I barely remembered the ride back to Rio Seco, wasn’t quite sure if I’d said anything to my uncle – father – on the way out the door, fleeing the truths I’d found in that house. I did recall that I felt claustrophobic, like the world was closing in on me, even if the sky was bright, cloudless, and cold all the way back to town.
I bypassed the bar, roaring right past, unable to summon the courage it would take to go inside. Would my friends be able to tell I was a different person just by looking at me? Because I felt different. Maybe there was something to be said for blissful ignorance, even if the thing I was ignorant of was myself. I had been happy, hadn’t I? Dissatisfied that I thought I was missing out on something by not having all of my memories, maybe. Sad that Cheyenne and I might not work out for reasons seemingly beyond my control. But happy on the whole, right?
I hadn’t known what I had. I’d screwed everything up by digging too deep, and now I couldn’t go back.
I was James Ryder.
I had been intent on causing my cousin’s death and taking his identity.
I’d thought I was Jack Ryder for nearly four years. Everyone knew me as Jack.
What was I supposed to do?
I hunkered down in my house, locked the doors, closed the window blinds, and crawled into bed. Was there a chance that this was just another bad dream? No. Now that I had access to all my memories, I couldn’t shut them off. They were like a torrent of constant torture.
I was somewhat aware of the texts and phone calls I was missing, but I didn’t know how to answer them. What could I possibly say to my friends now that I knew who I really was? Right now, I needed time and space to process the shock of having all my memories back. I spent most of my time simply staring at the ceiling, reliving things I thought I’d never be able to remember, like the names of my teachers from elementary school, or girls I had liked in high school but never mustered up the courage to talk to, or the twist of the knife to see Jack with Cheyenne, who I coveted like she belonged to me.
Jesus Christ. What in the hell was I supposed to tell Cheyenne?
But my friends weren’t particularly patient people. After exactly three days of me dwelling with my memories inside my house, Ace came knocking at my door, the glass panes rattling, freezing me in the kitchen, drinking out of the faucet like a degenerate.
“Jack, you in there?”
No. Jack wasn’t in here. I was James, now, and I didn’t know how to introduce myself to my friends. Would they be able to understand what had happened? Would I be able to explain it?
For half a moment, I seriously considered continuing to pretend to be Jack. It hadn’t been subterfuge before. I’d genuinely believed I was Jack Ryder. Couldn’t I keep existing like that? It was the person they all knew me to be. And even if I now had all my memories from being James, I still identified with Jack more. Jack was a good person. I had not been a good person. I had plotted his death, even if I had been unwilling and unable to carry it out, in the end. But even if it would’ve been easier, for everyone’s sake, that I keep pretending I was Jack, I knew I couldn’t do it. I couldn’t lie to the people I cared about. Not even to protect myself. I sank to the floor, weighted down with the horror of everything.
“It’s weird, not having you at the bar,” Ace said, and the door creaked in a way that told me he was sitting with his back against it, on the front stoop of my house. “You’ve become more of a fixture there than I think any of us realized, even you. Don’t you miss it? That nice cushy booth? Getting all the free drinks you want? The attention? Shit, man, you were like the godfather in there. People coming up to you all the time. Schmoozing.”
“I don’t feel like going to the bar right now,” I said finally, just because it wasn’t fair for Ace to be sitting outside of my house with me inside it, silent, letting him ramble.
“That doesn’t sound like you.”
And God, if that wasn’t the statement of the century. What was I supposed to sound like? What was I supposed to like? Everything – every single little detail – had been fudged. I had no idea what I was supposed to do, now. I thought that, if the day should come when all my memories would be back, I would finally be complete. Happy, even, or at least at peace.
I didn’t anticipate that I would be more broken than ever.
“Jack?”
I gagged at that, clapping my hand over my mouth. How was I supposed to tell my friends that I couldn’t be called that name anymore? What could I say to make any of this make sense to them? The only solution I had – and it was a terribly temporary one – was to hide out in my house for as long as I could manage.
“Are you okay in there?” Ace knocked on the door lightly. “Bud?”
“I think I’m coming down with something.”
