American Made (Against the Tides #2) (7 page)

The last time I was in front of this house I was here to say goodbye to my best friend and got the door slammed in my face. I knew she was mad at me because I was part of the reason she changed her routine and she blamed herself for the death of her husband, which means she blamed me. I should have known better than to mess with routine considering the fact that I need one for my life to run smoothly. I don’t know why I did it, but I was tired of watching her scramble at the last minute to get ready for him. Watching her break when she got the news was a million times worse, though, and I’ll never forgive myself for everything that happened.

I couldn’t get myself to come by yesterday after Gentry left. I couldn’t come here with my mind swirling the way it was. It’s not fair to show up with my mind on a guy. It’s not, but I don’t see the thought of him going away any time soon and I know it isn’t right to put this off any longer.

Taking a deep breath, I slide out of the truck and adjust my sling strap as I climb the stairs to the house. It takes everything I have in me to work up the courage to knock on the door, but I finally do. Everything about this place makes me sad even though most of the things I think about when I see it are happy. They all involve Brett and knowing I won’t see him when the door opens is hard. That thought continues to overpower all the good things and I don’t see that changing any time soon.

I’ve almost given up hope on Ari opening the door when it creaks open. What’s in front of me isn’t the girl that I’ve been best friends with for years, but a shell of her. Her skin doesn’t look like she’s been outside since I was last here and she’s swimming in her clothes. Looking at her kills me and I want to cry for her but she beats me to it. She breaks when she sees me. Tears flood her eyes and she becomes a blubbering mess that I can’t understand. Reaching out for her, I grab Ari’s hand and pull her onto the porch so I can wrap my arm around her. Tucking her arms between us, she buries her face against my shoulder.

We stand like that for what seems like eternity but I don’t mind because it’s the most I’ve seen or heard from her in almost a year. It doesn’t matter that I can’t understand what she’s saying through the tears, just that she didn’t slam the door in my face. When she finally gets a grip on herself, I grab her hand and tug her down on the top step with me.

“How long have you been holdin’ that in?” I ask while laughing. It’s not that I find it funny, but we need something to lighten the mood.

“Oh ya know…since I found out that when I slammed the door in your face is when you came to tell me you got deployed. I could have lost you too and I didn’t even get a chance to tell you I loved you.”

“So a while, huh?”

Ari takes a breath and it shutters through her as she forces a laugh. “You could say that.” Turning to look at me, she finally notices the sling. “By the looks of it I came pretty close to never seeing you again.”

“Nah, nothin’ but a scratch, babe. A few weeks in the infirmary and a plane ride home. You don’t get rid of me that easily.”

“How about I don’t get rid of you at all?”

“OK,” I agree. “That works for me.”

“I’ll never be able to make up for how I acted. Saying I’m sorry won’t fix it, but I’m so sorry for how I treated you.”

I shake my head, trying not to make a fuss out of everything. I know how sorry she is without her even having to say anything about it. She had a reason to be upset then. “It’s fine, Ari. I’m more worried about you than I am about myself.”

“What?” She pulls back and stares at me. “Why would you be worried about me when you’re the one that was getting shot at every day?”

“Do you not see yourself in the mirror, babe? I barely recognized you when you opened the door. When is the last time you ate? Or slept? Or stepped outside in the sunlight?”

She curls into herself and I feel like an ass for saying anything, but I’m worried about her. Knox told me she looked like she had lost weight when I would call him, but since she kept shutting him out he never really got a good look. Unlike with me, he won’t just stroll into her house unannounced.

“I’ve been expecting you to show up for the past two days and you didn’t.” She changes the subject like she always does when she doesn’t want to talk about something, but unlike what I usually do, I let her this time.

“How’d you know I was home?”

Twisting the hem of her sweatshirt between her fingers keeps her from having to look at me. “Envy texted me when you were at the bar. She said two thirds of the Vagina Squad isn’t enough for her. I owe her an apology for being an ass to her too. Why didn’t you stop here sooner?”

