Page 29 of A Man To Remember
The guilt sits heavy in my chest, familiar as an old scar. Jamie making excuses for his train wreck of a brother. Lying to our parents, cleaning up my messes, pretending everything was fine when it so obviously wasn't.
"I don't remember most of it," I admit. "It's just… one massive fog. Bits and pieces, but mostly nothing. Like those years happened to someone else."
Austin shifts beside me, and I can feel him processing. Fitting it into whatever picture he had of me from back then.
"After graduation, it got worse. No structure, no consequences. Just me and my habits, full-time." My hands are shaking now. They always shake when I get to this part. "Had this friend, Marcus. We used to get high together. Good kid, you know? Just got mixed up with the wrong crowd. Which was me, mostly."
I pause, gathering courage for the hard part. The part that still wakes me up at night.
"Two years after I graduated, I went to his place. We had this routine—I'd bring the money, he'd bring the connections. Except when I got there..."
My voice cracks. Even years later, it destroys me.
"He was on the floor. Blue around the lips, barely breathing. Needle still in his arm." The image flashes behind my eyelids, vivid as yesterday. Marcus collapsed by his coffee table, skin gray, eyes rolled back. "I called 911, started CPR. Kept going until the paramedics got there."
Austin's hand finds my shoulder, warm and solid. I lean into the touch without thinking.
"He made it. Barely, but he made it." I swipe at my eyes with the back of my hand. "I thought... I thought it'd be okay somehow, you know? That we'd get clean together, figure our shit out. At the hospital, he wouldn't even look at me. Just stared at the ceiling while I tried to apologize." The memory sits like a stone in my chest. "His parents showed up, took one look at me, and they knew. I was the reason their son almost died."
Austin's thumb moves against my shoulder, a small comfort I don't deserve.
"Within a week, they moved him away. Different state, fresh start, all that. I never heard from him again." I let out a hollow laugh. "Can't blame him, really. I was poison. Still using, still making excuses. He chose to save himself."
"That's not your fault."
"Isn't it?" I look at him, really look at him. "I was the one who brought him to my dealer. He was just smoking weed and drinking beer until I introduced him to the hard stuff. I nearly killed my best friend, Austin. And then I lost him forever because of it."
"That's not how it works, Jesse. You know that."
I want to argue, to insist on my guilt, but the words won't come. Instead, I just sit there crying like a child, grieving for a friendship I destroyed and years I'll never get back.
"What happened after?" Austin asks gently.
"Rehab. Three different facilities over two years. Kept relapsing, kept thinking I could handle just one more time, kept proving I couldn't." I scrub my face with my hands. "Amazing how fast you burn through people's patience when you're an addict. Eventually, I ran out of second chances."
"But you got clean."
"Eventually. Seven years now. Still go to meetings twice a week. Still wake up some days wanting to use so bad I can taste it."
Austin's quiet for a long moment, eyes drifting somewhere around his lap, his hand still on my shoulder, forgotten. And even though a part of me is dying to know what he's thinking right now, I know better not to ask.
When he finally speaks, his voice is careful again. "Is that why you don't remember me?"
"Probably. I mean, I remember some things. Bits and pieces. But mostly it's just... blank." I glance at him sideways. "I'm sorry I don't remember you better." I let out a pathetic chuckle. "Although I can imagine I wasn't the greatest of friends."
Something shifts in Austin's expression. A shadow crossing his features, there and gone so fast I almost miss it.
"We weren't friends, Jesse," he says quietly.
"What?"
"We weren't friends. We barely spoke."
"But Jamie said—"
"Jamie was my friend. You... tolerated me. Sometimes."
My stomach drops. The tone, the way he's suddenly not meeting my eyes—it feels like a prelude to something I'm not sure I'm ready to face. "Then why are you here? Why any of this?"