“You’re sick?”
“Maybe.”
“You need to go to the doctor?”
“No.”
“Can I pick you up something? What kind of sick are you?”
The kind of sick where I wanted to claw my own skin off my body and crawl out of it. To be someone else…but maybe that was the problem to begin with. I had been assuming my cousin’s identity. I had been someone else this entire time. It was wrong to want to leave my reality again. I was stuck being James Ryder. That was something I couldn’t crawl away from, even if I’d been getting away with it for years.
I was a monster.
“Jack. Let me in. Open the door.”
I scooted away from it, realizing he’d heard me fall to my knees, still gagging. He couldn’t come in here. I couldn’t let anyone see me. Not when I was finally seeing who I was. What I had been this entire time.
“Okay. Ready or not, bud, I’m coming in.”
“Fuck,” I hissed, scrambling away as Ace inserted a key I’d forgotten he’d had and turned the knob. I could only imagine what I looked like, on the floor, desperate and unmoored from everything, from the look on his face. Ace looked more shocked than I’d ever seen him.
“I’m calling an ambulance,” he said, his voice remarkably calm, incongruous with the expression on his face. “Just hold on. Give me a second.”
“Stop,” I croaked, making him pause as he groped for his phone. “I’m not sick.” Well, I was. Just not in a way that any doctor could solve – unless it was the kind of doctor who would take me, lock me away, and never let me see the light of day again. Maybe that was what I needed, though. To be locked away.
Ace gave me a look that could only be described as not impressed. “You look terrible. Let me call an ambulance.”
“I’m telling you I’m not sick.”
“I wish I had a mirror to hold up in front of you right now, bud, because you might believe me.” Ace stooped down and hauled me to my feet even as I struggled, flailing, lashing out. “Easy. Just so you can sit on the couch instead of the floor. When’s the last time you swept this place, anyway?”
Cheyenne had been the only reason I’d been keeping it close to clean, but with her gone, and me not being the person either of us wanted me to be, there really wasn’t much of a point. There wasn’t much of a point for anything.
“Hey, come on. You’re scaring me.”
Ace’s reaction was the only reason I realized I was hyperventilating, on the edge of crying. He reached out, and I pushed myself backward, farther down the couch. “Don’t touch me.”
He held his hands up. “I’m sorry. I won’t. Just tell me what you need.”
“I need you to leave me alone.”
“Can’t do that, bud. Not with how you are right now. Who do you want to talk to?”
“I don’t want to talk to anyone.”
“Okay. I’ll just sit here. We don’t have to talk. I’m just going to sit here until things get a little more bearable. How does that sound?”
“It sounds like you’re enjoying your front row seat to the freak show.”
“You are really out of touch if you think I’m enjoying a single second of this.”
“Then get out.”
“If you don’t want me here, I’ll go.” Ace took out his phone. “But you’re going to need to tell me who to call to be here with you, because I don’t think you should be alone. Who do you want? Brody? Sloan?”
My laugh was harsh to my own ears. “And why the fuck would I want either of them?” It wasn’t fair to either of them. They were good friends. I was just so twisted up about everything I’d learned about myself that I wanted to push everyone away. It was for their own good. I wasn’t good for anyone.
“If this is related to something you’ve remembered, and if you’re reacting like this, I can only imagine it has to do with something from battle. From the Army Rangers. Brody and Sloan might not have been Rangers with you, but they’re better equipped to handle this kind of thing than I am.”
“What, are you some kind of detective, now?”
“Used to be,” he said, sounding like he was keeping his voice deliberately light, optimistic. “Not anymore, but I’m a hell of a bartender, so that makes up for it. So, who should I call? Brody? Sloan? Both of them? Though, if it’s both of them, we should probably invite Chuck, as well, so he doesn’t get jealous. Then it’ll be a party. Should I fire up the grill? Get Brody to bring a case of his special brew he socks away just for situations like this?”
“What, exactly, do you think this situation is?” I demanded through gritted teeth. “I would like to know.”
“You are suffering some kind of breakdown, or an episode of PTSD, or you’re actually sick and you’re just being a baby. That’s what I think this is. If it’s not, if I got it wrong, feel free to correct me.”
