Chapter Twenty-Seven

Collin

“Maybe you’ve had enough,” Owen said, reaching for the bottle I’d put to my lips.

I pulled it away aggressively.

“Maybe you’ve had enough,” I shot back.

Owen pursed his lips and grimaced. He wasn’t used to being talked to like that. Not since he’d gotten big. Real big. He didn’t understand the dynamics of the situation he was in. He was the little brother, whether he was physically bigger or not. He had to deal with the situation as it was. Which was that I would do what the hell I wanted to do, and he would just have to deal with it.

I took another deep sip.

I forgot how much I really liked the taste of straight whiskey. Had it always tasted this good? Why did I have that reaction normally then? The one where I pulled my cheeks in and closed one eye? I was drinking it with no problem this time. That didn’t make much sense.

My desk had a lot of crap on it. Cups and a plate and a notebook I’d been scribbling in. Wait, was that the dream thing? I couldn’t let Owen see that.

No. No, it wasn’t the dream book. It was just a notebook I’d been taking notes on the other ideas for making money. Ideas Luke kept shooting down.

Luke. My only big brother. He always knew what to do. Except when he didn’t and I had to figure things out. But nobody talked about that, did they? No, Collin was just the quiet one. The weird one who couldn’t go outside.

Jerks.

Nobody tried to understand me. They just made assumptions. I heard them when they didn’t think I heard them. They would talk all quiet, and whisper, and say, ‘Oh, yeah, he cracked while he was in Iraq.’ ‘Yeah, Collin just broke. They sent him home because he broke.’

I wasn’t broken.

Or was I?

I pushed away from the table, and the world wobbled a little bit more than I expected. Silly me. I’d been drinking while sitting down. Rookie mistake. I should have known better.

Sitting down just gets you used to how the world works from that position. When you add alcohol, and then stand up, you’ve changed the nature of the world, and your brain is too slow to catch up. I knew better than that. I knew better than to try to stand up and run.

Owen tipped me back to standing as I started going backward. I wasn’t even aware I was until he pushed me. I resented him for it, though. I should have been able to fix it myself.

I could handle this.

“Collin, when was the last time you got drunk?”

I shrugged. Who cares about stuff like that? Owen does. Weird little Owen. What does he know? He’s a baby.

“Lessse,” I said, noticing the audible slur in my voice and furrowing my brows at how my tongue was disobeying my brain. “Probably the last time I got really drunk was, umm, a week after I got home.”

“From the military?”

I nodded. Big mistake. The world went all wobbly again.

“So it’s been over a decade then?”

I tried to count on my fingers the different years since then. I got to about eight and then forgot what year it was currently. The pandemic really did me in on that. I gave up.

“Something like that,” I said. “Give or take.”

“All right, I think maybe it’s time to get you in bed,” Owen said.

“Nope.”

I tried to run and immediately tripped over my own feet, sprawling on the floor and spilling my drink.

Owen muttered a curse under his breath, and I could hear someone coming up the stairs. Struggling to get to my knees, I watched the door open and Luke poke his head in.

“The hell is going on in here?” he asked.

“Collin’s drunk,” he said.

“What?”

“I said Collin is drunk. And I’ve got something I need to go do. So he’s your problem now.”

“Always have been,” I muttered morosely.

“Wait, hold on. Collin? Why would he get drunk?”

Owen made a frustrated sound as he cleaned up the spilled whiskey.

“Apparently, when we didn’t get the camera from whoever it was, Brandy decided to break up with him. She did it right before we came home, and he went right up here and started drinking. I came to check on him after a half hour, and he was already like this.”

“Jesus, how much did he drink?” Luke asked.

“At least that much.”

Owen pointed to the desk, where three empty beer cans, an empty cup, a half bottle of soda, and an empty bottle of whiskey sat.

“And I got this,” I said, waving my new whiskey bottle in the air, spilling more of it.

“Dammit, Collin, put that down,” Owen said.

“All right. I think I know what to do,” Luke said.

“Good, because I need to get out of he—hey!”

From down the hall, Luke’s muffled voice shouted back. “Just a second, just a second!”

Owen turned to me and held out his hand. I slapped it.

“High-five,” I said.

“No, the bottle, Collin,” he said.

“No,” I said. “It’s mine.”

“Yes, but you are being irresponsible with it,” Owen said. “You would do the same thing for me. Give it over.”

“One more drink.”

“You don’t need one more drink, Collin. You are very, very drunk.”

“Too late.”

