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I look at him, wait for more, wondering if my brain is just done working tonight.
He sighs. “The reason he joined the Army in the first place, Shel, all those years ago. He was on the fence about it for months before he called the recruiter back. You never knew?”
I have no idea what he means and shake my head.
“It was you.” He holds up a stiff, accusing finger. “All you.”
My brows pull down. I’m lost.
Marty nods.
“He knew you’d never live the life you deserved if he was still around when you turned eighteen and finished high school. He knew about your crush, and though he never said it, I think he had an inkling about how hard it’d be to control himself once you were old enough and fair game...”
My brother smiles sheepishly, that easy, lopsided grin he’s had since we were kids.
A shiver wafts up my spine.
That was what Weston made me promise: leave town, go to college, see the world.
I did that because he asked, and because he vowed to stay in touch.
I waited on his no-show letters with a slow, creeping disappointment that turned to sadness, then fear, then anger.
Until this fall, I let his ghosting act make me numb.
But I can’t deny the ugly truth, that there was a method to his coldhearted madness.
If he’d stayed almost a decade ago, so would I.
I never would’ve tasted a day at the museum if he hadn’t enlisted, the older boy and protector who always held the key to my future.
Marty gives me a sideways hug.
“He didn’t mean to be a dick. He was gonna write you, but shit got complicated over there and I guess he just...he thought if he hurt you a little then, if he went radio silent, it would spare you a lot more grief later on. I told him it doesn’t work that way, but he’s a frigging hee-haw. Absolute donkey man. Come to think of it, almost as boneheaded stubborn as you.” He kisses the top of my head. “Hold up, I’ll find you a chair, so you can sit here until he wakes up.”
Somehow, I nod, no easy task when your heart keeps crumbling like a sugar cookie whacked with a mallet.
I can’t stop the tears this time.
They come out in a raging flood against my fingers, my lungs heaving.
Everything he did, everything he went through, everything he feared...
...it’s all been because of me and his stupid, brave, insane need to protect me.
The same lethal instinct that put him in this hospital bed tonight.
There’s nothing I could ever do to make it up to him—nothing but one decision that gouges my heart out.
Leave again.
If that’s what he wants, it’s the only option.
I wonder if that’s why he warned me my country roots were showing before that wonderful night at the car show, and why he wouldn’t believe me when I swore I didn’t miss the big city.
I wasn’t lying.
If my bosses called right now and offered me a way out, I’d take it in a heartbeat.