“You haven’t even scratched the surface.”
I wanted to laugh, because this entire situation was ludicrous. I was just afraid I’d lose control if I did. That men in white coats and terrible cocktails of drugs would be required to get me under control again.
“Then talk to me. Tell me what I’m missing.”
“I told you I didn’t want to talk.”
“You’ll do whatever you want, Jack, but I’m starting to feel like this is something you need to talk about.”
“Don’t.”
“Don’t what?”
“Don’t…don’t call me that.”
“What did I call you?” He frowned and seemed to rewind through his words. “Your name?”
“Don’t.” I couldn’t have said that name even if I had actually wanted to.
“Jack, you’re going to have to–”
“Stop!”
And Ace did, freezing, staring at me, until he started again, his inquisitive mind never having quite left detective mode even if he had been bartending these past few years. “Jack?”
A lot of things happened at once.
I lost whatever tenuous control I’d had over my mind, and it felt like it snapped in two as I flew at Ace, fist cocked back, ready to spread the damage around. I had sustained so much, it was only fair. I couldn’t do this by myself, couldn’t support all this hurt without letting somebody else shoulder some of it. It was Ace’s own fault for pushing me, for being here, for trying to be a good friend even if he had no idea what I really was.
Brody entered at the same time, his hands full with a case of his brew – I recognized the labels in the periphery, the bright “Horizon” emblazoned over the photo Nadine had taken. He apparently really did have a case for whatever he deemed an emergency, just like Ace had said. I only saw him for a second, his mouth poised in a perfect “O” as my fist connected with Ace’s cheek.
Ace had anticipated this, though. He’d been prodding at me deliberately, poking here and there until he found the source of the pain. I only connected with his cheek because I’d been aiming for his nose, where I could do the most damage with the least amount of effort, and he had turned, bringing his hands up even if he was a little late.
A rattle of glass on glass was my only warning for Brody hitting me behind like a freight train even as Ace tried to grab my hands from the front. Brody wasn’t much bigger than I was, but it was hard to resist a burly forearm against my throat. He wanted me on the ground, and I went, kicking out at Ace.
“Calm down, Jack,” Brody instructed me. “We’re your friends.”
“Don’t,” I rasped at him. “Don’t.”
“Jack, just–”
“Don’t call him that name,” Ace snapped, sitting on my legs. “Something’s wrong, and you can’t call him that.”
“What the hell am I supposed to call–”
“Fuck, you’re choking him out. Ease up.”
“Jesus.”
I coughed, blood flowing again to my brain, the edges of my vision coming back into focus slowly. I tried to squirm out of Brody’s grip, but he resisted.
“You are among friends. But you have to be calm.”
Calm was about exactly opposite of what I was feeling right now, but I knew struggling was futile. Ace was in the middle of cutting off circulation to my feet and Brody had somehow executed a near-perfect sleeper hold in the tumult of me lashing out at Ace. He could knock me out in a smattering of seconds, if he wanted to. And I was certain that once I woke up from that, it would be in a straitjacket.
“You are hurting me,” I managed, not knowing what else to say.
“Are you going to kick me if I get off your legs?” Ace asked carefully. “Is that what’s hurting?”
I nodded.
“Stop. Don’t get up,” Brody said quickly.
“Why?”
“Because Ja–”
“Careful.”
Brody shifted behind me. “All he said was yes, and you asked two questions.”
“Tricky bastard,” Ace said, cocking his head at me. “So, yes, you’re going to kick me, and yes, I’m hurting your legs?”
That wasn’t a question I thought I could answer right now. “I can’t breathe.”
“If you can talk, you can breathe,” Brody reasoned, even as the grip loosened almost imperceptibly. “So, talk. Why can’t we call you by your name right now? What’s going on, here? Why did I almost break my special case of beer keeping you from beating that hell out of Ace?”
“Give me a little credit, here,” Ace muttered, chuckling. “He wouldn’t have beat the hell out me.”
“Tell that to Katie when she sees your face.”
“What?”
