chapter 46

wish you were here

The quietness of the night is disconcerting as it clashes with the rage still brewing inside of me. The only sounds I hear are the unforgiving January winds and the faint rattling of cars as they pass the streets outside of Travis’s neighborhood. I inhale the cold air and fizzle out slightly as it burns my lungs. I haven’t smoked in months, but the harsh chill fucking stings as if I just lit up a few moments ago.              

I’m relieved to find Travis’s car parked in his driveway. For some reason, I was fearing he would skip town and avoid facing me. Giving me some sort of closure is the very least this fucker can do. After all that has happened, after all the shit he’s done, he owes me that much. I want an explanation. I want to know what the hell he was thinking when he drove away and left my brother for dead. I want to know what happened to the man I thought he fucking was. I don’t know if that man was a figment of my imagination, a romanticized version of him, or someone who died a long fucking time ago.

Taking a deep breath, I roll up my window and hop out of my truck, crossing the street and walking up the sidewalk to get to Travis’s home. I parked by an oak tree down the street, hoping he wouldn’t see my truck and decide to lock himself inside his house, hiding like a fucking coward. An older woman, who I assume is his neighbor, gives me a horrified look as I approach his house.

“Mind your own fucking business,” I mumble beneath my breath as I pass her by.

I know I look fucking horrendous; I don’t need a fucking mirror to know that. My face is bruised from where I hit myself. I’ve been crying like a little bitch for the past few hours, and my bloody, injured hand is wrapped up with a dirty cloth. Add to that the ugly scar over my left eye and the numerous tattoos I have, and I don’t look like someone you want venturing into your neighborhood at night. The older woman saunters off, looking horrified. I hope she doesn’t call the cops on me. That’s the last thing I need. I need to settle things with Travis, then go home to my family and sort my shit out. I don’t need to be locked up for the night.

I approach Travis’s house, preparing to bang on the front door and yell until he opens up, but I’m surprised to find it slightly ajar. I pause for a moment, wondering if he really did skip town in a hurry because this shit isn’t like him. Well, this shit isn’t like the Travis I thought I knew; I don’t know who the hell he is anymore. He used to be so fucking anal about everything. Not the type to leave his front door open for anyone to walk the fuck in. I cautiously push the door all the way open and enter, almost expecting him to be standing in the foyer waiting for me. He’s not.

“Travis!” I call out as I slam the front door behind me to announce my arrival.

There’s no answer. He must be fucking hiding from me like the coward is. Not wanting to own up to the shit he was too afraid to tell me before. Just thinking about him locking himself up in his bedroom and avoiding me makes me livid. He was too much of a fucking pussy to save my brother, and he’s too much of a pussy now to own up to it. He’s a far cry from the man I once thought he was. Hell, he’s not even similar to the man I used to know.

“Are you seriously going to fucking hide from me, Travis? After everything we’ve fucking been through together… everything you’ve done… You’re going to fucking hide from me!?” I call out, becoming more and more enraged with every step I take.

I make my way down the hallway toward his bedroom. It’s the only room with light shining out from under the door. A mirthless laugh escapes my lips. He’s really going to hide in his bedroom like the rat bastard he is? How disgusting. I want him to tell me the truth while he looks me in the face. I want him to look me straight in the eye and confess his guilty actions. I don’t want excuses. I don’t want any tears. I just want to hear him utter the words he’s avoided for so long.

“Travis!?” I call out again as I reach for the doorknob to open the door. It’s fucking locked and my anger skyrockets. I continue to turn the doorknob anyway, hoping the rattling will shake him up enough to man the fuck up and open the door for me. It doesn’t take long for me to realize that isn’t going to happen. So, I let go of the knob and begin kicking the door, smiling as it dents under the heel of my boot. The damage I dish out on the door feels fucking incredible. Releasing some of the pent-up rage that’s been bottled up inside of me is blissful, so I kick until the dent in the door transforms into a gaping hole.

I feel like Jack fucking Torrance as I quickly duck down to get a look inside his bedroom. Travis has his back to me, sitting on the edge of his bed and just staring out the window. He hasn’t seemed to even notice my presence at all. I apparently don’t scare him quite like I’m scaring myself right now. His body is perfectly still and his mind seems somewhere else completely. I reach through the hole in the door to unlock it before pulling my hand back out and opening it. As I walk inside his bedroom he doesn’t so much as flinch. If he weren’t sitting up straight I’d think he was fucking dead.

