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Confusion stuns me still, mute and completely unaware I’m not alone until I force myself to step out of the doorway and onto the porch. Something rolls to a stop at my foot.
I drag my gaze from the chaos to… a can of spray paint? I glance in the direction it rolled from. A couple of feet across the porch from me, stock still, breathing hard and staring at the wall is a man I recognize immediately.
My insides twist, my brain stuttering, tryingnotto make the connection. The guy from the beach. The guy I’d convinced myself was just a tourist because Mylo told me not to worry about him, because Mylo swore to me there wasn’t any more to that story. The hurt is paralyzing, the intensity of his emotionless eyes terrifying.
My gaze flicks for a millisecond to the red paint scrawled across the wall and part of the door. My beautiful hand-carved door.
10:31. 22/4/2019
I know that date.
Mylo’s arm. I’ve traced those pocket watches and the dates beneath them a thousand times. Seared them into my mind. My heart thuds painfully in my ribs, my mouth dry, my chest so tight it hurts to breathe.
“Why?” I breathe out when my stare meets his again, still frozen to the spot, too confused, too devastated, toostunnedto move, to run, to do whatever it is that Rae taught us to do in situations like this.
He turns towards me.“You weren’t supposed to be here.” His voice breaks.
I back up. “What?”
Dark smudges beneath his eyes, brows slashed down, his nostrils flare as he steps even closer, hands fisted by his sides. “I can’t do it anymore.”
I rack my brain, trying to figure out what he’s talking about. A useless effort, Mylo hasn’t told me anything. Nothing. Not one detail about his past I could use. “What can’t you do?” I hold my hands up, my chin trembling, my eyes stinging, fear skittering down my spine. “Please. I don’t know what you wa—”
“He said he’d come back. Ineededhim to come back. I can’t…” He slams his fists into his temples. “I can’t get it out of my head. I needed him to help me get it out like he did.”
“Banks!”
My eyes pop open at the sound of Mylo’s voice. The man’s eyes widen, his jaw clenching, his chest heaving, but he doesn’t look away from me. Doesn’t even acknowledge Mylo’s appearance.
My heart sinks, confusion making my head thump. “Mylo,” I whisper.
“Toby, we can talk, but not here. Not like this.” Mylo stops at the bottom step of the porch.
“Now?Nowyou want to talk?” Toby—Banksturns to the wall. “We leave no one behind. You taught me that.” He slams his hand against the paint, his palm coming away blood red.
Mylo, still standing on the bottom step, curls his fists, a focus to his face I’ve never seen before.“Easy, kid.” He takes first one step, then another, but before his hand can make contact with Banks’ shoulder, Banks pulls something out from the back of his jeans.
It takes me a second for my brain to register what it is, but when I do my blood congeals in my veins, a terror I’m not sure I believed even existed before this moment drying my mouth and trembling my hands
Gun. “Gun, Mylo, he’s got a gun,” I stutter out, trying in vain to get closer to the wall, away from the dully glinting pistol. Sheer panic unlike anything I’ve ever experienced locks my muscles down so tight I can barely breathe.
“Don’t call me kid!” He finally spins to face Mylo, the barrel of the gun now squarely aimed at his chest.
Mylo doesn’t flinch, doesn’t back down, just stills, hands held up while my mine start shaking with a ferociousness that makes it hard to curl my fingers. Tears sting in my eyes, panic wrapping me so tightly I can barely breathe.
“Okay. Okay, Toby. Whatever you need, just put the gun down.”
“Ineededyou to stay. Ineededyou to help me survive.” He waves the gun wildly. “Ineededyou to help me get this shit out of my head like you did.” His voice breaks and he presses the barrel of the pistol to his temple. “Because I can’t…”
I’m pretty sure my heart actually stops beating. Fear keeps me quiet, the realization of how little I actually know about Mylo condensing to a dull thud behind my eyes.
“Banks, no.” Mylo’s voice twists like he’s in pain. “It’s in my head, every fucking day, it’s in my head. I just couldn’t… I can’t.” His voice cracks, a fissure in his outward calm. His throat contracting, jaw tightening.
Banks disengages the safety on the gun, and every other sound of the night, the rolling waves, the low buzz of crickets, they all fade out beneath its metallic click. “I should have died that morning with the others,” he grits out between his teeth, his chest heaving, the fingers of his free hand clenching and releasing, his eyes squeezing shut. “I wish I’d died. I should have died,” he repeats over and over, the gun shaking, his finger trembling, his eyes squeezed tight, voice getting louder and louder.
And then I’m pleading with him too. To drop the gun, to walk away. A chaos of begging and crying and hysterics.
“STAND DOWN, MARINE!!!” Mylo’s sudden roar cracks out like a whip, cutting through the noise.
