to the inside of my skull like spiderwebs. My brother, tubes up his nose and, at one point, stuffed into his mouth, a plastic octopus trying to claim him.

In the light of day, my problems looked smaller, and my destructive thoughts faded ever so slightly.

“Did you sleep okay?” Grant asked me. “The red lines on your eyeballs suggest you didn’t.”

I nodded, touching my fingertips to the puffy skin under my eyes. I’d tried to hide them, but I hadn’t brought my eyedrops, and concealer shouldn’t be used on eyeballs.

My mouth opened, closed, opened again, then blew out a sigh. “I was too wired to sleep, and when I finally did, I had a nightmare.”

He rubbed my arm, but my whole body responded to the touch.

“You feel like the trip back? We can call it off, call a car.”

“You’d end your meticulously planned trip just for me, wouldn’t you?”

“You know I would.”

“How is everyone so chipper?” Deanna rubbed her eyes with one hand, massaged her hip with the other as she joined us. “I can barely move.” She pointed to our cups. “Where did you get that glorious substance?”

We pointed to the coffee, and when she turned, she ran straight into Stealth and the light-blue, moisture-wicking muscle shirt stretched across his admirable pecs.

“Well, aren’t you gorgeous?” Deanna turned back toward us, her face red, her mouth open in horror, like she couldn’t believe she’d said that.

She mumbled an apology and ran off in the opposite direction of the coffee.

The laugh helped bring me further back to life. I lived in the present, not the past. I was trying to, anyway.

Keep trying.

“She’s cute,” Stealth said. “She seeing anyone?”

Grant and I covertly exchanged elbow jabs. “I’m afraid my sister’s happily married.”

“Too bad. Well, I’ve gotta grab my crate of eggs. This place is about to swarm. Hope you all are hungry. My pumpkin french toast is to die for.” His spooky laugh faded.

“So we have to tell Deanna that Stealth has the hots for her,” I said when Stealth was out of range.