“Travis?” The anger in my voice fades into confusion as I look at him. There’s something fucking eerie about seeing him sitting like that. I walk around the bed so I can get a better look at him. His face is void of any emotion and his bloodshot eyes are just as dead. Regardless of how much I fucking hate him right now, I can see the face of the man who was once my friend. The face of the boy I grew up with: a boy who was like a second brother to me. The memories of the past few hours come rushing back and any fondness I’m feeling for him quickly dissipates. I wish I could think of him as a fucking stranger because then this wouldn’t hurt so fucking badly.

I say his name once more and watch as he still sits completely unresponsive before me. My rage turns into fear as my gaze trails down to his hands, which are wrapped in a vice-grip around the pistol in his lap. Everything in my world comes to a resounding halt. I look back to his blank face in disbelief. So many thoughts course through my mind at once, causing them all to sound like one angry jumbled mess. I’m too far gone to make any sense of them. The tension in the air is palpable. When, I reach out to grab ahold of the gun, Travis shakes out of his catatonic state. He holds it tightly in his right hand like it’s all that he has left in this world.

“Travis… what is this?”

“Please,” he begs, his voice gruff and resigned. “Just leave me alone, Trevor. Just get the fuck out of here and leave me be.”

“No. What the hell are you doing, Travis?”

I’m not going to let him fucking do this. I can’t tell if he’s acting out of cowardice or if he’s been suffering for a very long time. Regardless, I’m not going to allow him to kill himself because of his fucking guilt. He’s shaking before me. He’s no longer the monster I made him out to be just hours before. He looks like a very small, remorseful man who made a really fucked-up mistake. He looks pathetic, like he’s practically dead already. This piece of shit who’s now contemplating his own demise took so much from me. He destroyed me—left me to pick up the pieces of my fucked-up life while he watched from a distance. I hate him. I hate him for so many things, but as tears prick my eyes I realize that I don’t really fucking hate him at all. And that’s the hardest pill to swallow. I want to murder him myself, but I also want to wrap my arms around him and tell him that everything’s going to be all right.

Despite the dark feelings coursing through me as I look at him, I still love Travis like a brother. What happened was a horrible fucking accident, completely devastating, but as I look at the pusillanimous man he’s become, I slowly begin to find forgiveness in my heart. Whatever it takes, I’m not going to let him die tonight. I couldn’t save Dean… I couldn’t save Cat… but I’m going to save Travis. I won’t him slip through my fingers like everyone else. He’ll survive even if he doesn’t want to. He can beg for death, but I’ll show him another way. Instead of reaching for the gun I sit down on the floor beside him, my posture completely non-threatening.

I don’t know what to fucking do, but I know I can’t give up on him. “Talk to me, man.” I try to sound strong, but my voice fucking cracks.

With the gun held tightly in his right hand he shakes his head, tears well up in his eyes before they trail down his cheeks. He’s fucking shaking like he’s a ticking time bomb getting ready to explode before my eyes.

“Please, Travis. Fuck, just say something,” I practically beg.

He’s silent for a long time.

“It was an accident, Trevor,” he finally says with a sob.

“I know that,” I assure him, wrapping my arms around my knees so I’m sitting in a fucking ball on the floor at his feet. “I know it was an accident.”

Travis looks at me for a long time. His eyes are so red they look fucking cashed, and his posture’s so tense he’s vibrating on the bed. I stare back, unwilling to look away for even a second, fearing he’ll do something drastic. Another sob escapes his mouth as he buries his face in his left hand, still clenching the gun to his chest with his right hand.

“Do you know what you’re going to do now that you guys are almost finished?” I ask before taking another swig of my beer.

Travis smiles and shrugs before taking a drink of his IPA. “I got accepted to CU Boulder with Dean.”

This is news. I always thought Travis wanted to leave Colorado. “I thought you wanted to go to school out of state.”

“I don’t think I could deal with being away from Dean for that long,” he admits. “I mean, he’s my best friend and we know so many people at this university.”

