Patting the back pocket of my jeans, I feel the folded piece of paper I put in there this morning when I got dressed and I take a steadying breath. I’ve become OCD when it comes to that damn piece of paper, always patting my back pocket every couple of minutes just to make sure it’s still there.
Six months ago, I wanted to burn that letter. Six months ago, I couldn’t stand the pain the words written on it brought me and I tried to drink myself to death, but now I can’t stand not having it on me at all times. Now I freak out making sure that it’s still there and that I didn’t misplace it or forget to put it in my pocket to carry with me everywhere. I’ve folded and unfolded it so many times, that the creases are about ready to rip in half if I do it one more time. It’s not like I need to reread it. Every word has been imprinted on my brain and I don’t need to look at it to remember what Aiden said to me, but it brings me comfort now to see his handwriting. It gives me strength to stay away from the booze and wake up each day, wanting to live, wanting to move forward and wanting to be a better man.
I don’t know if it was the look on my brother’s face and the words he said to me six months ago, when he came home and found me on the floor of the living room, or the sound of Cameron’s name that finally woke me up. But whatever it was, it did the trick. I woke the fuck up. I had to accept the fact that there was nothing I could have done to save my best friend, and I had to learn how to live with the pain and the guilt of not being here when he died—without the crutch of alcohol. I was still here, living and breathing and I needed to start acting like it.
“You’ve traveled around the world, you’ve saved lives, you’ve become a goddamn hero to strangers. Now it’s time to be a hero back here at home, where you belong.”
I can hear Aiden’s voice so clearly in my head, the one that was always laced with a hint of sarcasm and a touch of pompous asshole, that it feels like he’s standing right next to me. And I smile to myself instead of feeling like I want to curl up in a ball and die. The guilt still stabs into my chest like a knife, and the ache of missing him so much takes my breath away, but the pain of his words makes me stop feeling so goddamn numb.
Leaning across the counter, I pick up the bottle of vodka that’s been sitting there next to the sink for the last six months, collecting dust. I unscrew the cap and then twist it back on, over and over again, staring down at the empty bottle. The last one I drank and the one I keep here in my kitchen to remind me how fucked up I was and how I never want to go back to that dark place ever again.
Now that I’m sober, I’m able to process my thoughts and actions a bit more clearly. Finding out Aiden had cancer and I couldn’t do a damn thing to help him wasn’t exactly a walk in the park. When I was younger, I always wanted to be a doctor like my father. He was a hero who died helping people. When his convoy was pulled over on the side of the road to assist a local who had been shot, a roadside bomb took out his entire unit. I wanted to honor him by helping people in my own way. I thought going off to third world countries would allow me to do this. Little did I know that while I was off being noble, I wasn’t there for the one person who really needed me, the one person I should’ve helped.
I wanted to numb the pain. I wanted to stop feeling. I wanted to stop remembering all the people I couldn’t save oversees or the ones I left behind here at home. It worked for a few months. I drank from the minute I woke up in the morning until the minute I passed out at night. I stopped hearing the cries of pain from sick children and I stopped seeing the devastation on family members’ faces when I couldn’t fix one of their loved ones, and I stopped seeing Aiden’s face everywhere I turned. The alcohol worked…until it didn’t. Until nothing could keep the memories from breaking in and wreaking havoc on my brain. Until I realized nothing could keep the pain away. And that feeling that pain, even if it hurt like a bitch, was how I knew I was alive.
So I’ve spent the last six months getting clean and sober, needing to feel the pain, needing to feel alive, needing to be strong enough to be a hero here at home, like Aiden wanted. I may not have been there for him, but I owe it to him and Cameron to be there for her.
I’m still angry he’s gone. Not a day goes by that I don’t curse him six ways to Sunday for not telling me that he was sick. I understand now that I wouldn’t have been able do anything to save him, but he was my best fucking friend. I should have been there with him at the end, and I’m pissed at him for not giving me the chance to say good-bye. But the anger is better than the depression. He was a daredevil, a risk taker, and he always used to joke that he’d die young.
Great job, Aiden. Way to follow through.
Being pissed at him is better than wanting to die right along with him. I can’t exactly fix things with Cameron if I’m dead, and fixing things with my remaining best friend is my top priority now. It’s the one thing that’s kept me from going to the store and stocking up on vodka and from doing nothing but sitting around feeling sorry for myself. It’s gonna take a lot for Cameron to forgive me, and I need to be strong enough to push back when she fights me on showing back up in her life, like I know she will. I need to be strong enough to let go of my jealousy and just be content at being her friend again. Because regardless of my feelings in the past, I miss our friendship. I miss her, and I hope to God she can let go of her anger and let me back in.
“Do we need to have another intervention? Because I gotta say, the first two were exhausting enough.”
I look up from the bottle in my hand to see Jason stroll into the kitchen and right to the fridge, opening it up and grabbing an apple from the drawer. He slams the door closed and takes a huge bite out of it before crossing his arms in front of him.
