Meet Me Here (15 page)

“I’ll just leave. How will they find me?” I say.

“Yeah, I’m sure the United States government will have a really hard time finding you,” Jake says, but his tone has softened. He leans back into his seat and cups the backpack on his lap. “Why didn’t you tell me?”

I have no idea if I would’ve told him before he came back, when he was regular Jake, my brother. Would I even be in this position? I’d probably be at home right now dressed and anxious. Waiting for Dad to finish his coffee. Ready to roll.

But with Jake? I didn’t think he would even be able to understand what I was saying, let alone give me advice. But I can’t say that.

“I don’t know.”

“Bullshit,” he says. “Don’t sugarcoat it.”

“I was scared . . . of you.”

Before, he would’ve laughed, something. Now he only nods. I don’t know what to say, how to proceed from here. Jake opens the door and gets out of the truck. When I don’t follow him, he sticks his head in the window and says, “Get out.”

We walk across the bridge, which looks subtly different in the light of day. Jake walks confidently, and I struggle to keep up, to fight the pain that runs through my entire body every time my foot hits the ground. When we get closer to where we stood last night, I almost expect to see one of Jake’s medals on the ground, glinting like a diamond. Part
of me wishes that’s how the night would end, me holding up his medal. That it would somehow fix everything. But the only things I see are cigarette butts and bottle caps.

Jake sets the backpack on the side of the bridge, ignoring it when a passing car honks its horn. We stand there for a good minute before he says anything.

“If I don’t take this rock, I don’t come back a freak,” he says. “If I don’t take this rock, we’re not even having this conversation. And in two hours you’re on the bus and headed to boot, the way it’s supposed to be.”

I force myself to say something. “Jake . . . That’s—”

Crazy. That’s what I want to say. But I revise mid sentence. “The rock doesn’t mean anything. All of this, what happened to you: the rock didn’t do any of that.”

He shakes his head, adamantly. “You don’t understand because you haven’t been there, Thomas. There are some things you just don’t mess with. Things in the world that shouldn’t be disturbed. I did this. And now I need to take care of it.”

He doesn’t move. He stares at the bag, a tortured look on his face. Every time he reaches for the bag, he stops himself and shakes his head, like he can’t stand to touch the rock.

I don’t think the rock is magical or evil. I don’t think the devil is plaguing Jake or me. He’s sick, that’s it. But somewhere inside him, it is killing him. So real or not, it doesn’t matter. I need to do something, finally.

I grab the backpack before he can stop me and throw it over the bridge.

It falls, falls, falls, finally hitting the water with a satisfying splash.

We stare down together, and at first I think Jake’s going to reprise my dive into the dirty river. But he stands there, staring at the slowly disappearing ripples in the water until there’s no sign of the rock, no sign that it ever existed.

“Do you think that will work?” I ask.

Jake stares down hard, not saying a word. I didn’t think it would snap him back to life immediately, like something from a fairy tale. A weird kiss from the prince. But I did think he would react. Instead, he stares at the water until a car comes flying by, only looking up when the rear end of the El Camino has disappeared around the corner. My phone buzzes, but I ignore it. Almost immediately afterward, Jake’s goes off, too. He looks at his and says, “Mom.”

He answers it, and I already know the conversation
that’s happening on the other end. “Where are you? Your father isn’t happy. Come home.” Jake answers all her questions, finally saying, “Yes . . . He’s right here . . . Okay . . . Yes.”

When he hangs up, he stares at me. “Dad is waiting for you.”

A familiar stab of anxiety plunges deep into my chest. I want to run, but I can’t. I want to drive away, but again: not happening. So all I can do is stand there, and barely that, feeling completely helpless.

“You have to stand up to this. You need to do what’s right.”

“I don’t know what’s right,” I say.

“That’s bullshit, and you know it.”

“So I go home and tell Dad,” I say, trying not to cry in front of Jake. When I look at him, it takes everything I have to keep myself together. “And then what?”

Jake stares at the water. “You want me to be honest?”

I already know what he’s going to say. I’m sick because of it. I’ve known the answer my entire life. But I still nod.

“You go, man. You go.”

“That’s easy for you to say,” I tell him. “There isn’t anything you could do to disappoint him.”

Jake gawks at me. “You’re kidding.”