“I wasn’t prepared to have the door slammed in my face again if you decided you didn’t want to see me. I needed to come to terms with why I was home already without thinkin’ about that possibility too. I figured out last night that I doubt I’ll ever be OK with why I’m home right now, but I couldn’t push off seein’ you anymore.” Turning toward her, I tuck one of my legs under the other. The longer I look at her, the more scared I am for her. “I missed you, Ari. This wasn’t what I expected when you opened the door, though.”

“I’m fine,” she lies, beginning to shut down in front of me.

I sigh and stand up, pacing as I try to keep my emotions in check. The last thing she needs right now is for me to break down on her “Is this how it’s gonna be now, Ariana? I have to sit here and watch you waste away because you refuse to admit that something is wrong? Whether you’re only refusing to admit it to me, or if you’re hidin’ it from yourself, I don’t know. But I’d rather lose you because you hate me than watch you kill yourself.”

She stands up and, for a second, I see the spark in her eyes that proves that my best friend is still in there somewhere. “I’m not killing myself, Emerson. You don’t know anything.”

“No? Then answer my questions. When’s the last time you ate or slept without the help of a sleepin’ pill. And I’m not talkin’ about noddin’ off while you sit at the table and think about everything you don’t get now that Brett isn’t here.”

She stays silent and I know it’s not because she being stubborn and doesn’t
want
to answer, it’s because she
can’t
answer. The confused look on her face screams at me. It’s been long enough that she doesn’t even remember and that scares the hell out of me.

“OK, fine, how about this one? When is the last time you talked to Knox without slammin’ the door on him?”

“You don’t know what it’s like,” she finally whispers, choking on a sob.

“You’re right, I don’t know what it’s like to lose my husband. But you weren’t the only person to lose him. Knox and I lost a friend. His parents lost their son. Cassidy lost her uncle. Britt lost her brother. And as far as I can tell no one but you became an anorexic insomniac while tryin’ to cope with the loss. You have a problem, Ari. They have people that can help with that but you have to want it. You have to stop pushin’ everyone away because you think if they don’t see you that they won’t notice something is wrong.”

“I have it under control, Emerson. It’s nothing I can’t handle on my own.”

I stomp my foot against the ground and even though it isn’t what I mean to do, I scream at her. “You’re killin’ yourself! It’s obviously not something you can handle alone or you wouldn’t look like someone draped skin over a skeleton and called it good. I lost Brett too. I almost lost myself. I’ve lost everything I know how to do and now have to start over again and I have no clue where to begin. I refuse to lose you too! Do you hear me? I fuckin’ refuse!”

She covers her mouth but it does nothing to keep the sob from being heard. Every part of me wants to do the same thing but it won’t do any good so I suck it up and count until I have myself under control.

“I’m not me without him,” she says after I stare at her for a few minutes. “I can’t function. I can’t think. I have to force myself to breathe most of the time. Do you know how many times I think about popping everything in that sleeping pill bottle just so I can be with him again? It would be so easy to just be done with everything. I would finally be free again.”

My chest tightens as her words hit me. I want to run to her and pull her close, never letting her go. But at the same time I want to scream at her and ask how stupid she could possibly be to think that that would help anything at all. Nothing she just said makes any sense at all. Ari has always been strong so watching her break like this is breaking my heart. I step closer to her but decide to stay off the porch.

“Brett never changed you, Ari. You were the same person on the day you met that you were on the day he died. You felt different because you felt him lovin’ you. That’s still there. It wasn’t something he changed about you, it was something he gave you. He never stopped lovin’ you for anything and that doesn’t go away just because he isn’t here anymore. You’re still the same person, babe. What’s it gonna take to make you see that? What’s it gonna take to make you see how sick you are right now?”

“My husband.” 

If the flat tone of her voice didn’t signal that the conversation was over, the sound of the door closing echoing around me sure does. It hurts just as much to watch her shut me out as I thought it would. I don’t want to walk away from her again, but I can tell there’s no getting through to her right now. I wonder if all of us ganging up on her and telling her everything I just did would do any good or if it would make it worse. Either way, I can’t sit here and watch her kill herself in front of me. I climb into the truck and open the text on my phone when I see the notification. It’s from Knox. It’s nothing but an address and a request that I show up as soon as I can. I don’t want to because I’m still fuming over the way he acted the other day when Gentry was at my house, but I know that we need to talk now more than ever.

