Page 105 of Derailed
Trent makes his way back and sets the cooler on the pavers. “Water, soda, beer, and hard stuff. Pick your poison.” He lifts a beer out for himself and a water forLexi.
“So, shall we get this started or what?” Austin pops the top off a beer bottle and leaps onto one of the patiochairs.
“Maybe I should go?” Jess whispers in my ear. “I wasn’t close withhim.”
“I want you to stay. That is, if it’s not too hard?” I pick two waters out of thecooler.
She takes a drink from my grasp and nods. “Okay.”
“Dude, no one’s listening to me!” Austinshouts.
“Maybe you should get off your high horse.” Trentsnickers.
“Fuck you, man. I’m trying to be astutehere.”
I laugh and shake my head. “Maybe stop trying sohard.”
“That’s what she said,” Trentsays.
“Come on, that’s enough.” Lexi shakes her head. “Iz would’ve walked out bynow.”
“She’s right.” Trent sits back on one of the chairs and stretches out his legs. “How about we share something we’ll miss most about him? I’ll start.” He takes a long pull from his beer and settles his stare into the fire. “I’ll miss how he always came out of nowhere with a truth bomb. Just dropped it in my fucking lap between inhales of his cigarette. It’s funny because he never really seemed like he had it all together, but if you stopped to listen, he had some really insightful shit to laydown.”
Austin nods, clasping his hands around his beer. “I’ll miss the laughs. I mean, he was always fucking high. Always. But he was still funny asfuck.”
“He looked out for me.” Lexi’s eyes shimmer with the illumination from the flames. “More than my own father which isn’t saying much, but when I toured with you guys last summer he was always asking if I wasgood.”
Trent tips his head. “And you looked out forhim.”
“Yeah. Not sure it did much good.” She shrugs. “I couldn’t even get him to quitsmoking.”
“What about you, Sean?” Austin asks, and emotion clogs mythroat.
I’ve thought about this very question so many times over the past few days, but I haven’t had to put words to my feelings. “I’ll miss his smile. I miss jamming out. He was our brother. He was hurting and I never knew how much. It’s scary, you know? That we could be so close and have no fucking clue how dark things were for him? I don’t want that to happen again. You guys are my brothers.” Tears gather and fall from the corners of my eyes. I should try to hide them, or at least wipe them away, but I don’t. It hurts so damn much and I’m tired of pretending itdoesn’t.
“We won’t,” Trent says. “Sean, it was different withIz.”
I lift my gaze and meet his over the fire. “Yeah, but if we didn’t see a problem like that right under our noses? It doesn’t give me much faith. I don’t want to say good-bye to Iz. It fucking hurts. But the thought of losing one of you that way? It’d fucking ruinme.”
The wood crackles in the steel fire pit as my words hang as heavy as thesmoke.
Austin pushes to his feet. “A bloodpact.”
“Aust . . .” Trent rolls his eyes at histheatrics.
“Minus the blood.” Austin shrugs but his stare doesn’t waver. “I’m being serious. Right here, right now, we make a promise to each other. No matter how fucked up or heavy life gets, we come to each other first. No matter how busy, or stressed, or fucking famous, we always make time tolisten.”
“I’ll promise that,” I say, and I have to hand it to him. Austin might act a fool most of the time, but his heart isgood.
“Now we need a secret club handshake.” He holds my stare a full ten seconds before cracking up. “I’m fucking with you. Though it would be pretty badass.” Maybe he’s still a fool. He shrugs. “Sorry.”
“To never giving up. On each other. On ourselves.” Trent lifts his drink and waits until every one of us does the same before tilting it back. The silence stretches around us, comfortable this time, and for the first time in days I feel as though I can take a full breath. As if a weight I didn’t realize I was holding is nowgone.
“Can I say something?” Jess says, and worries her bottom lip between her teeth before she continues. “I know I didn’t know him very well. We only met once. But he was kind, and hearing all these stories . . . it’s clear he was loved by you all. You made a difference in his life,too.”
“Thanks, Jess.” I squeeze her hand. I’m glad she got to meethim.
“You know what? I’m really going to quit this time.” Austin pulls out his pack of cigarettes and tosses them into the fire. He’s a drunk smoker, only partaking when he’s thoroughly sloshed, and for that alone the timing of his declaration is surprising. “ForIz.”
