Page 103 of Drowning Erin

“Erin told me all about you,” Sean says withdisgust.

I glance over at him. “Is that why you’re still acting like I’m a piece of shit even though I bailed youout?”

“I appreciate what you’re doing. That doesn’t mean I trust you with my sister,” he replies. “Rob’s an asshole, but he wouldn’t fuck her up. I could tell from the moment she started describing you that you would. It was like she was upset in advance, like she knew you were going to hurther.”

Which is exactly what Idid.

* * *

Ideliverhim outside the same hospital doors where I dropped Erin yesterdaymorning.

“Room 1108,” I tellhim.

“You really don’t want me to tell her it was you who found me and bailed me out?” he asks, his hand on thedoor.

I tell him I don’t. She’s better off thinking of me as the guy who didn’t care enough than the guy who cared a little too much allalong.

Dissatisfaction gnaws at me as I drive away, and for no reason I can explain, I want to talk to my brother. We’ve barely spoken since I started hooking up with Erin. But like every other fight we’ve ever had, this one will end when one of us is struggling. And right now, I’m definitelystruggling.

“Why the fuck are you helping Sean?” he asks after I tell him what’s going on. “You don’t evenknowhim.”

“I’m not doing it for him,” I reply. “I’m doing it forErin.”

He laughs. “Right, Erin, the girl you don’t want a relationshipwith.”

“What’s yourpoint?”

Will sighs. “You just risked your entire business to keep her from being upset. You realize that, right? And when you love someone so much you’re willing to give up everything on her behalf, getting nothing in return, committing is the easypart.”

“It’s more complicated than that,” Iargue.

“No, it’s not. You’re just fucking scared. That’s all thisis.”

I’m pissed when I hang up the phone. Maybe in small part because I wonder if he’s right. I reach the interstate, planning to head south, but I go the opposite direction instead—heading somewhere I should have gone longago.

71

Erin

Present

Rock bottom.This must beit.

I cannot find Sean. I have called every friend of his I know of. But “know of” is the key phrase. And the people I don’t know are the people he’s with when he’s using. Which is obviously why I can’t locatehim.

I need to tell my parents. I just don’t know how. Like a child, I’m sitting here, waiting on a miracle. A last-minute reprieve, a Hail Mary. Except the hours are passing quickly. The attending informs us that they’ve scheduled the surgery for late this afternoon, at which point I stop counting hours and switch to minutesinstead.

There are 202left.

But Rob promised he’d look for Sean, and while I seem to fail at almost everything I do these days, Rob does not. In the short period of time since he arrived from Amsterdam, he’s already begun to turn things around. Thanks to him, we’ve now got the area’s best neurosurgeon performing my dad’s surgery, and he took care of my parents’ mortgage payment for the next fewmonths.

It’s hard not to see the pattern here: life falls apart without Rob, and it comes back together with him. Rob never hurt me the way Brendan has. Maybe he isn’t perfect, but there’s a lot to be said for the absence ofpain.

136 minutes remain. My father wakes and asks if Sean is almost here. I tell him I think so, part of me hoping he just falls asleep before the surgery so he never learns thetruth.

100 minutes, then72.

My dad stops asking. He just watches thedoor.

---