Dean

“Alcohol delays the brain’s communication pathways to every other organ in the body. It creates confusion in the way the brain looks and works. These disorders can change a person’s temper and behavior and make it harder to think clearly and move with coordination. Apart from what it does to the body, alcohol has been linked to hopelessness, anxiety, depression, violent behavior, unprotected sex, suicide, and untimely death. Essentially, every part of the body is affected negatively by excessive drinking. Does your friend show any or all these symptoms, sir? If so, then we here at A Friendly Recovery would love to help him.”

I pull the phone from my ear. Stare at the damn thing and exhale.

“I appreciate the information. You aren’t telling me anything I don’t already know. Did I not ask how long your program is? Do you restrain people if necessary? Do you have counselors on staff? Those are the things I want to know. I don’t need you telling me what it does to the human body. I see that for myself,” I grumble, run my hands through my hair in frustration, and hang up the phone.

“Goddamn it.” I stare angrily at the words on the web. The same words the lady just repeated to me. All of them are knocking on Miles’ death door. The one mocking word sticking out like a dark poisonous dagger to my soul is ‘death.’ Any way you look at it, that’s where Miles is going to end up if I don’t choose the right place.

I’ve called six rehab centers in California, two out of state, and one embedded so deep in the woods, Miles would never find his way out.

Scouring my hands to my temples, I begin to rub them in circles. A headache from hell is making me its prisoner. The buzzing sensations are hanging behind the lids of my eyes.

“Miles, I’m sending you to the one I feel is the best. You fuck up, and I’ll make you my prisoner.”

I grab my phone, close down my laptop, and hit the number of the one person who has all our backs.

“Marcus, I found a secluded place. Think you can check it out a little more?” I ask with my phone on speaker, my hands gripping the lip on my kitchen table.

Movement to my right catches my attention. I drop my shoulders and stare at the man sitting outside in the grass, his legs stretched out in front of him, head tipped toward the sun. He looks like absolute shit. Clothes wrinkled, hair a wild mess. Jesus H. Christ. I feel his trustful gaze land on me as he bends his head to look at me.

Brock.

I can feel his worry chipping away at my gut. It loops around my skull until there isn’t room for anything else. He’s crashed and burned. Destruction impacted in him, there won’t be any coming back for him if I don’t get this right.

I’d been busy running errands all day, came home, and began my search for a place to send Miles and forgot he was stopping by to see what I found. There’s more going on inside of his head than getting Miles help.

You can read someone’s entire life from a facial expression. Brock has his tattooed all over. Invisible ink etched into his skin.

“Thanks, man. I’ll check into it. Let you all know what I find out. We’ve got his back, Dean. This is my top priority.” He rattles off after I give him the name of the rehab facility my gut tells me to go with.

That’s all I got to go by, my gut instinct. Not sure how in the hell we're going to convince the man to go to rehab for months. Live in solitary confinement without any knowledge about the outside world. It’s got to be done, though, or Miles is going to be added to the list of statistics involving alcohol and death.

His death would be the end of us all.

“Appreciate it, Marcus,” I announce after hearing the promise in his voice through the line. His burden is at an all-time high. Same as all of us. More so for the man waiting for me to take this load off his chest.

The thing is, I can push, pull, even bang on Brock’s chest, and he won’t budge. Surprised he let me be in charge of finding the right spot for Miles. Suppose I didn’t give him much choice when I told him the other day I was doing it.

Not like I haven’t been here before. This time, I won’t give the benefit of the doubt the way I did Kate. This time, I’ll shadow Miles until I know for damn certain he has his head on straight, pulls his pity out of his ass, and fights for his reason to breathe.

Sliding my phone into my back pocket, I grab a couple of waters, make my way to the door, grip the handle, and close my eyes. Gorgeous, passionate blues full of some magical, powerful presence flit through my mind. Her eyes fizzled the other night like a stormy haze right before lightning. Orbs threatening to spill tears one second, pupils dilated with a fierce hunger the next. That woman cares without even knowing what she’s caring about.

