These Scars I Carry
Chapter 3
"Fractures"
A loud bang jolts me awake and I immediately scramble to reach for my rifle. For a couple of seconds I panic because it's gone, then I remember I'm in Michigan and my rifle is back in the armory in North Carolina.
"Lincoln! Lincoln!" My mom is pounding on the door and she sounds frantic. I unlock it and she launches herself at me, nearly strangling me in the process. "Oh, thank God. You're awake."
Something wet trickles down my bare chest. She's crying. "Mom, what's wrong?"
"You've been asleep for sixteen hours." She catches a shuddering breath. "And your door was locked. I thought— I was afraid you overdosed."
There are moments—thousands of them during the course of every single day— when I'm swamped with guilt that I came home alive and Clyde didn't, but even then I don't have a death wish. I wouldn't disrespect the sacrifice of him or any of the other guys we lost by taking my own life. I scrub my eye with the heel of my hand, dislodging sixteen hours' worth of crust.
"I was just exhausted." I pat her awkwardly on the back. "I haven't had a good night's sleep in a while. I didn't mean to scare you."
Wiping her tears on the back of her hand, she surveys the nest of blankets on the floor. "Is something wrong with your bed?"
"I've spent a lot of time sleeping on the ground." There were nights we slept in holes in the dirt. Other nights, we slept in abandoned compounds. Our patrol base was an old, decrepit schoolhouse with holes in the roof and birds in residence within the ceiling. "I'm not quite used to a bed yet."
She sits down on my bed. "Do you want a firmer mattress or—What happened to your legs?"
"They're, um…" I look down at the fading red welts that circle my ankles and creep up my calves. My body is covered in them. "They're flea bites."
"Flea bites?" She looks equal parts confused and horrified.
"Yeah, well, after a while everything gets really dirty," I explain. "And the people over there have mud-walled courtyards around their houses where they keep their livestock. Sometimes we'd sleep in there."
Clyde once had his dads send him a flea collar that he strapped around his ankle, but it didn't work. We called him Fido for a while after that, but he'd just bark and go, "Devil dog! Oorah!" Which would crack us up every time.
"You slept with—" Her hand comes up to her mouth. "I can't— I don't even know what to say." Her eyes fill with tears again.
Yeah, Afghanistan sucked. In the summer, we sweated our balls off in the hot sun. In the winter, we had to battle hypothermia. It was the coldest I've ever been in my life, even colder than when I went on a field trip up to Canada for a week.
Poisonous snakes. Camel spiders. Scorpions. Flies. Fleas. Mosquitoes. Sandstorms. Dysentery. Knowing that every time we left the wire, someone was going to shoot at us... I don't miss it exactly, but I do miss being out in the suck with my friends. After dealing with that shit for so long, you get used to it— develop a routine to it. Which makes it even harder to be back because it feels as if I'll never be fully at home here again.
"It wasn't so bad." I find myself saying the truth to her for the first time since I landed in Royal Woods.
"There's a party at Rusty's tonight." Lynn pokes her head into my room after another uncomfortable family dinner of awkward small talk and things left unsaid. Luan couldn't join us since she was out working another show. Neither did Lucy, who chose to eat somewhere else tonight. Which sucked, because I actually wanted to apologize to her for being such an asshole yesterday.
I'm unpacking my bag. The dresser drawers, I discover, are empty— apparently Mom didn't keep everything the same. Before, she was always nagging me to dress nicer and was embarrassed that I basically wore the same old clothes throughout all of high school. She probably had a field day throwing away all my ratty T-shirts and jeans with holes. Doesn't matter. None of them would have fit anyway.
"You interested?" Lynn asks. Rusty's house is spacious inside, with a sizable backyard perfect for having people over. It's been our party spot since we were freshmen — Rusty's parents being cool with having drunk teenagers over, provided they don't get too crazy or loud.
"You hang out with Rusty? Rusty Spokes?" I ask her. Out of all my old high school friends, Rusty was the one Lynn was mostly cool with, ever since he crowned her the queen of our stupid bicycle gang back when we were kids. That and he was the most athletically gifted of my old friends.
"Sometimes I do." Lynn shrugs, acting nonchalant about it. "He's not so bad at sports. Plus most of my friends are away at school now. Not many of us stuck around Royal Woods after graduation, y'know?"
My gaze falls down to the leg brace she wears around her knee and I feel a pang of sympathy form in my gut. Lynn's whole life revolved around athletics - from her day to day activities, to the people she surrounded herself with. Sports was her everything in life. Now being back home, away from her teammates and the future she planned for herself, I can't help but get the feeling she might be just as lost as I am.
"Will there be alcohol?"
"Duh."