“Do you realize what it’s like having to live up to . . . you?” I say. “All I ever hear is: ‘Look at Jake. Jake would never do it that way. Be just like Jake.’ But I can’t, okay? I can’t be like you—not before, not now.”

I’m breathing hard, barely able to get the words out. Jake shakes his head.

“Yeah, because my relationship with him is so great,” he says. “He thinks I’m weak.”

“Okay.” I wave my hand at him.

“I heard him telling Mom one night. Because I came back like this. Because I can’t just grin and bear it like everybody else. ‘Soldiers before didn’t come back broken.’”

I stand there, trying not to let his words—his logic—penetrate my plan, shaky as it may be. Every part of my body tells me to run, to escape, but is that just learned behavior? Or is Jake right? Will I ever be able to feel peace living this way? I turn around and lean against the railing of the bridge, closing my eyes. The sun is warm on my face as I speak.

“I don’t know what to do.”

Jake flicks me on the chest, and when I open my eyes, I’m not sure what’s real and what’s not. He looks no
different from an hour before, but standing there with the sun outlining him, he looks bigger than life.

He waits for me to look him in the eyes before he says, “Yeah, you do.”

My phone buzzes, and I nearly throw up. But when I look at it, it isn’t Dad or Mom. There are five missed texts, all from the last two hours.

5:05
A.M.
—Hey.

5:38
A.M.
—Listen, can we talk?

5:45
A.M.
—Are you ignoring me?

6:05
A.M.
—Hello . . . ???

6:55
A.M.
—I’m at the bridge. Meet me here.

Mallory.

As we drive, I try to figure out what to text back to her. If I go back to the bridge, what happens? What else is there to say? I’m sorry? Good-bye? Thank you? But what happens after that? How does anything either of us says change anything that’s happened tonight?

Dad is waiting for us in the driveway, and when we pull up, he grabs me by the arm and drags me toward the front door. I’m howling with pain, and he doesn’t notice until I’m two or three feet down the driveway. He bends and looks at my leg, then up at me.

“What in the hell did you do to yourself?” he says. “They’re gonna send you to MRP, if they let you ship at
all. Jesus Christ, Thomas, how could you let this happen?”

I don’t say a word, and he stands up, his hands out to his side. “Am I talking to myself? Goddamn it, boy, I asked you a question.”

“I don’t know,” I say. “I guess I just messed up.”

“Messed up?” He laughs, but it isn’t like any laugh I’ve ever heard before. “You didn’t accidentally color on the walls. You’ve got sixteen stitches in that leg, at least. How am I going to explain this to Sergeant Veen?”

Jake is out of the truck, but he hasn’t jumped in to explain anything. Mom stands close to him, checking his body as if she were going to suddenly find an injury twice as bad as mine. Dad hasn’t looked at him once. But when he finally does, his eyes go red, and his volume comes up to a roar.

“How did you let this happen?” he asks. “This is your brother. You’re supposed to keep him safe.”

Jake doesn’t answer, but he doesn’t look away either. He stands straight, tall, barely blinking as Dad lights into him.

“What were you doing while he was off ruining his future? Answer me!”

“I was throwing my medals into the river,” Jake says.
“And Thomas jumped in and tried to save them.”

I’ve never seen Dad so flustered, so unable to mask how he’s feeling. His face goes from shock to disbelief to anger like cards being turned over on a table. One after the other, just like that. When he still hasn’t said anything, Jake turns to walk into the house, and Dad jumps across the driveway to stop him.

“Where do you think you’re going?” he says.

They look like professional wrestlers as Dad tries to stop him from moving, grappling for dominance in the middle of our driveway. Every time Dad pushes, Jake counters. It’s not until Mom yells for them to stop that Jake backs down. When he does, Dad puts him on the ground with one hard shove.

Dad is shaking when he turns to me. “Get your stuff together. We’re going to the recruiter. Now.”

“Dad,” I say, my voice, my entire body—trembling.

Dad is calm, like the moment before a tornado is about to touch down. “Thomas, get your stuff and get in the truck.”

“Can I talk to you?”

I don’t know what to say, but I’m tired of lying. I’m tired of pretending that Jake isn’t messed up, that I’m not
scared. I’m so tired of playing a part that’s been created for me. Whether I go or not, that feels secondary as I stand here. All I want is for him to listen to me, just once. To understand what it’s been like keeping all of this inside me.