I was lost in her web long before I touched her. She spilled out words that dug deep into my soul. Trying to calm the rage blistering my insides over a situation that has spiraled out of control I can’t tell which way is up anymore. Tatum Fields is heaven in my hell. The hand I need to lift me up.

Sloping my sunglasses down onto my face, I step out into the light, gut twisting into a tighter knot as I see just how drained my friend is.

“Hey, did something else happen since we last talked?” I slide a patio chair across the tile, take a seat, and hand him a bottle of water.

He squints, tormented features glaring at the sun as if the heat it was radiating down on us was the cause of our burning pain.

“Woke up to two chicks walking out of his room at four this morning. One of them had a wad of fucking cash in her hand. I have no idea if they were whores or stole the money from him. I was harsh. Told them to get the fuck out and I’d find them if they said a word or if I saw or even heard of pictures floating around. One of them smarted off. I lost it, man. I didn’t touch her, but I backed her into the wall. Snatched her phone out of her hand and smashed it. Got right up in her face. I lost my shit on some chick. They both left shaking and crying.”

Brock used to be the guy who walked around with a smile on his face. His mellow demeanor never let a thing get to him. All he’d have to do is sit down, paste on his smile, and he’d snare them in his trap. His smile drove them crazy while it drove me nuts. The guy was always happy. Lived life by the seat of his pants. Even pissed he’d say what needed to be said and end it with a smile. However, just like the rest of us, once you’ve been pushed too far, you snap. Sometimes you recover, rebuild. Other times you don’t. If we don’t get a handle on this and fast, I wouldn’t be surprised if Brock loses himself for good.

“Don’t beat yourself up over it. Those women knew what they were doing. It doesn’t matter if they stole, he gave it to them, or they got paid. The bottom line is, you saw two strangers in your house. You were protecting someone you love. Can’t fault yourself for that, Brock. If you ask me, it’s about damn time your temper flared. I’d have lost my shit a long time ago. You’re hurt, confused, angry. Mostly, you're scared. You have every right to break down.”

I feel the burden of both his fear and wrath shower over me. It's an eerie, familiar feeling. One that will obliterate you if you don’t get a grip. The traumatizing hurt he carries throughout his body brings back memories I shove aside. This isn’t about my loss; it’s about his and the loss of his best friend. I clench my fists as I hesitantly watch his fear trump the fury. His legs start to twitch. Upper body muscles constrict. Then suddenly they break loose. Coiling in a tightened fist that squeezes the last bit of sanity out of him.

An emotional pang of battered emotions strikes my soul as I watch him dig his fingers into the soil, pull up a couple of handfuls of grass, and clutch it as if they are the last bit of tattered threads holding him together. The dude is fighting the impulse to break down.

“Miles is like a brother to me. He is my brother. The guy can’t forgive himself. He can’t forgive her family. He’s giving up. I don’t have anything left in me, man. I’m drowning along with him, and I don’t even drink. Fucking Christ, he’s killing himself. The fucked-up thing is, that’s what he wants. He figures if he’s dead, he won’t feel anymore. Technically, he won’t. But I will. We will. I’m walking down a pitch-black road with no sign of light. No matter what I say or do, I can’t get inside his head. Please tell me you found a good place. I’ll drag his ass there kicking and screaming if I have to.”

Brock doesn’t have to tell me he’s blindly walking his way through the dark; it’s written all over him like a war zone map. Pain. A duel between love and hate. Love for someone you can’t bear watch suffer. Hate for what caused their fall in the first place. It’s a fucked-up way for anyone to live.

I feel the burn in his chest every fucking day. I wish I had known Brock and Miles back when their lives turned to hell. Two kids who met in foster care when they were three years old. Brothers-in-arms who fought the system the same way Roman and I did. We knew the minute they started to play their guitars they were meant to be part of our band.

Miles didn’t share his story with Roman and me until a few years after we all met. He didn’t start abusing the alcohol until somewhere around our third or fourth year of being together. It was his cry for help. What followed were endless emotional binges where we all begged him to get help. Brock, though, he’s done it all on pleading, begging, bleeding hands and knees. The guy has seen it all. Been through hell trying to bring his friend back.

