Page 9 of Strangers in Love

I pushed all that aside for now as Mr. Gracen finished reciting the typical required “ladies, gentlemen” etcetera, etcetera stuff. I didn’t intend to ever run a business, but I was a firm believer in knowledge. I wanted to learn as much as possible, in as many areas as possible, because one never knew where life’s path could lead. Or what skills and knowledge could possibly one day save a life, perhaps even my own.

Like taking intensive first aid classes that were generally for people intending to become paramedics. Going online to learn American Sign Language when the course here conflicted with my other classes. The self-defense class Freedom and I had taken together. Or the gun course I intended to sign up for at some point this summer. I wanted to be prepared to protect my students in even extreme situations, and sadly, having an active shooter at a middle school wasn’t unthinkable.

“…just because you’re graduating doesn’t mean you ever stop being a student. Continue to learn…”

It seemed like Mr. Gracen agreed with me.

I settled in to give my full attention to the speaker.

Seven

Eoin

Three months and three days.

It’d been three months and three days since I lost my best friend, my second family, and the future I’d planned for myself.

Technically, I hadn’t lost the last two. I’d given them up. But I’d given them up because of what’d happened to Leo. A part of me wondered if I would’ve felt the same way if it’d been a firefight rather than an ambush, or if it’d been anyone but me who’d dragged Leo over to the place where he’d been killed. If it hadn’t been my fault. It still would’ve been awful, but I didn’t know if I still would’ve decided not to re-enlist.

When I’d gotten here, I’d been put in temporary housing since the army really hadn’t known what to do with me. Da’s string-pulling hadn’t covered anything permanent, but I’d been okay with that since I hadn’t planned on staying. Even if I had re-enlisted, I wouldn’t have been staying here. I would’ve gone back to my squad.

What was left of them, anyway.

I closed my eyes and tried not to think about them. The men and women still in Iraq. The ones still fighting the good fight and all those other clichés. I’d gotten a video from them when I was in Germany, but that’d been the only time I’d talked to them since that terrible day. None of them had acted like they blamed me, but it didn’t matter iftheydidn’t.

Idid.

I opened my eyes and took a walk through the house. My shit from Iraq had been sent to me in Germany, and I’d had Da take most of it back to the house in San Ramon. None of the furniture in the place here was mine. None of the dishes or appliances or pretty much anything else in the house belonged to me either. I had a duffel bag of clothes, a stack of graphic novels, and a well-used deck of cards.

A second pass showed only that I’d forgotten to pour out the last of the half-gallon of milk I’d bought earlier this week. Now I was glad I’d looked because that would’ve been a nasty surprise for the next person who opened that fridge. And then I saw that I’d also forgotten to take out the trash.

Shit.

I sighed and dug out a plastic bag from under the sink. What the hell was wrong with me?

I didn’t bother answering the question because it’d even been rhetorical for me. I knew what was wrong. It was the same as what was wrong with everything else in my life.

The lid slammed down on the can with a loud clang, and I winced. The faint headache I’d been ignoring all morning was getting worse. Half of it was a hangover from drinking myself into oblivion, but I’d gotten pretty good at pretending I wasn’t constantly buzzed or wishing I was.

I needed a drink before Brody got here.

I went back into the house and tried to remember if I’d finished off the last of my whisky last night or if I had a little left to take the edge off before my brother got here. I dug through my bag but didn’t see anything I could drink. Not surprising. I pretty much emptied everything every couple days, and I now vaguely remembered thinking last night that I needed to finish everything off.

Shit.

I changed tactics and rummaged through until I found a bottle of ibuprofen. I dry swallowed three of them and grimaced. Yeah, I needed water. I leaned over the sink and filled my hands, slurping down two handfuls before shaking my hands dry. It was a short drive from here to the house, but maybe I could convince Brody to stop at a liquor store on the way.

And then I would’ve slapped myself if it wouldn’t have made my head explode.

Brody was my second oldest brother. Well, second oldest full brother. I had two older stepbrothers too. My family definitely had the yours, mine, ours, and…cousins thing going on. But that wasn’t the point.

The point was thatthisbig brother had a very interesting job.

A job that involved making great whiskey.

He was twenty when I’d enlisted, and he’d been talking about how he was going to start making his own whiskey. No one had really taken him seriously, but no one had taken me seriously either. Everyone had always assumed that I’d fuck things up in the army too. And I’d proven them all wrong. I’d done well in the army. Gotten my shit together. Did good things.

Until I’d gotten my best friend killed.

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