“Dylan,” she whispers, her hand on my arm. “That’s not true.”

I keep looking ahead, keep waiting for the calm to hit me. It never does. My eyes shut, and just like that, my insanity kicks in. “I see him,” I mumble.

“See who?”

“Dave O’Brien.”

She sucks in a breath, then releases it slowly.

“It’s like this movie playing in my mind, over and over. I see him hold his gun to his head, his finger curl, pulling the trigger. I hear the gun go off. Smell the gun powder. Feel my heart stop. See the blood everywhere. Everywhere. And I feel it, in my hands and on my clothes. I’ve tried to shake it, and since I’ve been here with Riley, they’ve slowed down. But they haven’t stopped. And he was there…”

“Where, Dylan?”

“At the accident,” I say, my voice breaking. I clear my throat. “I wasn’t drunk, Ma’am. Dave—he was standing in front of the car, his head blown off. I swerved to miss him and I knew I was losing it so I made Riley get out of the car.”

Her fingers are warm when they skim my cheek, wiping away tears I hadn’t known were there. “Does anyone know?”

I shake my head.

“Your dad? Eric?”

“I’m a man, Ms. Hudson. And this makes me weak… I can’t—” I choke on a sob, but push it down enough to add, “I’ve disgraced them enough. I can’t admit this to them.”

“What about Riley?”

“No.”

“She’ll understand—”

“No. And you can’t tell her…” I wipe my cheeks. “You can’t say a word.”

“Dylan…”

“I’m supposed to be strong. She looks to me for strength. For glue. I need to be that for her… She can’t know. You have to let me at least have that,” I rush out. Pleading with a woman who owes me absolutely nothing to please, please, keep my secrets.

“Okay.” She sniffs once. “So why tell me?”

I pause a moment, waiting for my heart to settle before turning to her, my eyes on hers—her tears clouding the pity. “Because you look at me like no one else does. No one ever has. You expect nothing of me but me, as a person. Not as a man of honor, or a man of strength.” I blink. Tears fall. “You look at me like a mother would look at her son.”

Riley

I cover my mouth to muffle my cry, my vision blurred from the tears flowing fast and free. Mom glances over Dylan’s shoulder at me standing in the hallway, just like she did after he asked her how she knew he wanted out of the Marines. She wraps her arms around his neck, wiping her tears on his shoulder—shoulders that shake with the force of his cries—cries he’s held in for so long.

I leave them in the living room and go back to bed, waiting for him to join me. Seconds, minutes, hours pass. The sun rises. The world awakes. And finally, Dylan walks in. I lay still, my eyes closed. The bed dips before I hear the clanking of his crutches. A moment later, I’m in his arms, his nose rubbing against mine. “Riley,” he whispers.

“Mm?”

“I love you.”

I open my eyes, lock them on his, clear and blue and everything I remember them to be, back when he still had control of the world around him… when his reality consisted of his purpose and of us and our love and nothing could get in the way of it. “I know.”

Fifty-Seven

Riley

“Do we even know where the guys are going?” I ask, emptying the packet of corn chips in the bowl.

Heidi shrugs. “Who cares. I haven’t had a slumber party in forever.”

“Me neither,” Mom says. She tries in vain to open the jar of salsa before giving up. “Dylan!”

“Yes, Ma’am,” he calls out, and a second later he walks into the kitchen. He’s been out of the cast for four days. “I love the way you say Ma’am,” Lucy teases. I think. She fans her face, her eyes rolling back. “Say it again.”

Dylan just smiles, shaking his head as he stops between me and Heidi. Mom hands him the jar. He loosens it with a pop before handing it back to her.

“At least your hands work,” Heidi says, backhanding his stomach.

He feigns hurt.

“Oh, his hands work real good,” I blurt out.

“Riley!” Mom squeals.

I cover my face to hide my embarrassment.

“So hot,” Lucy mumbles.

“Gross,” Heidi jokes.

Next to me, Dylan chuckles. I remove my hands and glare at him. Then throw a chip at his head. “What?” he laughs out. “I didn’t do anything!”

He pulls out his phone after it beeps with a text.

I watch his lips curve to a smile as he reads it. “Your other girlfriend?” I ask.

“Wife, actually.” He shows me the phone, a message from Mike O’Brien is on the screen with a picture of him and his brothers and his mom standing in front of a house. The caption reads “Casa de O’Brien.”

“They got the house?” I ask.

“Looks like it.”

Dylan had been talking to Mike a bit lately on Facebook. Yes, Dylan got a Facebook. Apparently Dave’s personals were sent to his family, so he and Dylan have been going through the stuff they received. They were waiting on the gratuity payment to come in so they could move out of their tiny apartment and far away from where Mr. O’Brien could find them and hurt them. In a way, I think it’s kind of therapeutic for Dylan to speak to someone who knew Davey like he did, and not just the Marine version of him.

A car horn has Dylan pocketing his phone. “That’s the guys.”

“And Micky and Amanda!” Lucy says, clapping.

“What are you pretty girls planning on doing tonight?” he asks me.

“So hot,” Lucy whispers.

I laugh. “Not much. Probably talking books.”

“No!” Heidi stomps her foot. “Let’s do girl stuff. Like… Oh my god! Makeovers!”

“We’re not twelve,” I tell her, the same time Mom says, “Yes!” She points to her. “I like your thinking, Heidi. I’ve been wanting to makeover Riley for years.”

“Don’t you change a thing about her,” Dylan says, blocking me from their view.

Lucy sighs. “So hot.”

He turns to me. “Walk me out?”

I take his hand and lead him to the bedroom, where he grabs his bag, and then out of the house, meeting Micky and Amanda on the driveway carrying sleeping bags.

If the guys get to go on a boys’ night out to some cabin in the woods, why couldn’t we have a girls’ night in?

“Hey, Riley,” Jake shouts, waving and grinning like an idiot as he pulls Cameron out of the trunk of his car. Logan and Jake are dressed in black, war paint smeared on their cheeks.

Cameron groans as he finds his feet, his hands tied behind his back, his mouth duct taped and his eyes blindfolded.

“What the hell?” I whisper.

“Quack quack!” Logan yells, ripping the tape from Cameron’s mouth.

Cameron curses and starts kicking Logan’s legs as soon as the blindfold is off him.