He rushes me, slamming his hands into the middle of my chest, and pushes me back against the wall. I hear some of the photos tear away from the wall and the head of a thumbtack presses into my back. It happens so fast and I’m still trying to process the fact that Ryan got the drop on me when his fist connects with my eye. The same one Harper hit.
“Ryan, stop it!” Paige grabs his arms and tries to pull him away, but he shakes her off and cocks his fist back to hit me again. I shove him, but the stupid fool comes at me again. One hit? Fine. I deserved that. But I’m not going to be his personal punching bag. Not when he started this. Lowering my shoulder, I hit him in the chest. He grabs on to me and we hit the floor. His fists are pummeling me wherever he can reach, but I’ve got him pinned to the ground.
“Let him go.” Dad grabs the back of my T-shirt, pulling it until I can feel the collar pressing tightly against the front of my neck like a noose. Ryan gets in one last hit, smacking the side of my head with his fist. “What the hell is going on here?”
“Nothing.” I reach out to help Ryan up, but he slaps my hand away. “Just a misunderstanding.”
“I want you out of here,” Dad says, pointing at me.
“Dean—”
“No, Linda.” He cuts her off and helps Ryan to his feet. “Ever since he’s come home, Travis has stirred up trouble—getting you drunk, trying to break up our marriage, and this isn’t the first time he’s had Paige over in the middle of the night. I’ve had enough.”
They’re standing in a clump on the other side of my room. Them versus me. Except Paige, who looks as if she wishes she were anywhere but here, and Mom is gnawing her lip. Dad’s arm is across my brother’s chest, holding Ryan back.
“Well, we finally agree on something.” I grab my seabag and shove in a handful of shirts from the top drawer of my dresser. “I’m done.”
“Travis, wait.” My mom steps forward. Out from Dad’s shadow. “You don’t have to leave. This is my house—”
“Your house?” Dad interrupts.
“It will be mine in the divorce if you don’t stop talking,” Mom snaps. His eyes go wide, because she never talks like that, but he stops talking. “Travis isn’t the bad guy here, Dean. He spent his childhood trying to live up to your impossible expectations and when he decided he didn’t want to do that anymore, you were the one who treated him as if he’s worthless. And you’ve made me feel like I’m wrong for supporting our son when he was in the middle of a war. You are the bad guy, Dean. You. And I have had enough.”
I have to do a mental check to make sure my mouth isn’t hanging open because… damn, Mom.
“So Travis isn’t leaving unless he wants to leave, and things are going to change around here,” she says. “If you want to stay married to me, you’re going to have to straighten up, and if you don’t, you need to pack your things and get out.”
Dad looks bewildered—like he can’t figure out what just happened—but I have no sympathy. Not when I’m so proud of my mom.
“Now,” she says. “I’m going back to bed. Paige, you’d be wise to leave now, and Dean—well, what you do is up to you. Good night.”
She walks out with some serious dignity, leaving the rest of us standing there in silence. Dad’s expression is murderous as he clings to his pathetic insistence that this is my fault. His fists bunch at his sides and his jaw twitches, as if he’s considering taking a swing. I meet his glare. “I wouldn’t.”
He stalks out of the room, his footsteps fading down the stairs, instead of down the hall toward Mom, the way they should. Coward.
“Listen, Rye—” I say.
“Go to hell.”
Paige doesn’t say anything. She drops the spare key on the end of my bed and leaves. Pain flashes across my brother’s face—he won’t get the courtesy of a Dear John letter to make the breakup official—before it hardens back to anger.
“Why did you do it?” He won’t look at me.
“Do what?”
“Sleep with my girlfriend.”
“Why did you sleep with my girlfriend?”
“You get everything, Travis,” he says.
“What exactly do I have that you haven’t taken, Ryan?” I ask. “You hang out with my friends, drive my car, and steal my girlfriend while I’m in Afghanistan. What more do you want from me? I have nightmares that keep me up at night. You’re fucking welcome to those.”
Ryan doesn’t say anything for a moment. He just looks at the floor. But when he looks up at me, his face is still hard. “I can take one more thing,” he says. “You tell Harper or I will.”
Shit.
When he’s gone and I’m alone, I return to my laptop and the words are still there waiting. Cursor blinking.
Charlie Sweeney was
There’s no way I’m going to think of anything tonight. Not with Ryan’s threat hanging over me. I close the laptop and get into bed.
I’m walking down a road in Marjah as the muezzin sings the haunting call, summoning the faithful to prayer. A mud-colored dog lifts its head to watch as our patrol passes by. First me, then Charlie and Moss. Peralta is behind them. The hair on the back of my neck sets me on alert. Something isn’t right. But when I try to call out to my friends, my voice won’t come. My hands won’t lift to flag them down. My feet feel as if they are rooted to the ground. Charlie takes a step forward, his foot landing on the pressure plate of a bomb, and the explosion rattles my teeth, my bones. A cloud of dust envelops him. Shrapnel from the bomb, hidden in the base of a tree, riddles his body and he falls. Movement comes rushing back to my limbs, but when I reach him the world tilts. I’m the one on the ground, not Charlie. I’m the one sprayed with shrapnel that sends searing pain through me. Above me is an Afghan boy. One I’ve seen before in the streets, begging for whatever we have to offer. He smiles at me as I die.
My blood is rushing in my ears as I lie in the dark with only a dream, only a dream, only a dream repeating in my mind like a mantra. The words don’t help. They can’t blot out the nightmare. I reach for the bottle of pills on the nightstand and after I take two, I call Harper.
“Travis?” Her voice is gravelly with sleep.
“I forgot it’s the middle of the night.”
“Shouldn’t you be sleeping?”
“I had a nightmare, so I’m awake,” I say. “I just took my prescription.”
“Do you want me to stay on the phone until you get sleepy?”
“Do you mind?”
She’s quiet for a beat and I wonder if she’s mentally calculating the hours between now and the time she has to get up for work. I almost hang up so she can go back to sleep, but then she says, her voice soft and low, “I don’t mind.”
Harper talks for a while. About the sea turtles. About how she’s ready to go to college, but that she’ll miss her dad when she’s gone. About the crab trap they keep in the canal behind their house.
“Depending on the season, we’ll get blues or stone crabs,” she says. “Usually we’ll boil them and freeze the meat until we have enough for crab cakes. Or sometimes we’ll make crab dip or alfredo pasta.”
“I like crab.” I’m starting to get tired and it’s making me talk like a three-year-old.
“Me, too,” she says. “It’s my favorite. Maybe, um—maybe I’ll make you crab cakes sometime.”
“Okay.” A yawn overtakes me.
“Travis?” she says.
“What?”
“Sweet dreams.”
“I hope so,” I say. “I’m really tired of the bad ones.”
“Talk to you tomorrow?”
“Okay.” I feel the sleep wave approaching. The one where your words will wash away if you don’t say them. “I’m really sorry.”
She probably thinks I’m apologizing for waking her up, but before I can tell her that it’s for what happened with Paige, she whispers good night and hangs up. At least I think she does. I’m not sure because I’m asleep.
Chapter 12
The sun has barely broken the horizon a few days later, when I pull the Jeep into the driveway at Harper’s house. She’s waiting on the front porch swing with a yellow duffel bag beside her.
“Hey, you,” she calls over the rumble of the engine as she throws the duffel in the back and swings up into the passenger’s seat. I catch a whiff of sunscreen as she leans over to drop a kiss on my cheek.
“Hey back,” I say. “Thanks for coming with me.”
“Sure.”