“Your cheek is already bruising.”
“Damn.” Ace looked at me. “You have a hell of a punch. Guess I just never had a reason to know that.”
“Are you going to tell us what’s going on, Ryder?” Brody asked. “Can I call you that? Or are you just going to leave us to guess? Should we play a game of twenty questions, or what?”
I couldn’t – this couldn’t happen. I couldn’t tell them what was happening, because then they’d know I wasn’t Jack. That I wasn’t who I thought I’d been. Who they’d thought I was. I would lose everything even if I was already in the process of losing everything. Even if I deserved to lose everything because of what I’d done.
“Stop. Stop struggling.” I hadn’t even realized what my body was doing until Brody’s arm tightened fractionally on my throat, making my vision go blurry again. “We don’t want to fight you, Ryder. You’re the one who’s fighting. Breathe.”
“Can’t.”
The arm loosened. “Try now. Breathe. With me. Inhale. Exhale.”
“Look at me,” Ace said. He was sitting on my legs. I didn’t have much of a choice. “In and out. Follow us. We’re all breathing together. In. Out.”
I wanted them to let me go. I wanted to flee, even though I had no idea where I could go. I could run as far and as fast as I could manage, but I couldn’t get away from myself. No matter how hard I tried. Instead, I found myself involuntarily breathing in the rhythm Brody and Ace were trying to enforce.
In and out.
Muscles I hadn’t realized I’d been clenching gradually relaxed. The furrow between Ace’s eyebrows lessened as he alternated looking at me and behind me, probably communicating somehow with Brody.
“You’re doing fine, Ryder,” Brody coached. “Just keep breathing.”
“Aw, man.”
The three of us probably made a hilarious tableau as we looked toward the door in tandem. Well, I tried to look toward the door. Brody had me restrained too tightly to see who was here.
I could hear Sloan just fine, though.
“Did you all start the brawling and wrestling without me?” he whined, plopping down on the couch. “You know how much I like fighting.”
Anyone who didn’t know him probably would’ve gotten the wrong impression, but Sloan locked eyes with me, even with the smirk, and I could tell that this gave him no pleasure. He’d seen and done some terrible things during his time as a Navy SEAL, and I was sure he could recognize my breakdown for what it was. None of us – Brody, Sloan, or me – had ever compared notes on our time serving our country, but I was sure there were some nasty parallels.
And maybe even some reactions like the one I was having right now. There was probably a reason Brody was so good at a chokehold that had less to do with Marine combat training and more with dealing with these kinds of outbursts.
“I’m not an expert, but it looks like to me we’re just in time for the party.” Chuck moved the entire couch when he heaved his big frame into it. If it had been a cartoon, his end of the couch would’ve tipped Sloan’s up in the air like a seesaw. As it was, the couch just groaned with his added weight, and Sloan scooted a little ways away from him.
“Did you have to invite fucking everyone to this thing?” I grumbled at Ace.
“It was a group text,” he replied with as much dignity as he could. “The one we use for club business and general shenanigans. You got a message, too, inviting you over, because I didn’t have much time to finesse that kind of thing.”
“I think you can let the man go, now, Brody,” Chuck observed. “Don’t you? Jack’s outnumbered.”
I swore and struggled at the same time that Brody and Ace swore.
“Can we go with ‘Ryder’ instead of his given name, for now?” Brody asked the room. “Please?” But somehow, that was even worse. Given name? More like taken. My given name was James. I took my cousin’s name and identity from him.
“Let me go, goddammit,” I said, unbearably hot, way too vulnerable, shattered now that I knew this secret was on its way out of the bag. I wished I could savor these last few moments with my friends. They wouldn’t want anything to do with me as soon as they knew the truth.
“Are you going to hurt anyone?”
“No.”
“That includes yourself, Ryder.”
“I’m not. I won’t. I just – oh, for fuck’s sake.” All I’d wanted to do was cover my fucking face so I didn’t have to ugly cry in front of my friends, but there I was, weeping into Brody’s elbow, my legs asleep thanks to Ace’s heavy ass, Chuck and Sloan taking it all in from the cheap seats.