“Don’t you see what’s happened to him?” I ask.

Dad shakes his head. “Sometimes a soldier has to give something back to his country. That’s the job. That’s what you sign up for. Haven’t I taught you anything?”

“Is it the job for us all to ignore it? To pretend like it isn’t happening right under our noses?”

“Son, what do you think this is about? Do you think I didn’t come back from Iraq feeling like shit? Of course I did. But I got a job. I was a father. If you don’t understand what I’m telling you, maybe it’s better if you don’t go.”

I’ve heard this speech thousands of times. Suffer silently. Be a man. I’m so sick of it. My phone buzzes, and when I look at it, Dad grabs the phone from me. As soon as he sees it, he nearly implodes.

“Is this your problem? ‘Are you coming or not?’ He mimics a stereotypical girl’s voice, throwing a hand in the air with a flourish. “You’re willing to throw everything away for some girl?”

“It has nothing to do with her,” I say.

Dad throws my phone at the driveway. It shatters, plastic and glass spray across our lawn. I stare at it, at him. And then I turn around and start limping back to my truck.

“Hell, no,” he says, reaching for my shoulder. When he tries to spin me around, I slip away, even though my leg is killing me, and try to double-time it to the truck. He catches me easily and pushes me against the hood like a criminal. He stares at me without speaking, eye to eye like he’s looking for an eyelash. A piece of glass. I don’t look away. I try to channel everything Jake has ever been about, the fierce certainty he had with every decision.

He shakes his head, finally letting go of my shirt like it’s covered in stains. Like he’s going to get his hands dirty. Dad lets me off the hood and stares at me for a long time before he shakes his head and goes into the house. He doesn’t slam the door, just closes it. The way he has a thousand other times in his life.

Mom runs over to me, but I don’t know what to say to her. Everything I’ve wanted and planned for in the last few months is here, and I can’t move.

“Honey, he doesn’t mean it. He just wants you to be happy,” Mom says. I’m too tired to argue with her, to
clarify the definition of
happy
. Jake comes up beside her and stares at me, like he wants me to say something. Instead, I hobble past both of them and walk into the kitchen, where he sits, drinking coffee and staring at the newspaper. He doesn’t say a word as I go to my room, as I reappear back in the kitchen with my duffel bag. I pause at the door, giving Mom a quick kiss. She tries to hold me back, to connect me to this place—this person—one last time, but I pull away.

Before I can get in the truck, Jake catches up to me. He closes the truck door and leans against it, crossing his arms.

“So?” he says.

“I’m still not going to the army.”

“And what is that going to prove? That you’re exactly what he thinks you are?”

“Maybe. But I can’t stay here.”

He nods and opens the door. “That may be true. But that doesn’t mean you have to do something stupid to spite him.” He motions for me to get in. When I’m in the driver’s seat, the ignition cranked, he closes the door and leans into the window.

“Thomas, you might be scared, but you’re not a coward,” he says. “If you don’t want to go, fine. Don’t go. But you need to let them know. You need to stand up to it.”

I only want to escape the responsibility. To drive away, pretending that he never went to war and that I never signed up. Play Lost Boy until the army or my father tracks me down. How many months could I grab before that happened? One? Five? But even as I think it, it feels wrong. A piece that doesn’t quite fit in my puzzle. And as much as I want to deny it, I can’t.

Jake reaches across me and works the stick shift into first gear. “Can you get it into second? You can drive it in second as long as the engine is running smooth.”

“Do you really believe that?” I ask. Jake looks at the gearshift, still in first. “Not the truck. Do you think I’m not a coward?”

He looks surprised, almost offended, as he stands straight and looks from me back to the house. When he leans back into the truck, he stares into my eyes for a good ten seconds before he says anything.

“I think courage is somewhere between doing what you want to do and what you need to do,” he says. “And that’s on you, man.”

He nods and clears his throat, pointing down to my leg. “Can you work the gas and brake?”

I test the pedal with my foot. Even though the pain forces my eyes closed, I nod. When I open them, Jake is still staring at me. I try to think of something to say to him, some kind of validation for the decision I’ve made. He smiles, slapping the roof of the truck once before turning around and walking back down the driveway.