Page 86 of Avenged

My hands froze on my uniform top I’d shrugged on while talking to him. My heart stopped, clenched into a tight muscle, remorse filling me.

“Excuse me?”

My captain sighed into the phone. “Just get down here.”

And the line went dead.

“Shit,” I said mostly to myself as I pulled the rest of my uniform on.

“What’s wrong?” Jersey’s voice carried to me, and I looked up briefly to see her sit up. She was wearing my button-down shirt. The one I’d had on tonight as we’d watched fireworks. The one she’d helped me shed once we’d gotten home. She was so stunning it hurt, but my heart was hurting for another reason as well.

Dawson.

I obviously hadn’t been paying close enough attention to him. He’d convinced me he was good, and I’d let myself be lost in a world called Jersey. I’d trusted that the “wish me luck” meant he was back to the kid I’d once cooked dinner for. I’d lost myself to her problems, and her eyes, and her sorrow. I’d forgotten the one goddamn thing I was supposed to do in bringing Dawson to New London with me. I was supposed to look out for him as I hadn’t done since I’d left for college. Years of him not having anyone to steady him. And I’d failed again. Failed miserably. He’d been arrested.

I looked away, searching for and finding my shoes as I responded to her. “It’s Dawson. They’ve arrested him.”

“No!” She was up and searching the floor for her own clothes, sliding into her panties, and giving me a view of her beautiful ass. I shut my eyes.

When I opened them again, she was staring at me.

“You don’t want me to come with you,” she said.

It was the truth. I didn’t want her with me. I didn’t want her to see how much I’d failed. I didn’t want her to know the man she’d married and slept with was a failure at the most important relationships in his life. Brother. Mother. I wasn’t there when those people needed me the most. I was just like my biological father. I was just like Mr. Dick. I was only there when it was convenient for me to be there. I was sure I would do the same thing to her. Fail at the time she needed me most.

“It’s on base,” I said as way of an excuse, but I couldn’t lie to her. She saw it, and the hurt flew over her face before she hid it behind the mask of serenity that was the old Jersey, the Jersey before I’d forced her to open up to me. It twisted my insides, because I was already doing it—failing her just like I’d failed my brother.

But at the moment, I needed to be there for him like I hadn’t been. Like I’d promised myself I would be.

I left her, knowing I’d just stabbed her in the gut. But all I could think about was Dawson and how I hadn’t wanted his mistakes to turn him into a man who resembled Jersey’s father. I’d fucking turned my back just when he’d clearly needed me the most.

The drive to the base was full of silence which allowed me to batter myself some more, but also, it allowed my anger to grow. Dawson had put on a good act. He’d kept not one, but two jobs. He’d kept his nose clean. I’d thought we were past stunts like this…whatever the hell it was that had gotten him arrested at sea. By my coworkers. By my military family.

I walked through the door of the actual Coast Guard facility south of the academy. I hadn’t been there often because the bulk of my assignment had been related to the new recruits and teaching them the ropes on the Chinook. People looked up as I walked in. Some of them I knew in passing, and some I knew well, like Captain Andrews.

We were indoors, and while I wanted to salute because I was full of regret that I wanted to show, we didn’t salute inside without hats. “Sir,” I said.

“Dayton.”

He turned and started walking toward the holding cells at the back of the building. I joined him. “The crew got a call about an unsanctioned boat race happening down shore,” he explained without me having to ask. “As you know, these races can get out of hand pretty quick in the daytime, but at night, they often turn deadly. When the team got there, the majority of the boats took off, but the boat your brother was driving continued on course to what we suspect was the finish line marker before he surrendered.”

“Goddamn it,” I said under my breath.

“Damn fine cigar boat. He’s lucky he didn’t crash it. Those things can cost more than you or I will make in a lifetime,” the Captain responded. My heart flipped over. The cigar boat Dawson had been working on at the marina. He’d fucking stolen it to race? My blood pressure increased about twenty-fold, driven by the regret I was hiding behind the anger. It ran deep. I was angry at both of us.

Captain Andrews stopped outside the holding cell and said, “I’ve pulled some favors, and we’re going to release him with you this time, but it can’t happen again.”

I didn’t want to know how many favors he’d had to call in if Dawson had stolen the boat.

“Thank you. I’m sorry. It won’t.”

He put a hand on my shoulder. “We all have people in our lives who don’t always make the best decisions, Dayton. We have to try to be there for them, but there’s also a time to cut the ties and let them sink or swim on their own.”

With that, he walked away. I rubbed my eyes, flicked my fingernails together until they hurt, and then opened the door. The one thing the Captain didn’t know was that I hadn’t been there for Dawson. Barely at all. I hadn’t gotten him out of a single jam until now, and even this one I couldn’t really say was because of me. I wasn’t completely sure they wouldn’t have just let him go with a simple warning, anyway. That was what we often did when we found kids racing. We gave them a warning, recorded their name so if they got caught again, they’d face more serious consequences, and then let them go. But we’d never let someone go if we knew they’d stolen a boat. That just didn’t happen.

When I opened the door, Dawson shifted from where he’d been half asleep in the chair to sitting straight up. He looked tired but happy. He was goddamn happy. This sent me over the rails in a new direction.

“You were racing the fucking cigar boat that doesn’t belong to you?” My anger rolled off of me. It was anger directed more at me than at him, and yet, it didn’t prevent me from sending it in his direction.

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