I clearly understand why Miles has gone stony inside. Not much difference between what happened to him and me. We’re going to both live with the guilt for the rest of our lives. It’s how we choose to live with it that pulls us up or drags us under.

He wants to stay under, to discharge the agony of loneliness; he feels everyone who cares should just waste away and die right alongside him. Basically, he just doesn’t give a flying fuck anymore. He’s so caught up in his guilt that he’s wasting away. Swallowing his pride, his reason for breathing, and pissing away a good man.

I had someone to look out for, someone who made me refuse to give up. Someone I’d bleed to death for. Miles does, too, but he’s too deep to take hold of someone's hand and let them lead the way to his light.

“I found a place. Marcus is checking into it a bit more. You need to take care of yourself. You look like death yourself.”

“You think? Hell, I’m scared to take a piss. Afraid if I do, he’ll sneak out the door. Haven’t slept in my bed for months. The couch isn’t as comfortable to sleep on as it is to sit on.” I wouldn’t know. Brock has refused us all time and time again when we ask to let one of us take over.

“Probably should have locked him in my basement the other morning or beat his ass. I don’t know what to say except I feel guilty, too. Should have taken care of this a long time ago. Think we all need to blame ourselves. We enabled him. Let it spin out of control.” That’s the Goddamn truth whether Brock wants to believe it or not.

Miles is the one to blame for his addiction. There might have been a cause, but none of us made him choose the bottle. We’ve all fought beside him. Stood up for him. Went to battle and would continue doing so until we win the war. Not like this, though. None of us will win like this.

“That’s bullshit. You stop him every chance you get. It’s me who drives his ass wherever he wants to go. It’s me who watches him guzzle that shit like water. If it’s anyone’s fault, it’s mine.”

I run my palms down my face while he waits for my response. I need to choose my next words wisely, or the crack in Brock is going to bust him wide the fuck open.

“Now, that’s the biggest load of shit. You need to stop. Why in the hell should you continue to be his watchdog? Let him self-destruct. Lord knows he doesn’t have that far to go.”

I knew right there when his eyes filled with tears, what I said was the nudge he needed to push him over. There isn’t a damn thing wrong with a grown man letting his emotions out by crying. If it makes him feel better, gives him his strength back until we get this sorted, then so be it.

Emotions spin with the warm tears running down his face. Each tear creating a hot trail of agony as his thick, broad shoulders shake with each scrape of emotion that marks his big frame.

The intensity of shame and anger burn under my skin, and a cavernous hole is filled with respect for the man sitting in my backyard heating up and boiling over with the confined pressure he can no longer hold together.

His breathing hitches as he draws his knees up to his chest, lays his head on his crossed over arms, and sobs.

His walls, the walls that have held him up, made him strong, they collapse. Tear by tear, they fall. His shoulders lift his head to the sky, and he lets out a scream from deep within him that shatters me. I feel his suffering hit me. It smashes into me hard enough to knock the air out of my lungs.

“You fucker, you wanted me to bust up. Right now, I feel everything. Pain, agony, heartache. Every sip he takes, the knife twists more. I trust you, Dean. Wherever you send him, I know they’ll do him right. They need to watch him closely. He’s a sneaky bastard. Don’t know how you do it. You’ve undergone the worst kind of loss, and yet you keep on walking.”

I chuckle. He doesn’t know me as well as he thinks if that’s what he sees.

“We aren’t talking about me. We’re talking about you. You're not going to like my suggestion, Brock. What I have to say is what I think is best for both you and him. Once we get him into rehab, you need to disappear for a while. Take some time for you. Don’t care where you go or what you do. You just need to let him be. Let him deal with what he’s losing on his own. I’m here to tell you he might never be the same man you once knew. He’s going to go through stages of grief. The worst one is going to be guilt. Doubt he’ll ever get rid of it. You need to hear me. You gotta let him go.”

I know better than most how guilt will rip away the person you are. Once she sinks in, there’s not a damn thing anyone can do to bring you back.