Page 13 of His Country
“Or how about how Everett was my best friend, the only thing keeping me sane for years, but he never once looked at me. Not the way he looked at Billy. Not that way I looked at him.” His voice was thick, words slurring as he tasted his own tears. “I was right there. For years. But I wasn’thim.”
His throat was hot, and everything hurt. Ethan didn’t look angry anymore. Aiden couldn’t really see what he looked like—his face was blurred by tears.
“So thank you,” Aiden used the wall for support, pushing himself to feet he couldn’t feel. “Thank you forsavingme. Hope you got what you wanted.”
He teetered away, one hand on the wall and the other curled around his chest defensively. Aiden had no idea where he was going. He just needed to go.
A hand grabbed his wrist, dragging him back. “I’m not leaving you alone.”
“I’m fine.”
“This is your definition of fine?”
“You know what? Fuck you. Fuck you and the horse you rode in on. Fuck your doctorate and your whole family. Fuck your stupid face and your nosy ass attitude.”
He shoved Ethan back. It didn’t do much, but he released his wrist. Why didn’t he leave? He got what he wanted. Everett and Billy are innocent. They can continue their beautiful love story, get married with all the goddamn lace, and live happily ever after.
Aiden was fine. He will always be fine.
Ethan watched him stumble away, he didn’t say a word, but when Aiden got far enough, he started following him. Which only enraged Aiden more because he didn’t have a destination in mind.
“You want a cigarette?”
He paused, chest heaving and face cold with tears.
“Yeah.”
Aiden ended up in the bed of Ethan’s truck. Thick plastic lock boxes full of medical supplies dug into his back, and there was hay down his pants. A crescent moon darted out from between fast moving clouds, bathing the pre-winter night in a soft ethereal glow. Shadows crept along the tree line, and wind whistled through the lot. He shivered.
The lit cigarette stubbornly clung to his lips. He didn’t inhale.
Ethan was sprawled out beside him, long legs dwarfing his. There was a weird kind of comforting silence between them. He dragged on his cigarette, and Aiden found he was grateful for the soft inhales. The crumbling embers that drifted down to his damp jeans. Their shoulders brushed; tiny pinpricks of heat felt under layers of clothes too thin for the night.
Sugar snored somewhere under the truck, unconcerned with the incoming chill. Her legs twitched as she chased rabbits in her dreams.
He didn’t know what time it was. It didn’t feel like it mattered. Tomorrow, if it came, would be hell. A long day with no sleep and his ribs aching like a grown man had gone to war with the reaper and dragged him back to the land of the living. Kicking and screaming, Aiden had come back. Dragged in a breath of frosty air and vomited out the sickness he didn’t know how to live without.
Empty. That’s what it felt like. A body without a spine, drifting listlessly in gravity that suddenly felt too heavy. Ethan had saved him from death, but the things that he had built himself around didn’t come with him. Now he was a ghost, a shell without anything inside. And what good was a shell? Peanut shells were discarded on the floor. A corn husk tossed into the compost.
Left to rot. The sustenance left behind used to bring life to something greater. Something whole.
His fingers shook as he withdrew the cigarette, flicking the ash over the truck onto the gravel. He let his wrist rest on the truck, burning cigarette hanging between frozen fingers. Watching it burn, he wondered if he would even feel the embers.
“You know what I think?” Ethan said into the night, not looking at him.
“I’m positive I don’t.”
His lips parted, huffing an indulgent smile that didn’t belong. Not here. But it worked for Ethan because, he too, didn’t belong. He was all angles. Contrasts of light and dark. Tanned skin, and hair dark as the skies over the mountains. An air of wilderness that had never seen the light of man, and the experience of a man who’d seen the world. His eyes held a spark of light that hadn’t yet been smothered by time, even though it should have been by his age. Ravages of his life seemed to add to his fire rather than detract. The crinkled lines around his eyes weren’t from squinting, but from laughing. From smiling. A life lived and enjoyed.
The vet took two more drags, letting the smoke swirl around the hands he’d used to save Aiden’s life. “I think you didn’t want to forget.”
Aiden groaned, head dropping back onto the back window of the cab. His hat had fallen off somewhere between life,death, and the barn and his hair fell into his eyes. It tickled uncomfortably.
“You know the polite thing would be to forget this ever happened.”
“Seems like a big ask when I’ve got your vomit on my pants.”
He winced. “You going to hold that over me?”