"Then I'm down." I say, cheering up a bit when Lynn gleams back at my acceptance.
"Great!" She grins, "Be ready in an hour, 'kay? I'll see if I can't snag the keys to Vanzilla in the meantime."
"No need," I reach over to my nightstand and grab a set of keys, dangling them in front of her face. "I've got us covered."
Lynn balks back at me. "When did you get a car?!"
"Earlier today, while you were at work." I shrug, pocketing my new keys with a jingle. "Figured it was about time to start adulting."
After I woke up from my self-induced coma, I took a cab up to Main Street, which is lined with mom and pop type car dealerships offering the cleanest cars, lowest prices, and onsite financing, and had the driver drop me off at the first place on the strip. I bought an old black Jeep from a tired-looking salesman who gave me a couple hundred off the price for paying in cash. It's nothing special — the tires are balding and the clutch has a lot of play to it — but it's a set of wheels.
Dad might be a little upset, since I'm sure he planned to pass on Vanzilla to me, like his father before him, and his father too… but Vanzilla is old. I'm not sure just how many more miles the old girl has left in her. And it's not like I can just take her with me back to Camp Lejeune. I'm not even sure she can make the drive back.
"Where did you get the money?" She asks, curious.
"I had a seven month paycheck waiting for me when I got back." I shrug again, "Gotta spend it on something, right?"
"Oh." She says and an awkward silence falls over us both.
"Sooo meet you downstairs in an hour?"
"Yeah," she twirls a strand of hair between her fingers and I can tell there's something else she wants to say.
"What is it?" I ask her.
"Lucy's gonna be there too." She offers me a weak smile and I blink. Lucy? At a party? What?
"Uhhh," I say lamely, not believing what she's saying. "We're talking about same Lucy here, right? Dark, brooding, antisocial, likes to write depressing poetry — that Lucy?"
"The one in the same." She chuckles at my confusion. "You know Rocky? Rusty's younger brother? They're- uh, kinda dating now."
I blink again. What the fuck? "Oh."
"Yeah. Trust me, it's as weird and shocking to you as it is for me. They've been together for a month and I'm still not used to it."
I shake my head. First Lola with this Richie guy, now Lucy with Rusty's younger brother? Christ, what else have I missed? Does Luna have a rock-star girlfriend now? Maybe Leni has a fiancee in California she hasn't told us about yet.
"That's, uh, not gonna be a problem, is it…?" Lynn is hesitant in asking, so I wave her off.
"No, no. This is perfect. I need to apologize to her anyways." She releases a breath she must've been holding, relief clear on her face.
"Good," she smiles at me. "Maybe now the house will be a little less awkward now."
I offer her a another of my fake smiles. "Don't worry, I'm sure I'll screw things up with someone else in this house soon." The joke is supposed to lighten up the tension, but it backfires, if Lynn's expression is anything to go off of.
"Umm," she frowns and before she says anything, I interrupt.
"I'll meet you downstairs in an hour. I've gotta shower quick." I turn away to finish unpacking my seabag.
"Okay," Her voice trails off, uncertain as the door shuts in her face.
As little as I've spoken to my family since I first left, I think I've had even less contact with the guys I used to pal around with back in high school. Hell, if I'm being completely honest with myself, I'm not sure I'm ready to see my old friends yet, but I don't want to spend the evening watching military crime shows with my parents. Not only because it's always a Marine who ends up dead on those shows, but because I can't take another uncomfortable minute in their silence. Ever since dinner last night, it's been like the two have been walking on eggshells around me, acting as if any little thing they do can possibly set me off.
Are they wrong though? A voice in my head, one which sounds suspiciously like Clyde, chastises me and I have to begrudgingly agree. I haven't been on my best behavior around my folks. Maybe some space would do me some good. Well, that and alcohol.
Outside, I lower myself into the driver's seat of the black Jeep Wrangler I bought earlier today. The faint smell of pot mixed with air fresheners solidifies the fact that I got the car used, but I don't really mind. I'm not like other Marines, who get back from their deployments and immediately go buy brand new muscle cars and big, lifted trucks they can't really afford — a set of wheels that's not going to breakdown is good enough for me.
Lynn drops into the passenger seat beside me and the scent of perfume overwhelms the car. I cough and roll down my window. "Damn Lynn, did you bathe in that shit?"
She says nothing, but her eyes are wide with embarrassment and I can spy a blush upon her cheeks. Wait a minute — no, that's not a normal blush. She's wearing makeup. And foundation and eyeliner.
Lynn wearing makeup? Lynn wearing perfume? Lynn-fucking-Loud wearing both makeup and perfume?