Fuck, they must be fucking closer than I thought if Travis is willing to stay in state, a place he’s always claimed to hate, just to be near Dean. He changes the subject, transforming back into the perfect star athlete my mom’s fucking obsessed with. Sometimes, I want to be more like him. His life just seems so fucking perfect, while mine even seems like a fucking mess to me. However, I know I could never be that straight-edge. I admire the guy because I could never be that good if I tried.

The memory is fleeting; the Travis in my thoughts is such a stark fucking contrast to the Travis sitting before me right now. The man sitting in front of me is defeated to the point he’s unrecognizable. He’s allowed that one accident to fuck him up beyond repair. He’s transformed into a man who’s nothing like the boy I knew him to be growing up. I want to look away, but I don’t. I stay focused because I want him as calm as possible.

“I just can’t do this anymore. I can’t live with what I’ve done. Every day is a fucking living nightmare. It’s hard to get out of bed because I know it wasn’t a terrible dream. It’s my God damn reality, Trevor. I’ll never be able to take any of what I did back. It’ll always be a heinous fucking scar I’ll have to carry with me. I’m tired of lying to myself. I’m tired of thinking that one day I’ll wake-up and feel better again. You have no idea what it’s like to live with blood on your hands!”

I can see the hysteria brewing behind his irises; his haunted look takes my fucking breath away. Travis was practically Dean’s brother. Regardless of their friendship he looked Dean in the eyes, then made the decision to save his own ass by driving off—leaving my brother to die. He saw Dean was struggling to breathe, fighting for survival. He knew Dean was trapped in the front seat of his car. He had to accept he did that shit to my brother. I can’t wrap my mind around the guilt that must be eating him up. I thought my demons were bad, but his seem indescribable.

“I killed him,” Travis wails, tears spilling down his contorted face. “I killed my best friend! It all happened so fucking fast! I’d been drinking. I just wasn’t thinking when I got behind the wheel of my car. What were the fucking chances, you know? I fucking drove like that all of the time and nothing ever happened. I thought it was safe, no big deal, right? It was a late at night on the road of a dead-end town. I didn’t think anyone else would be out driving because of the late hour. I just got in my car and thought nothing of it.”

My stomach drops because I know this is the part I don’t want to hear, but I need to hear it. I need to know the truth, no matter what. Once he tells me how it happened, all of this will be fucking real. I’ll never be able to turn back time and forget the images that I’m sure his words will sear into my head. Things always tend to stick with me, and I know that this will fucking stick in my mind forever.

“I was drinking a beer while driving home and I dropped it. It spilled all over my phone and seat before it settled in the floor of my truck. I leaned over so I could reach down to grab it, unable to let the rest of my beer go to waste. That’s when I felt the impact of an oncoming car. Everything was a blur. The sounds of the car crunching, tires screeching, and the blood-curdling screams were all that registered in my mind. I could barely understand what was happening, but I could hear everything. The sound of the car’s steel crunching is something that has stuck with me all of this time; as well as the sounds of Cat’s screams as their car spun off the road and into that fucking tree. There was so much noise and movement, then nothing besides the faint whisper of my radio playing classic rock. When I turned my car off and stumbled out into the night, the silence was debilitating. How could there be screams one moment and dead silence the next?

“I was fucking horrified, Trev. When I got out of my car to check out the damage… to see the extent of what I’d done. I didn’t even recognize Dean’s car at first. However, there was this sick feeling in the pit of my stomach, screaming at me something horrible was about to happen. I got to their car as fast as I could, but when I looked inside, my world fell apart. You should’ve seen them, Trevor. He was looking”—Travis stops for a moment, gasping for air— “right at me. He couldn’t talk, but everything he wanted to say was radiating from his eyes. He looked so fucking dejected. He was reaching for Cat, who looked like she was already dead. Some of the glass from the windshield had been busted inward on her. There were glass shards sticking out from her neck and torso. She was bleeding all over the place. My God, the way Dean was looking at her tore me the fuck up. Then he looked back at me…”

Travis wipes away his tears and shakes his head as if he were trying to shake all the unwanted images out of his mind. I’ve never seen a person look so broken and it’s so fucking unsettling. As he talks, I can’t take my eyes off the way his finger plays with the trigger; it’s like he’s ready at any moment to raise the gun to his head and end his own life.