When I punch the address into the GPS it brings up the end location as a gun range. Is he trying to piss me off? I came home because I lost the ability to shoot and now he’s going to rub it in my face. The thought does piss me off and on top of being upset about everything that just happened, I’m not sure I would want to be Knox when I show up. 

Backing out of Ari’s driveway, I throw the truck into drive and slam my foot down on the gas pedal, launching it down the road. The GPS said it would take me twenty-seven minutes to get to the address Knox gave me but I make it in seventeen. I skid into the parking lot, throw the transmission into park without caring if I’m parked correctly in the spot and ignore the pain in my thigh and arm when I jump from the truck.

“You!” I yell when I finally find him. His back is turned toward me as he talks to someone, but the second he hears the tone of my voice his shoulders stiffen and he turns to look at me. I get a glimpse of who he was talking to when he turns and it fuels the fire when Rush nods and Gentry has the nerve to smile at me. He should know the best out of all of them how bad of an idea this is right now.

“Emerson,” Knox replies calmly.

“You’re not a very smart man this week are you? Did one of those jumps into the rotor wash knock something loose in that thick fuckin’ skull of yours?”

“Fuckin’ hell it’s hot when you use terms like that,” Gentry speaks up from behind Knox. I peer around and glare at him. “Not the time, got it.”

I turn my attention back to Knox and talk myself out of reaching up to hit him. The sound of a gun firing behind me makes me jump. My heart begins to race and without hesitating, Knox pulls me into him and tells me I’m OK. I’ve been lucky and through all the tours I’ve done I haven’t come out of it with PTSD. I wonder if that will hold true now. Maybe being shot was the final straw for me. Gunfire never bothered me before and the fact that it does now and the three of them just witnessed it scaring me makes me feel weaker than ever.

Knox slides his hand over my back to calm me down while he continues to whisper to me. 

One… Two… Three… Four…
I count, repeating it until I have a handle on myself and my heart rate is closer to what it usually is. I step away from him and force myself not to stare at the floor and make what just happened worse.

“You good?” Rush asks, stepping up next to Knox with Gentry doing the same thing on the other side. 

“Other than bein’ pissed the fuck off, I’m fine.” It’s a lie, we all know it, but I refuse to focus on what just happened any more than we already have. Turning my attention back to Knox, I rest my hand on my hip. “Why the hell would you ask me to come here knowin’ God damn good and well that I can’t do anything here anymore?”

“We had an idea if you’re willin’ to try.” His body language screams nonchalance, but there’s a glint in his eyes that tells me he’s nervous about his idea. It makes me want to know what the idea is. I shrug and tell him to tell me his idea but instead, he grabs my hand and leads me to the outdoor portion of the range. I find it odd that there isn’t anyone else out here but the second I see the rifle set up I forget about everything else. In the back of my mind I know I should be talking to him about Ariana, but the rest of me needs to know where the hell he’s going with this.

“This is just mean and now I wanna punch you.” 

“Calm down and listen,” Rush laughs. Climbing onto a table, he fiddles with a range finder. Gentry climbs up next to him but never takes his eyes off me. I want to be mad that he’s part of this but oddly I’m not right now.

“Have you ever shot using the other shoulder?” Knox asks, pulling my attention from Gentry.

I narrow my eyes at him, trying to figure out where the hell he’s going with this. “I’ve never needed to but Sam and I used to do it just fuckin’ around. Why?”

Thankfully he doesn’t ask me who Sam is before continuing with his thought. With everything else running through my mind, talking about him would not be a good idea right now.

“You didn’t lose everything when you got shot. It just made things harder and you have to change the way you work.”

“What the fuck are you talkin’ about, Knox? It doesn’t matter anymore. I’ve already been relieved from duty so what’s the point in this?”

“The point is that you don’t have to be in the Army as a sniper to do what you’re good at. Yeah, you can’t shoot the way you’re used to, but you can still shoot. It’ll just take some practice but I bet it won’t take long to get you where you should be.”