“Let him go.”
I wasn’t sure who said it, but I didn’t care. I was grateful. All I wanted to do was hide.
But as Brody withdrew from behind me and Ace unpinned my legs, someone – I was blinded by tears – drew my hands down from my face and instead folded me into a hug. This was it. This was really it. These were the final moments of Horizon MC. Would they keep up with the club after they kicked me out? Would Rio Seco suffer without the fundraisers? I wasn’t sure why I cared about any of that. I should’ve been figuring out where I could go instead of worrying about what I was leaving.
There wasn’t a place for me anywhere. A circle of hell, maybe. But nowhere on this world.
“Take this.”
Someone – Brody – pulled my hand free of the shirt it had been fisted in and fit a plastic cup in it. I blinked down, trying to clear my vision, certain that my eyes were swollen, and saw that I was holding a beer.
“Seriously?” I croaked, eliciting a round of light, relieved laughter from the rest of the guys.
“Beer makes everything better,” Ace informed me, and I realized it was his embrace I was in. I backed out of it, embarrassed.
“It’s something,” I said. “This might be more of a whiskey crisis, though.”
“That bad?” Sloan asked, wincing.
“Or something stronger,” I muttered, then drank the entire beer at a chug.
“You going to let us know what’s going on?” Chuck asked. “What’s wrong with your name?”
And that was it. This was the end of things. I looked around the room, wishing I could memorize the way things were in that moment. Everyone was concerned about me, and I hated being the source of that angst. They all had other, more important things to worry about, and I was monopolizing their attention. But right now, they all looked relaxed. Like the storm had passed, and there might still be some rumbles of thunder to deal with, but the worst was already over.
They had no idea that the worst was yet to come.
“It’s not my name,” I said, accepting a new pour from Brody. “I’m more than capable of drinking this from a bottle.”
“First of all, no you’re not,” Brody said. “Second of all, what? You’re going to have to explain the first part of your statement.”
“You shouldn’t call me…that name anymore, because that’s not my name.” I chugged the beer again and held my cup out for a refill.
“Too fast,” Brody said, shaking his head. “This is a high alcohol percentage. You can’t have another.”
“Give the man another,” Ace said. “He can handle it, and it looks like he needs it.”
“Slower this time,” Brody said sternly. “Who else wants a beer before they’re all gone?” He handed them out, but everyone else was slow to open the bottles.
“What’s your name if, you know, your name isn’t your name, then?” Sloan asked, dancing carefully around Jack.
“It’s James. James Ryder.”
“That’s not so far off from what it was before,” Chuck reasoned. “Why are you upset?”
I chugged the rest of the beer in my glass before Brody could stop me. The resulting outburst was just what I’d wanted – a distraction and a delay. Could I be blamed for wanting to keep my relationship with my friends intact for as long as possible?
“That’s it. Cut off,” Brody announced.
“Give the man a beer,” Ace argued. “I’m a bartender, and we know him. We know how much he can tolerate.”
“He doesn’t drink them at the bar like he’s throwing them back right now,” Brody said. “I get that there’s an issue going on right now, but this way leads to alcohol poisoning. Plus you let people drink too much at the bar all the time. I’ve been meaning to bring it up.”
“How dare you?” Ace asked, scowling. “My feelings are hurt. Now is neither the place nor the time. And I only let people get drunk if I know they’re within walking distance. Or if they have a designated driver. Or if it’s Sloan, because one of us will take pity on him.”
“Thanks, man,” Sloan said, toasting Ace with his beer bottle. “You’re a hell of a bartender and my best friend.”
“I’m not the bad guy here. I just don’t want to – goddammit.”
Brody turned to see Chuck in the middle of pouring me another beer.
“It’s your funeral, Ryder,” Brody said. “I just didn’t want them to list the cause of death as Horizon beer.”
“He’ll puke before he reaches the point of alcohol poisoning,” Chuck said.
“Could you all stop talking about me as if I weren’t here?” My stomach was already roiling, but I took a stubborn gulp of the beer from my cup.
