Page 68 of When I'm Gone

He moves me around with ease; I don’t have much fight in me. When his arm is around my shoulders, I selfishly soak up the affection before he loathes me. “Sometimes, I wonder what would happen if you didn’t implode when you’re hurting. If you let someone all the way in on the bad shit,” he muses into my hair.

Sometimes, I do too.

~~~

I wake with a groan, rubbing my eyes at the sharp pain stabbing me behind them. “Good morning,” mumbles the wrong Callaghan brother in bed beside me.

Wait, what?

Why the fuck am I in Brady’s house? In Brady’s bed? I groan, questions make my head want to fall off. It’s not worth it. My best friend rumbles a quiet laugh at my misery, which is fitting. I’ve done the same to him a hundred timesover the years. It’s funnier when it’s not happening to me, though.

“Painkillers and water are beside you.” I appreciate the thoughtfulness, because there’s an awful ache in my chest that I’m not nearly awake enough to grasp. Brady squeezes my shoulder before going to make coffee. I could kiss him if the mere idea didn’t make my stomach roll.

After downing the pills and an entire bottle of stale water, I find him staring blearily at the carafe as it spits muddy brown liquid at a pace he doesn’t seem satisfied with. Dark circles underneath his eyes stand out prominently against his skin, and guilt pangs uncomfortably in my ribs. He was up all night making sure I was okay, I’m sure of it.

“I’m sorry,” I say into the heavy quiet.

His gaze snaps up to me quickly before it softens. “Not necessary. ’Bout time the tables turned, yeah?”

I shake my head slightly. “Still.”

He hands me a mug, made perfectly, of course, and shrugs. “What do you remember?”

A complicated question. The early parts of the day are intact, but after we watched the game, I’m drawing a blank. Sharp, ugly emotions linger at the edges of my memory. My soul hurts as much as my head. Where they came from is just out of my grasp. “Not a lot.” Sympathy flashes in my friend’s eyes. “You seem to know a whole lot more than I do,” I observe around a sip.

He nods, guilty and caught red-handed. “I know more than is fair to tell you. You need to talk to my brother.”

“The tables have turned, indeed.” Brady smiles sheepishly and busies himself, moving around the kitchen to distract himself from how much he wants to talk about it. Doesn’t accomplish a damn thing, this space isn’t exactly where his skills lie, but I’m too busy trying to sort through the haunting emotions I’m left with.

Easton is the only person who could pull these feelings out of me. With the guilt sitting heavily on my stomach, I know that whatever it was; the blame is mine. Hurting him is unfathomable to me, though. For weeks, I’ve picked each word, and the tone used for it with care where he was concerned. Partly, sure, because that’s what emotional maturity means to me and I’m a bit like that with everyone in my life. But mainly because I know that words have been weaponized against him, and I’d much rather think something through all the way than have to apologize and risk damaging his trust.

It’s a responsibility I took on happily, so I’m having a hard time adding everything up correctly. But for the first time ever, I don’t feel good about going home to him. So I linger, quietly observing Brady’s anxiety coming out to play. He’s trying to mask it, as he often does when he has a lot of nervous energy, but his tells are fairly obvious. The restless twitch of his fingers, the song he’s humming about every third beat of.

After about ten minutes of it, he huffs a frustrated groan. “I’m only going to do this one time and never again.”

I raise a confused eyebrow in his direction. “And what’s that, Bray?”

My friend pops his knuckles before shaking his hand out. “Meddle.”

“Ookay…” I say slowly.

He leans on his forearms in front of me. “I don’t like it and it feels like picking sides which I will never do. Never, not once. You both are grown adults and what happens in your private life isn’t my business.” His dark eyes level a glare at me, making me feel an inch tall and thoroughly scolded, but he isn’t done. “But I know you, Ace. I know you so well that I’m already mad about what you’re going to do and you haven’t done it yet.”

He doesn’t look mad, he looks heartbroken. His eyes swarm with that delicate kind of ache that comes from loving someone so much and having to stand back while they destroy themselves. “I’m listening.”

He works the words out like he’s sounding them out for the first time, with great challenge and a ton of hesitance. “You had sex with my brother last night.”

Memories start coming back in pieces. The warmth of his skin, the soft brush of his lips, the panic I felt when I saw shaking. Brady continues on before I can fixate on it for long. “He had a panic attack in the middle of it. That’s not normally the kind of thing I’d know about, but I went to check on him when I saw you high-tailing it out of here last night, and he was a mess.” He takes a deep, fortifying breath. “You have to promise me that you’re not going to crucify yourself before you talk to him. I know how it must have seemed from your side of things, but he deserves to be heard. He is trying so fucking hard for you, Chase. He’s actively fighting against his worst fears, trying to communicate on your level while he does it. Your biggest hang up is when you decide what someone is going to say and don’t give them the opportunity to prove you wrong. Hear what he says, I’m fucking begging you.”

My coffee threatens to make a reappearance. It’s all coming back. Him shaking and flinching away from me. The scratches and cold shower. Leaving.

Brady snaps his fingers in front of my face. “Hey. No. That right there, stop it.”

“What do you want me to say?” I croak. “I did it and it’s unforgivable.”

It happens so fast that I sit statuesque, shattered by the gravity of my inadequacies as Brady pulls the kitchen faucet out, aims it at me like a weapon and flicks it wide open. Water sprays me full blast, hitting me right between the eyes. “Fuck!” I shout, ducking down to take cover. “Was the water-boarding fucking necessary?!”

My former best friend bellows a laugh from somewhere above me. “Try me, asshole. I can do this all day if you don’t quit saying dumb shit.”

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