I had the bottle to my mouth, tipping it upside down completely and guzzling as much as I could get in. Owen yanked it away, spilling some on my face and my shirt, and put the top back on before taking it outside of my room and sitting it on the floor.

“Now let’s get you up and changed into a different shirt,” he said.

He opened my drawer and pulled out a white T-shirt and then reached down to help me up. I didn’t have to do a lot to get to my feet, as Owen was plenty strong enough to lift me, but I tried anyway. Once I was up, he helped me out of my shirt and into a new one, brushing my face with a towel as I tucked the shirt into my pants.

“There,” I said. “Now I’m ready to go out.”

“You aren’t going anywhere,” he said. “You’re going to bed. That’s it.”

“Pshh,” I said. “I can go where I want. I’m an adult.”

“Yes, you are an adult,” he sighed. “But an adult who has made a very dumb decision.”

I paused, swaying for a moment, looking my brother in all six of his eyes.

“You think I’m a loser, Owen?”

He looked surprised and tried to hold me still.

“No,” he said. “I think… I think it’s possible you might be the bravest of all of us. I talked to your friend Dwayne the other day.”

“Dwayne? Why did you talk to Dwayne?”

“He’s… he’s a fan. Of what I do. It doesn’t matter. What matters is he told me a little bit about why you came home so fast from Iraq. Collin, I know you’re drunk and not thinking clearly, but I have to tell you, you need to talk to people about that. No one knows what you went through. And you need help getting through it still.”

“I’m fine,” I slurred. “Just bad dreams now. I just gotta not dream. Piece of cake.”

“Collin?” The soft voice came from the doorway, and my eyes seemed to take forever to slide that way.

“Amber?” I asked.

“Hey, Collin. Let’s get you in the bed.”

“I’m not sleepy,” I lied.

“It’s not about sleep; it’s about safety. My safety. Okay? Can we do that to keep me safe?”

That seemed to make sense. I nodded. Owen helped get me closer to the bed, and I flopped down on it. Clawing my way up to the pillows, I rolled onto my back, and Owen pulled the covers over me.

“He’s all yours,” he said.

“Thanks, Owen,” she said. “I’ve got it from here.”

“You sure?”

“I’ve dealt with drunk gunshot victims and no sedatives. He’s going to be easy.”

“Good luck,” Owen said and started to leave but stopped. “Actually, before I go, I need to tell you something. Come here.”

He pulled her to the corner of the room and whispered to her for a long time. The world was still doing its spinning thing every time I moved, so I stayed put, but I couldn’t make out what they were saying, and it bugged me. Eventually, Owen left and Amber came and sat on the bed near me.

“Collin, Owen told me some things that you’ve been keeping secret.”

“He shouldn’t have,” I grumbled. “No one knows for a reason. A good reason.”

“What is that reason, Collin?”

“Because…” I said, then realized the reason that I had, which I was completely sure of, was locked somewhere in my mind. I couldn’t think of what it was. “I don’t want to tell anyone.”

“Collin, you saved a lot of people’s lives,” she said. “At great risk to your own. Why wouldn’t you want anyone to know that?”

I stayed quiet for a long time, images flashing in my mind. Specifically, three faces.

“Because I didn’t save everybody.”

“Who didn’t you save, Collin?”

“I didn’t know their names,” I said. “I never knew their names. No one could identify them because their faces were all…”

I made a motion with my hand in front of my face, and Amber seemed to understand. She nodded, grimacing.

“You feel guilty you didn’t save them?”

I nodded.

“Even though everyone calls you a hero?”

I nodded again.

“You know, I don’t know the particulars of the situation, but I am sure you couldn’t have saved them even if you did everything differently, Collin. You did everything you could. You still saved a lot of people.”

“I shouldn’t have lived,” I said. “I should have died like them. Then I wouldn’t have met Brandy and ruined her life too.”

“What happened with Brandy?”

“Someone filmed us naked,” I said. “In her office. They are blackmailing her now. She broke up with me.”

“That’s… that’s a lot,” she said. “We didn’t know exactly what was going on. Just that we needed to get home to help.”

“Well, that’s it,” I said. “That’s what it was. And I’m so embarrassed.”

“Collin? Collin?”

I realized my eyes were closing. I was dozing off. Amber was shaking me and calling my name.

“Hmm?”

“Collin, can I tell Luke about what you told me? About all of this?”

“Fine,” I said. “I don’t care anymore. Let the whole damn world know.”

And then, despite the sun still shining brightly in my room, I fell into a deep sleep.