“It was nearly impossible to look at him, but I didn’t want to look away. I wanted to wrap my arms around him and tell him that everything was going to be okay. I wanted to be the one in his position more than anything. I loved him, Trevor. I loved him so much, but I couldn’t watch him die. I was such a fucking coward. I got back in my car and drove away, pretending I just hadn’t left him gasping for air in the front seat of his car. The only thing I could say to him before I left was ‘I’m sorry.’ I didn’t tell him that I loved him or anything else. I wish I fucking had now because ‘I’m sorry’ must’ve been the last thing he ever heard.”

“I loved him, too,” I say, trying to connect with Travis, letting him know that he isn’t alone in this darkness. “You’re not by yourself in this, Travis. We both lost him.”

Travis’s face looks so fucking pained before he quickly looks away, hanging his head. “No, Trevor. I was in love with him,” he admits with a wistful smile. I don’t know what to fucking think about that shit. “Dean never knew, but I would’ve followed that man anywhere. I would’ve done anything for him. Or at least, that’s what I thought. I thought I’d give up everything for him, but I couldn’t even save his life. I was in love with my best friend, and it fucking hurt so much to watch him fall in love with someone else. I can’t even look at my Godson at times because he reminds me of his father. I loved Dean more than anything. How ironic is it I was the one who caused his death? I killed the man I loved.”              

Tears are coursing down my face at his admission and I have no idea why. I’ve cried so much today, so I suppose it just fucking feels right. Part of me hates Travis for what he did, but another part of me just fucking pities him. If I lost Ronnie… if I was the cause of her death… I’d want to end my sorry ass life, too. I don’t know how he’s had the strength to go on for this long. I don’t know how he’s found it within himself to put on a brave face and lie to me every day.

“He’s gone now, and I have nothing left,” he says as his shaky right hand brings the gun up toward his head.

Time seems to slow down as I watch him with wide, horrified eyes. The gun inches closer and closer, his finger shaking on the trigger as if preparing to pull it at any second. My body seems to react before my mind does. I launch myself at him, tackling him down to the floor with me and we begin to scuffle over the gun. He cries out in anger, outraged that I’m preventing him from his desired outcome, and he begins to wail on me with the stock of his gun. My head is throbbing with pain and I taste iron as blood fills my mouth, but I don’t back down. I hit him back just as hard, wanting to knock some fucking sense into him.

“Just let me do it, Trevor!” he screams into my face. “Just let me die! I want to be with him!”

I can’t allow him to do that. I can’t watch him fucking kill himself right before my very eyes. I shake my head, looking up at his broken face with tears in my eyes. I wrap my arm around his shoulder, as if I was giving him a hug while trying to grab the gun with my other hand. He’s sobbing uncontrollably now; his eyes are filled with pure shame as he stares down at my beaten face.

“Give me the gun, Travis,” I say, trying hard not to beg.

“I can’t.” He violently shakes his head. “I need to pay for this.”

“You’ve been paying for it, man,” I quickly reason with him. “Now, give me the gun.”

He shoves his body away from mine, thrashing around above me. I catch him off balance and manage to flip him over onto his back, throwing myself on top of him. There’s no reasoning with him. That much is fucking clear. So, I decide to forcibly rip the gun from his hands. I’m not letting anyone fucking die today. There’s been too much death in my life already. My body is inches from his as I grab his hand and try to pry the gun away. He has his finger tightly wedged in the trigger guard, twitching on the trigger, but I don’t let it fucking scare me. I can’t let him die like this. I can’t have his death on my conscious, too. My eyes snap straight to Travis’s as the gun goes off.

The pain is piercing hot and unbearable, but it quickly numbs as my body shuts down. My ears are ringing. My head is throbbing, vibrating with sound. The room begins to spin as the colors begin to blur together. I hear Travis scream my name before my world goes black.

 

The muffled sounds of concerned voices, frantic footsteps, and an annoying consistent beeping stirs me into consciousness. It takes a moment for my body to play catch-up with my brain, but my eyelids finally flutter open. Nothing looks familiar to me. Everything is sterile and impersonal. My eyes dart around the room at the other beds lining the walls. I can hear moans from the other occupants in the room, but I can’t make them out. Everything is still one befuddled blur. The smell of iodoform and countless chemicals burn my nostrils, making me want to be anywhere but here.

