Page 60 of Beneath the Stain

“Jesus.” Trav couldn’t stop staring. “I don’t hit people. I don’t hit people—I don’t. Jesus Christ, Mackey—I don’t fuckinghit people. Man, just—”

Mackey grinned at him, working his jaw gingerly. “That was fuckingawesome.I haven’t been hit that hard in ages! And I had it coming—I mean, you gotta admit I had it coming.”

“I don’t hit people,” Trav said numbly. “I don’t—”

Mackey laughed. “Man, Trav, I had no idea I could make you freak out like that. Which part was it?”

“Mackey, you’ve got to go back to rehab, you fucking hear me?”

Mackey’s smile dimmed. “Trav, really? Do I have to? Doc Cambridge is nice and everything, but I mean, you were in the room with me for five minutes and you decked me—”

“That wasn’t your fault.” Trav couldn’t seem to blink. The coffee table Shelia had just picked out had collapsed like cardboard, and Trav could hardly see it. “It wasn’t your fault—”

Mackey shook his head. “Yeah, yeah, it was. I’m an asshole—I mean, a complete waste of skin. Why the hell would you want me to talk to a shrink and dump all my shit out there in the world—I mean, I’ve hurt people, you know? Blake? I’ve been hurting him all year. How do I make that up? How do I tell my mom….” He closed his eyes. “Everything,” he said, his voice cracking like glass. “I know it’s coming, you know? How do I tell people—”

“You have to tell people,” Trav said, numbly echoing what he just said, feeling stupid. “You have to tell people I hit you—I’ll have to quit—”

“No!” Mackey screamed. “Jesus, Trav, aren’t you hearing me? I’m not worth it! People will find out who I am, and I’m not worth losing your job over, or Blake feeling like shit, or what this is going to put my mom through. I mean, Kell won’t love me anymore if I talk, won’t be my big brother. You… you wouldn’t even care enough to hit me if you knew all of me. I’d rather go out now, be the found body, than be left all a—”

Trav’s heart was going to burst through his skin and turn his bones to shrapnel.

He turned toward the wall by the staircase and screamed, “Jesus fucking Christ, Mackey, just go to fucking rehab!” and hammered the blank accepting space with his fist.

And then crumpled on a muffled shriek, because he’d hit a stud in a load-bearing wall and broken three bones in his wrist and hand.

KELLDROVEthem to the hospital. Mackey sat in the back, holding an ice pack over his wrist. The silence in the car was overwhelming.

“Kell, could you put on some music or something?” Mackey asked plaintively, and Trav puffed out a laugh through the black haze of pain in his arm.

“No,” Kell muttered. “Mackey, you sure he wasn’t beating on you?”

“Absolutely,” Mackey said, nodding sincerely.

Trav thought about rolling down the window and throwing up. “I’ll call Heath and resign,” he said, his lungs like lead. “Obviously I’m no good at—”

“Shut up,” Mackey and Kell said together, without heat.

Then Kell spoke up. “Mackey?”

“Yeah?”

“Don’t make me find your fucking body, okay? Don’t make me have to tell Mom we let you overdose or shoot yourself or whatever the fuck else you’ve got in mind. Don’t fucking make me. I mean, I ain’t been the greatest big brother on the planet, but dammit, Mackey, I fucking deserve more than that.”

Mackey tried not to whimper. “Kell….” He closed his eyes, and Trav found he needed to look at him,neededto see, get a glimpse of whatever was going on through his head. “Man,” he whispered. “If I had a bottle of Percocet, I’d take the whole fucking thing. Trav was right about that. I need it. My insides… what’s inside my head….”

“Then get it out!” Kell yelled.

They pulled up to the ER, and Kell stopped short. They were all thrown against their seat belts, and Trav howled like a wounded badger as he jostled his hand.

It didn’t even put a hitch in Kell’s stride. “Get it out,” Kell repeated, not screaming. “Go talk to the doctor. Talk to Trav. Talk tosomeoneif you can’t talk to us, but don’t make me find your fucking body. I swear to God, Mackey, I can’t do it. You’ve got all the words in your heart—what kind of words do you think will be left in mine if that’s what I’ve got to see in my brain every day? Whatever you’ve got to fucking do, you do it, do you understand?”

Mackey took a breath, and another. “Let’s get Trav to the doc,” he said, his voice thick. “One thing at a time, right?”

He slid out of the car and ran around to open the door, and Kell met agonized eyes with Trav in the rearview mirror. “Please, Mr. Ford,” Kell said. “I don’t want you hitting him anymore, but could you please talk some fucking sense into him?”

“It’s going to be hard to do when I have to resign,” Trav said honestly.

Kell snorted in disgust. “Resign? Are you shitting me? It’s like you don’t evenknowMackey if you don’t want to hit him.”