Page 42 of When in December

“You nearly lost your life out there. You had internal bleeding. You could’ve lost your leg. Don’t think I didn’t notice that you aren’t as steady on it as you used to be, ambling out of the bar like you did.”

“I’m fine.”

He shook his head, taking a deep breath. “What’s your plan then?”

“I …” I didn’t have one. God, my thrilling part of the day had been messing with the woman deciding how to dress up the cabin with fringe throw pillows. “I don’t know. I’m going to get myself back in shape eventually. Find a doctor to clear me and my leg for service. Get back in the game.”

“That’s what you want to do?”

I paused. Yes. No. “Don’t you? What else is there?”

“This can’t be all there is,” said Barrett quietly. He took another sip of beer. “Not for me anyway. Especially not nowwhen my team is down. It’s not the same as it once was when we were kids.”

“You’re serious.”

Taking a deep breath, he sat up straight once more and dipped his head, as if he were deciding what the hell he was going to eat for dinner tonight after our now-cold taco-Tuesday-flavored fries. “Yeah.”

“What are you going to do?” I asked him.

“I’m sure I’ll figure it out.” Barrett took another sip of his beer before he turned toward me. “You will too, ya know.”

I already had it figured out.

“I have him too, you know,” said Barrett.

I raised an eyebrow. “Who?”

“Oz.”

At the name, my heart skipped a short beat. That didn’t make sense. Ozzy … Oz was with Vassar. He was meant to stay with Vassar. Above ground or not.

“No, you don’t.”

“He was in rough shape. When they flew him out, they weren’t sure he was going to make it. He’s doing well enough now though, like the rest of us,” explained Barrett. “Didn’t you see him at the funeral?”

To be honest, I’d barely even registered the funeral when it was happening. It was quick. Or at least, it felt quick. I barely came to terms with the fact that Vassar?—

I’d seen him just before, when we were sitting in the truck overseas, hopping out like idiots after being cooped up for so long. He had been laughing as he twirled off the path like some little girl singing in the rain and …

Vassar was gone.

Vassar was dead and in the ground with a flag draped around his casket, which I imagined his mother had spent every penny she had that he’d sent home to her. It might’ve been steel or oak—the same color of his eyes, which he squinted up at the sun with every day that I knew him—but I wouldn’t know. Not for sure. I was just out of the hospital and half dead myself on pain meds.

I remembered it had been sunny.

And the whole thing had felt like a joke.

“You should see him,” suggested Barrett.

“No,” I said.

“He’s in good shape.”

“No.”

A few people wandering out of the bar glanced in our direction.

Barrett, however, didn’t even flinch. He let his legs dangle over the back edge of his truck before he looked at me and shook his head.

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