I try to sit up, but my head is fucking aching worse than any hangover I’ve ever had. My head falls back against the pillow as my brain pulsates against my skull. I groan, noticing how dry my fucking mouth feels. I move my mouth around until some saliva manages to wet my tongue and cringe at the taste of disinfectant and medicine. My throat fucking aches. I realize my entire body aches as my world becomes less of a blur. What the hell happened?

“Look who’s awake,” an unfamiliar woman says, bending over my bed to get a better look at me.

Before I can register who the fuck she is, she helps me into a sitting position and hands me a cup of ice chips for my throat. My haze begins to lift as I suck on the ice, causing my vision to become clearer. I feel like I’ve woken up from a dream. An extremely bad and disturbing nightmare. I don’t remember much. I sure as hell don’t remember how I ended up here, but I remember finding Travis and trying my fucking hardest to save him. My eyes widen at the memory. I sit up further in bed, ignoring the pain that shoots from my head all the way down to my toes. I wildly look around the room for a glimpse of him.

“Sit back, Mr. Warren,” the woman, who I assume is a nurse, says. “Your surgery was successful, but now you’ll need to relax and take it easy.”

My surgery? Suddenly, I remember fucking everything. I’m quickly brought back to reality and everything over the last few hours quickly flood into my conscious mind. My eyes are finally open to everything and it’s fucking horrifying. My eyes scan down at my aching body, seeing that my right shoulder is wrapped up in bandages. Everything else seems to still be intact but bruising and swelling covers a large area of my body, adding to the dull pain of my aching muscles.

The nurse gives me a sympathetic look before quickly walking toward her desk and coming back with what looks to be a syringe in her hand, causing me to fucking flinch. I’m covered in tattoos, yet I have a phobia of needles. How fucking ironic. Instead of poking me with it, she injects something into my IV line and gives me a comforting smile.

“The Dilaudid should make you feel better pretty soon,” she says, simply. When she’s finished, I look up at her, waiting for an explanation. While I remember shit, my memory is still kind of fuzzy. Therefore, I don’t know how reliable my narrative truly is. In terms I barely understand, she explains I’d been shot in the shoulder and shattered my clavicle. She told me I was truly lucky the paramedics arrived as quickly as they did. If they hadn’t, my situation could have been very bleak.

“The shot to your shoulder severed your brachial artery and brachial plexus nerve. If you had arrived mere minutes later you could’ve been in a lot of trouble. Someone must be looking out for you,” she says with a smile. I’m sure she intended her comment to be comforting.

I snort at her words and a sharp pain shoots up my side.

“Are you ready to see your family? Once we get you settled in your room, you’ll be able to see them.”

I shake my head, quickly scanning the room again for Travis. Is he alive? I remember the look in his eyes before everything went black. It was so haunted—filled with so much pain it would’ve taken my fucking breath away if the blood loss hadn’t caused me to pass out. What if he ended his own life after I blacked out and I wasn’t there to protect him from himself?

“Travis?” I ask, not recognizing the sound of my own shaky voice. It’s rough and sounds like I’ve smoked multiple packs of cigarettes a day for fucking decades.              

The nurse’s brows crease with confusion, and I know she doesn’t understand who the fuck I’m referring to. I don’t know if this is good or bad news. If he was in critical condition he would’ve been taken to this hospital, as well. The nurse would’ve most likely known the name or heard of another gunshot injury at some point during the night. That is, if he went into surgery, considering she works in the recovery room. If Travis hadn’t been rushed to the ER, then there are only two possibilities my drugged-up mind can come up with: The first being—he’s alive and decided not to go through with ending his own life. The second… Well, the second possibility isn’t something I want to contemplate. Travis has to be fucking okay. If I did all of this for nothing it would be fucking devastating. Not because I ended up in a hospital bed because of him. Hell, I’d take a bullet for him multiple times if it meant I’d be saving his life. It’d be fucking catastrophic because his death would mean I failed again. He’d be another person I wasn’t able to fucking save. As illogical as I know it sounds, I can’t deny the guilt that weighs on my heart every day. I can’t ignore the voice in my head that screams I could’ve done better.

“Let’s get him to his room,” my nurse says to another one.