After I got sober and started going to Alcoholics Anonymous meetings at the local hospital, and when Jason saw I was serious about staying clean this time, he moved out of our grandmother’s house and got a place of his own in town. I tried to tell him he didn’t need to leave, that this house was as much his as it was mine, and that Grandma had left it to both of us when she moved to Florida to spend her remaining years in the sand and sun, but he reassured me that he’d never really wanted to live here. He just stayed here when I was gone for all those years so it would be ready for me when I finally decided to come home and stay home. And then when I finally did, there was no way he could leave, out of fear that I’d do something to myself and he wouldn’t be here to save me.
Hearing him ask about another intervention and thinking about all the times he took care of me, when it should have been the other way around, almost made me want to pick up the bottle again. I hated that my younger brother was always picking up my pieces. I hated that I made him feel like I was his obligation and that he had no other choice. That hatred with myself and for what I’d done to him is another reason why I’m determined to keep myself on the straight and narrow and not fuck up again.
“Sure, come on in, Jason. Help yourself to whatever you want,” I reply sarcastically. “And no, you do not need to have another intervention with me. I got your previous messages loud and clear.”
Setting the bottle back down next to the sink, I look back at my brother and we share a look. The last time he saw me with a bottle in my hand, I was one sip away from being hospitalized for alcohol poisoning. Even if the urge to drink is always with me, I’d never do that to him again. Even when I was three sheets to the wind and lying in a pool of my own vomit, I could never forget the look on his face when he snatched the bottle out of my hand and told me that losing our parents was bad enough and I could go fuck myself if I thought I could leave him behind as well.
I shake myself out of that memory, reaching into my back pocket and pulling out the letter. Jason comes up next to me and leans back against the counter to stare down at the piece of paper with me.
“Why do you keep holding on to that thing? It’s depressing as shit,” he mutters, taking another loud, crunching bite of his apple.
“It’s not depressing. Not now, at least. It gives me something else to focus on other than wanting to drink,” I tell him with a shrug.
“You’re not Mom.”
His softly spoken words pull my eyes away from the letter in my hand as I look at my brother.
“I know,” I reply quietly.
“Do you? Because sometimes I think you’re still punishing yourself, feeling guilty for something you had no control over. I’m not an idiot. I know you lied to her about what you were doing in college because of me. Because you were afraid she’d turn into a drunk again and ruin everything.”
I always told Jason back then that we needed to keep things from her because she never got over our dad’s death and knowing that I’d be putting myself into the same kinds of dangerous situations would kill her. I never wanted him to feel like he had any part in that decision. I never wanted him to feel guilty. I should have known he’d see right through it. He was my brother after all. He sometimes saw things more clearly than I did.
“You were happy. I couldn’t ruin that for you. I didn’t want you to have the same childhood I did…” I trail off.
“Newsflash, I did have the same childhood as you. I just didn’t let it get to me like you did. I knew she was a shitty mother and I also accepted the fact a long time ago that nothing I did would change that. Being a mother didn’t keep her sober. You lying to her didn’t keep her sober. Nothing worked, Everett. I accepted it and I let it go. It’s time for you to do the same.”
I look away from him to stare back down at Aiden’s letter in my hands, wondering why in the hell I always felt like the weight of our family’s happiness rested on my shoulders. If I had talked to Jason about this years ago, maybe I wouldn’t have carried around so much guilt for so long.
“Are you gonna do what he wants? Finally get your head out of your ass and go see Cameron?” he asks.
Just like always, the sound of her name wakes up everything dead inside of me. I was too much of a coward to go to her when I got back stateside, too full of guilt that I’d been two weeks too late for Aiden’s funeral, and too fucked up for the next few months after that even to think about going anywhere near her. I never deserved having her in my life before I screwed everything up between us, and there was no way in hell I’d go to her when I was at my lowest. I’ve spent the last six months turning myself around and trying to become a man who deserves her friendship. One who could be strong enough to be there for her, for whatever she needs. I was never a very good friend to her when we were younger, always worrying about my own problems and letting her take care of me, and then letting my fucking one-sided feelings for her ruin things even further. Even if all she needs is a shoulder to cry on as she mourns our best friend, the man she fell in love with when I walked away, I’ll give it to her. I finally feel strong enough to suck it up and deal with the pain of knowing that I lost my shot a long time ago, and I was never good enough for someone like her. I’ve moved on, I’ve grown up, and the only thing I want right now is to be her friend, and to be there for her, like she always was for me.
“Yeah, I’m gonna go see her,” I tell him, sliding the letter back into my pocket, patting it a few times to make sure it’s secure as I push away from the counter.
“Can I come with you? I really want to be there to see her punch you in the face,” Jason laughs, and I shoot him the middle finger when I walk by him and head down the hall to jump in the shower.
It’s been over four-and-a-half years since I’ve seen Cameron James, but not a day has gone by that I haven’t thought about her. Haven’t wished on a thousand stars that I would have done things differently the last night I saw her. Aiden was right in his letter. I need to stop wishing and start making things happen, by repairing my friendship with her. She’s never needed me, always being the strong one in our friendship, always being there for me. I don’t know if she’ll need me now, or even want me anywhere near her after so much time has gone by and after all the ways I’ve let her down. But I know I can’t spend one more day without her in my life.
The Three Musketeers will never be whole again, but maybe the two of us can figure out a way to repair the damage, as long as she lets me try.