“Oh, so you’re ready to start talking, James?” Chuck asked, looking pleased. “Excellent. Tell us what’s going on.” I realized, with no small amount of anger, that this game had been in Chuck’s court instead of mine, but before I could say anything, Ace piped up.
“Isn’t it obvious? He has his memory back. Isn’t that right, James?”
I shuddered. “Can you stop calling me that name, too?” I was trembling so hard that I slopped some of the beer over the lip of the cup as I tried to drink from it.
“Jack, James, whoever you are, you’re still the same person to me,” Ace declared. “Do I speak for everyone on this?”
“Yeah.”
“Yep.”
“Both start with the letter ‘J.’ Easy enough.”
“Yes.”
Ace spread his hands after everyone weighed in. “See? We all still love you no matter what your name is. But we’re worried about how you’re reacting. And why. Would you sit down and talk us through what’s going on with you?”
All I had to lose was everything, but I could already feel them slipping away from me. Like trying to keep water in a closed fist.
Because I was in the process of losing, I told them everything. Showed them the tattoo. Recounted Cheyenne’s memories of it. Talked about my cousin and the life insurance policy and my highly ironic amnesia. Described the journal of vitriol I’d found at my uncle’s – no, my father’s – house, in my old room. The shock of snapping back into myself. Above all, the regret. Regret at not being the person I thought I was. About being willing to cause so much pain to advance my own motivations.
And at the end of it, when I couldn’t figure out anything else to say, any other words to explain just how fucked up everything was, my friends were silent, staring at me.
“Say something,” I said, uneasy. “Or maybe I should apologize.”
Ace blinked, seeming to come back to himself. “What in the world do you have to be sorry for?”
“For not being the person you thought I was.”
“You didn’t know who you were supposed to be. I don’t think that’s something you need to apologize for.”
“I just don’t know what to do anymore,” I said. “I have been trying like a maniac to remember my memories, and now that I have them back, I just wish I could go back to the way things were before, when I still thought I was Jack Ryder, a decent human being.”
“What you do is keep moving forward,” Brody said. “So what that you’re James Ryder instead of Jack?”
“You are who you are,” Sloan agreed. “A bad person wouldn’t be organizing the kinds of fundraisers for Rio Seco that you have been. A bad person wouldn’t give a shit about any of that.”
“I’m sorry that you weren’t the person you thought you were,” Chuck said. “But we still like you just fine. You’re still our same fearless leader, if you want to be.”
“I can’t keep on being someone I’m not,” I said. “You’ll have to call me James.”
“We’ll call you whatever you want us to call you,” Ace told me. “The point is that we still like you whatever your name is.”
“Even if I did terrible things?”
“The only terrible thing I can see is that you thought we wouldn’t like you with your memories back,” he answered easily. “Everyone’s guilty of wishing they were someone else. Not everyone would go through the lengths you did to try and escape your own circumstances, but you didn’t hurt your cousin. You tried to save him.”
“I just don’t know how to be myself anymore. How to keep going in the face of all of this.”
Ace gave me a small smile. “The same way the rest of us do it. One foot in front of the other.”
“One day at a time,” Chuck said.
“Surrounding ourselves with good people,” Sloan said.
“And never hesitating to ask those people for help, when you need it,” Brody added.
“You can’t ever get rid of us, James,” Ace said. “We’re your friends, and you’re ours, no matter what your name is. You got that?”
How in the hell did I get lucky enough to wash up in Rio Seco and meet all of these guys? I’d had no idea what I was doing, drifting along without anyone in my life, but somehow my subconscious had led me here. It had done me a huge favor, hooking me up with the best friends a guy could ever ask for. I didn’t know what I would do without them.
“Let’s get you out of this shit hole,” Ace said. “I left Haley in charge at the bar, which means she’s probably already called all the girls to come over to lounge in the club booth. The place really goes to hell without you, James.”
Would it be that simple to keep going? Heading over to the bar with my best friends to shoot the shit and drink beer and do normal things, like planning the Valentine’s Day fundraiser?
One foot in front of the other. I didn’t have any choice but to try to keep going forward. None of these assholes was about to let me start sliding back.