She grabs my IV bag from the pole and hooks it onto my hospital bed before she wheels me out of the recovery room with the help of another nurse. The corridors are fairly quiet for a trauma hospital, making me wonder how fucking late… or early it is. How long was I out for? I feel like I could fall right back to sleep. Once they get me to my room, my nurse helps me to the bathroom. My bladder feels like it’s going to explode after all the IV fluid.             

“Thanks...” I begin to say as I look for her ID badge.

“Debbie,” she quickly supplies before giving me a kind smile which has the power to put my heart at ease for a moment. “I’ll go get your family and tell them you’re finally settled into your room so they can come back to see you. They’ve been waiting for you for a while.”

My heart drops at the thought of my family worrying about me. I can’t imagine how rough this has been on Ronnie. She’s always worrying about me enough as it is; now I’ve given her something to actually stress out about. I can’t imagine how fucking distraught she must be. I’m surprised she hasn’t busted back here already just to make sure I was alive. Ronnie isn’t the type of girl you can fuck with, and she’s definitely not the type to wait patiently when she thinks someone needs her. I could kick myself in the ass for not calling her before I went to Travis’s house. My stomach turns at the thought of her crying in the waiting room. I want to see her immediately.

I don’t have to wait long before my whole family comes rushing into my room with Nurse Debbie diligently following behind them. As soon as I see the look on Ronnie’s face, I fucking breakdown in front of everyone. The heartache swimming in her green eyes with the worry etched on her beautiful face makes doing anything fucking difficult. I just want her to hold me. I just want her to tell me that all this shit is okay and everything will turn out fine. I’ve never needed anyone before, but damn it, I need Ronnie like I need air.

“Oh, Trev!” she cries as she rushes toward my bed with our teary-eyed son in her embrace.

As soon as she gets close enough to touch me, she stops and stares down at my wounds, taking everything in with a look of disbelief on her face. Don’t cry for me, angel. Everything’s okay now that we’re together. I spent the night blinded by rage and the painful burn of betrayal. I’d selfishly searched for vengeance—or some sliver of understanding. I could’ve died tonight and Grey would’ve lost another father. I can’t take risks like this one ever again. The fucked-up part of all this is I don’t even know the outcome of my risky behavior. If Travis died will any of this shit have been worth it? It’s strange—I always thought if I ever found my brother’s murderer, I’d kill him with my bear fucking hands. Yet, when I heard Travis’s truth, I found forgiveness instead of brutal rage.

I hold out my freshly bandaged hand and urge Ronnie to come forward, wanting desperately to feel her warm body wrapped around mine. A sob escapes from her lips as soon as she touches my fingertips. She carefully sits on the hospital bed at my side, wrapping one of her arms around me, while the other arm holds our crying son safely on her lap.

“Dada?” Grey questions with an uncontrolled sob. “Dada!” His large, worrisome looking eyes dart around my face. They quickly become horror filled as he takes in my appearance. I watch as his bottom lip begins to quiver before he sobs even harder.

“It’s okay, buddy. Daddy is okay now.”

I give Ronnie a quick kiss on the cheek, enjoying the way her soft skin feels under my busted lip before asking her to sit Grey on my lap. I pull him against my chest and hold him as tightly as my injuries will allow. He’s shaking in my arms, his emotions radiating off his body and hitting me like a smack in the fucking face. He could’ve lost me tonight. My rash behavior could’ve destroyed this little guy. I close my eyes and try to gain control over myself but, as I’m surrounded by people that I love, it’s hard to do so. When I open my eyes again I look to my parents, who are quietly talking with my nurse. Mom’s in tears and Dad has his arm wrapped protectively around her shoulder. His entire body is tense as he listens to Debbie speak. What the fuck could she be saying to them that’s so distressing? Is it about Travis?

“Dada!” Grey whines again, begging for my attention.

“It’s okay, Grey. Daddy’s here. I got you.”

I carefully bounce him on my lap with the little strength I have left. He smiles for a moment before he sees the bandage on my shoulder and curiously points as his eyes widen and fill with fresh tears. I kiss his forehead, wanting to assure him that I’m not leaving him.

“Daddy’s got a boo boo, Grey,” I weakly try to explain to him.

