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I leave Riley to sleep and move out to the living room. I switch on the light and the TV, muting it as soon as it comes on. Then I hobble over to the couch and I sit.
I sit and I wait for the calm to hit me.
I don’t know how long I’m there, watching but not really seeing anything on the screen when Holly whispers my name. I look at the doorway to the kitchen to see her standing, her arms crossed as she leans against the doorframe. “Did I scare you?” she asks.
I shake my head. “I’m sorry, did I wake you? It’s hard to be quiet—” I point to the crutches. “—with them.”
“No.” She pushes off the frame and moves toward me, and then points to the spot next to me. “Can I sit?”
I nod, staring ahead.
After sitting down, she says, “I got up for a drink and saw the light on.”
Moments pass, the silence building. Finally, I break. “How’d you know?”
“Know what, sweetheart?”
I turn to her slowly. “You handed me the pen.”
She sighs. “I’ve been watching you, Dylan. I could tell you wanted out. You just didn’t want to disappoint your family.”
“How?”
Her lips thin to a line. “I see the way you look at your dad and Eric. Especially since the DUI. You think they’re disappointed—”
“I always felt like my dad would be proud of me, no matter what I did, but the way he’s looked at me since the DUI… I caused shame on him, on my family and on our name. They raised me to be honorable and strong and I’m neither of those things.”
“Dylan,” she whispers, her hand on my arm. “That’s not true.”
I keep looking ahead, keep waiting for the calm to hit me. It never does. My eyes shut, and just like that, my insanity kicks in. “I see him,” I mumble.
“See who?”
“Dave O’Brien.”
She sucks in a breath, then releases it slowly.
“It’s like this movie playing in my mind, over and over. I see him hold his gun to his head, his finger curl, pulling the trigger. I hear the gun go off. Smell the gun powder. Feel my heart stop. See the blood everywhere. Everywhere. And I feel it, in my hands and on my clothes. I’ve tried to shake it, and since I’ve been here with Riley, they’ve slowed down. But they haven’t stopped. And he was there…”
“Where, Dylan?”
“At the accident,” I say, my voice breaking. I clear my throat. “I wasn’t drunk, Ma’am. Dave—he was standing in front of the car, his head blown off. I swerved to miss him and I knew I was losing it so I made Riley get out of the car.”
Her fingers are warm when they skim my cheek, wiping away tears I hadn’t known were there. “Does anyone know?”
I shake my head.
“Your dad? Eric?”
“I’m a man, Ms. Hudson. And this makes me weak… I can’t—” I choke on a sob, but push it down enough to add, “I’ve disgraced them enough. I can’t admit this to them.”
“What about Riley?”
“No.”
“She’ll understand—”
“No. And you can’t tell her…” I wipe my cheeks. “You can’t say a word.”
“Dylan…”
“I’m supposed to be strong. She looks to me for strength. For glue. I need to be that for her… She can’t know. You have to let me at least have that,” I rush out. Pleading with a woman who owes me absolutely nothing to please, please, keep my secrets.
“Okay.” She sniffs once. “So why tell me?”
I pause a moment, waiting for my heart to settle before turning to her, my eyes on hers—her tears clouding the pity. “Because you look at me like no one else does. No one ever has. You expect nothing of me but me, as a person. Not as a man of honor, or a man of strength.” I blink. Tears fall. “You look at me like a mother would look at her son.”
Riley
I cover my mouth to muffle my cry, my vision blurred from the tears flowing fast and free. Mom glances over Dylan’s shoulder at me standing in the hallway, just like she did after he asked her how she knew he wanted out of the Marines. She wraps her arms around his neck, wiping her tears on his shoulder—shoulders that shake with the force of his cries—cries he’s held in for so long.
I leave them in the living room and go back to bed, waiting for him to join me. Seconds, minutes, hours pass. The sun rises. The world awakes. And finally, Dylan walks in. I lay still, my eyes closed. The bed dips before I hear the clanking of his crutches. A moment later, I’m in his arms, his nose rubbing against mine. “Riley,” he whispers.
“Mm?”
“I love you.”
I open my eyes, lock them on his, clear and blue and everything I remember them to be, back when he still had control of the world around him… when his reality consisted of his purpose and of us and our love and nothing could get in the way of it. “I know.”
Fifty-Seven
Riley
“Do we even know where the guys are going?” I ask, emptying the packet of corn chips in the bowl.
Heidi shrugs. “Who cares. I haven’t had a slumber party in forever.”
“Me neither,” Mom says. She tries in vain to open the jar of salsa before giving up. “Dylan!”
“Yes, Ma’am,” he calls out, and a second later he walks into the kitchen. He’s been out of the cast for four days. “I love the way you say Ma’am,” Lucy teases. I think. She fans her face, her eyes rolling back. “Say it again.”