He crawls across my lap until he’s face to face with my bandages. He then gives the bandage a quick kiss before looking up at me as if he was expecting some sort of change. He’s trying to kiss it to make it better, like I’ve done with him so many times before. Fuck, that thought makes me incredibly sappy. He always does the cutest shit, and even now, doped up on all my medications, I can still appreciate it.

“Boo boo, Dada?” he asks, pointing toward my shoulder.

Honestly, my shoulder’s so fucking numb, I forget I was fucking shot. It’s tender when I move it, but as long as I stay perfectly still and let the drugs do their job, I don’t feel any pain. However, Grey’s concern does make my heart feel a lot better, at least. It’s rotting in turmoil as my son’s doing his best to pull me out of it.

“Thanks, buddy. Daddy feels a lot better,” I tell him with a weak, lethargic smile.  

“Boo boo, no! Dada!”

I laugh at his babbling and instantly regret it as a sharp pain shoots up my side. Grey begins to cry as he watches my face morph into agony in response.

“Want me to take him?” Ronnie softly asks, as she soothingly runs her fingers through my cropped hair.

Her touch feels so fucking incredible. With her and Grey close I feel like I’m slowly coming down from my tormented high and drift back to where I was before I found out all of this life-altering shit. Slowly, I remember the man I had worked so hard to become in these past few months. The Trevor who was practically born again after his brother’s death.

“I’ve got him, baby. I like holding him,” I say quietly as I allow Grey to make himself comfortable on my lap.

“Oh, Trev… What happened? You went to your A.A. meeting and I never heard from you after that. Then, I got a call from the hospital and I—” She stops, covering her face with her hand.

“I learned some things at A.A.… that I just couldn’t handle. I couldn’t think straight after I knew the truth.”

“What are you talking about?” she asks as she removes her shaky hand from her mouth.

“I was late and as I was walking into the room I heard Travis speaking at the meeting about my brother,” I quietly begin. She reaches out her hand and I take it, gripping it tightly as I recall that meeting. “He was telling everyone the story of what made him want to become sober.” She doesn’t comment and I wonder if she can feel where I’m going with this. “He got in an accident, Ronnie.” And that’s all I say. That’s all I have the strength to say.

Ronnie’s unable to say anything because Nurse Debbie checks my vitals before leaving the room to give me time with my family. Once she’s gone my parents crowd around my hospital bed, their looks varying from sadness, to anger, and then pity. My father is rigid—his face is tight and calculating. I wonder what he knows that I don’t. I open my mouth to speak, but my father waves his hand dismissively, obviously not ready to talk, before taking a seat at my bedside. Mom gives me a watery smile before taking a seat on a stool next to him, placing her hand on his. I watch as my dad runs his hand roughly across his face. It’s something I always do whenever I’m nervous. He leans back in his chair and gives me an evaluating once-over before he sadly shakes his head and looks away.

“Is Travis—” I stop because what I’m thinking is too terrible to say aloud. “Is he okay?” I manage.

Agony washes over my dad’s face before anger takes over in its place and looks me dead in the eye. “He’s fine,” he says in a clipped tone. “Do you remember what happened, Trevor?”

Where the fuck do I begin? How much does my dad already know? Do I tell him about all the horrible shit I heard tonight? Should I tell him that Travis confessed to everything before attempting to kill himself? I sit in silence, trying to read my dad’s face, hoping it will give me some indication as to what to do next. However, I have no such luck. His face is completely fucking blank. It’s as if he’s too afraid to show any emotion at the moment.

“What do you know?” I finally ask.

“I know he shot you,” he answers quietly as his eyes blaze with anger.

“Is that it?” I press.

My dad’s face twists in pain and his eyes fill with tears he desperately tries to reign in. Fuck, he knows! I wonder how he found out.

“Where is he now?”

“He’s in jail,” my dad spits out before taking a deep breath to gain control of himself. “He turned himself in when the cops arrived. Apparently, someone in the neighborhood called—thank, God. He screamed at them to help you before he begged to be locked up and they questioned him.”

So, he’s not a fucking coward anymore. The nurse’s words come back to me. If I’d gotten here any later I could have very well been dead. With my shoulder shot and an artery severed, I could have bled out on Travis’s carpet if someone or something hadn’t intervened. Travis made sure I got the help I needed. Travis saved me as I tried desperately to save him. People died—people who really fucking mattered—but we still managed to overcome our demons and save each other. The darkness lurking inside of us wasn’t as all-consuming as I once thought. We had to face our demons together—walk through that darkness together until we came out on the other side as fucking different people. Hand and hand, with blood, sweat, and tears, we faced the worst of ourselves and burned it down. In that terrifying moment as the light of this world began to fade away, I was reborn. So was Travis, apparently.

When I thought all hope was lost, and the light began to turn to darkness... I saw Dean. I know it’s all a figment of my fucking imagination as the adrenaline was coursing through my body, but it was like he was standing right beside us. Watching me, always watching me. Looking out for me like he used to do when I was a kid. I could feel him there as if he really was just inches away from us. He gave me the same reassuring smile he used to give me all the time when I was growing up. I know it sounds fucking crazy. The rational part of my mind knows none of that shit is real. However, I can’t help but feel like it was. Maybe seeing his face is what kept me fighting until the paramedics arrived. Even now, I feel like Dean is with me. I hope this feeling lasts forever.

“Do you know about Dean and Cat?” I ask my dad, who’s growing increasingly more defeated at my side.

My heart goes out to him as I watch his face crumble. He’s spent the night in the hospital waiting for his only living son to get out of emergency surgery. On top of that he found out the details of his other son’s death. That’s a lot to take in on the same night. As I rock Grey slowly in my arms, I watch my dad’s demeanor grow progressively worse as he leans against my mom’s shoulder.

“This is the same hospital Dean died in,” he tells me with a shaky voice. His hand is trembling in front of his mouth as if he were trying to compose himself. “We were waiting for you to get out of surgery for such a long time that I thought you were lost, too. It took you hours to wake-up. I’ve never been so afraid in my life.”

Mom wraps her arms around his shoulders and presses her cheek against his head, which is now bowed down so I can’t get a clear look at his face.

“Dad, I didn’t mean to put you through all of this again,” I say, having a hard time watching him—the man who’s always been such a strong role model for me—breakdown in front of me. “I wasn’t thinking about anything. I got this horrible feeling and I just knew I had to see Travis,” I rasp out, my voice still hoarse from the tube that was shoved down my throat during surgery. “I thought he was going to skip town or something, and I couldn’t allow him to run away. When I got there, he had a gun lying on his lap and had this horrible blank look on his face. Dad, I had to stop him. I wasn’t there to save my brother”—I stop speaking for a moment to suppress a cry— “I wasn’t there to save Dean, so I had to be there to save Travis. I had to do anything in my power to keep him alive. I had to at least fucking try. I wouldn’t be able to live with myself if he passed away, too.”

“You were in no way responsible for your brother’s death, Trevor.” Dad shakes his head and gives me a look filled with pity. “You’re always so hard on yourself. That’s why I always cut you so much slack unlike your brother,” he says, with a sad, reminiscent chuckle.

“I’ve just felt guilty,” I admit quietly.

“You used to wish it were you,” my dad says, locking eyes with me. I want to look away, but his gaze seemed to penetrate mine. “I could tell. As soon as you got back to Evergreen and started to take care of Greyson, I could tell.”

I hear a quiet gasp at my side and break eye contact with my dad long to look at Ronnie. She doesn’t seem shocked, apparently my tendency for self-loathing isn’t news to her, but she cries for me anyway. Seeing her like this causes my own eyes to fill with tears, even though I feel as if I’ve cried myself dry over the last twenty-four hours. I try to give her a look that shows her how much I fucking love her, silently conveying I’d never think about offing myself now that my past is finally behind me.

“I used to feel guilty for being alive after Dean died, between the two of us, I felt like it should’ve been me. He had everything to fucking live for, whereas I had nothing at all. I was already in a dark place when he died. I’d been worthless for so long, Dad. I could’ve died back then and I’m sure no one would’ve really missed me too much.”

“What the fuck, Trevor.” My eyes shot to Ronnie, who rarely curses. She looks beautiful, yet furious. I can’t tear my eyes away. “Trevor, how could you think no one loved you? Or would miss you if you were gone? Are you serious? You’re surrounded by people who love you, baby.”

“Back then I didn’t feel like I was.”

“Well, you’re never going to feel like that again,” she says in a stern voice that only makes me love her more.

“I couldn’t. Not with you.”