Holy shit. This must be a dream. Either that or Hell has officially frozen over. I stick my head out the window and put a hand to my ear. Any second now, I'm sure I'll hear trumpets sound and children crying.
"What are you doing?" Lynn asks.
"Seeing if I can hear hooves clatter in the distance - the Four Horsemen of the Apocalypse can't be too far behind."
"Screw you dick!" She cries, punching me in the arm a couple times and I can't help myself from laughing. Actually no, those aren't playful punches, they actually hurt. Ow.
"Sorry! Sorry!" I laugh, hands held up in defeat as my sister glares back at me. "I'm sorry, it's just I'm not used to seeing you all…"
"What Lincoln?" She glares, daring me to finish that sentence and I swallow once. "Seeing me all what?"
"...Girly?" I smile sheepishly at her, and she thankfully doesn't retaliate. Instead she crosses her arms in a huff and glares out the passenger window.
"I can be 'girly' if I want to be, jackass." She mutters without looking at me and I grin back at her. Unapologetically of course.
It's not like I haven't seen Lynn all dolled up before. She's worn makeup and perfume for her high school prom, and again for big, fancy family get-togethers. It takes something important, something special to get her all superficial like this. Which makes me wonder why-
Oh. Duh. Now I get it.
"So did you bring any protection?" I say, turning the key in the ignition and letting the engine come alive.
"Bring what?" She whirls back to me, her eyes narrowing like slits.
"Protection." I say flatly, trying not to smirk and failing spectacularly at that. "Because obviously you're looking to get laid. And as your brother, I want to make sure you're properly prepar-"
I don't get to finish my lame joke, because I'm too busy weathering a barrage of closed fists and angry swearing, courtesy of my sister - whose eyes are alive with electrified intensity. And I think this, this right here, this is the Lynn I remember. The sister who would go to whatever lengths in order to win, the Lynn with that never ceasing spark in her eyes. That burning fire that would never extinguish.
"You're such a dick." She mumbles into her seat, but I spy a small smile on her face and I grin back at her.
"Comes with the occupation." I say as the Jeep's engine ignites to life and we're off.
We pull up in front of Rusty's about twenty minutes later, and I guess I'm expecting it to be different too. Except the white suburban home with the crooked porch steps never changes. There's a beer can on the porch railing that's been sitting there as long as I can remember. Even on the rare occasion someone decides to clean the place, no one ever touches the beer can. It's become art.
"Linc, dude, where you been?" The first person to greet me is Trent Middleton, half-baked and heavy-lidded, a halo of pot smoke around his dirty blond head. He's sitting in the same saggy lawn chair he was sitting in the last time I was there. Maybe he's been there the whole time. With Trent, it's not implausible. He graduated with me, but as far as I know he's never had a job— unless selling weed counts.
"Afghanistan."
He looks off into the middle distance for a moment, a ghost of a smile on his face, and I can tell he's somewhere else entirely. "Oh, yeah… sweet."
The living room is a mosh pit, all the homely furniture pushed up against the walls to make room for dancing, and a DJ— who's probably one of the kids I graduated with— warms up in the dining room. As I walk through the house, people reach out to me, shaking my hand and welcoming me home. Instead of feeling welcome, I feel hemmed in, like at the airport. Jittery. Freaked out at being in the middle of a crowd without my rifle.
"I need a beer," I say to no one, and my trigger finger flexes as I press my way through the crowd to the backyard.
Out back, there are more people here than there were in-doors. A couple kegs and coolers filled with alcohol chill off in the corner. There's a table set up in the center, and a crowd of people - some familiar, some not - gather around to play beer pong.
A familiar head of black hair catches my eye, and I spy Stella Lee perched on the counter of a table, a plastic cup and - what I can only assume - is a joint in the same hand. She's gesturing wildly as she talks animatedly to a group of girls I don't know.
Highly opinionated and always the life of a conversation, Stella had been one of my good friends throughout my childhood. She kinda became our group's token 'friend-who's-a-girl-but-not-a-girlfriend' friend, taking over after Ronnie Anne moved away. Despite that, I'm certain that everyone in our group of friends had fallen in love with her at one point or another. I know I did.
Stella laughs at something one of the girls says and her black hair is marble shiny and her plush lips are stained red from whatever she's drinking. Her eyes break away from her friends and meet mine. I grin as I feel the magnetic pull and have to subtlety remind myself that we're just friends. And that's all we'll ever be.
Before I can approach her, Rusty comes up. "Linc, man, welcome home!"
He goes in for a slap hug that I know will turn into a takedown attempt. It always does. He lowers his shoulder and circles my waist with his arms, trying to wrestle me to the floor. We used to be more evenly matched, but now he doesn't stand a chance. I offset his weight, curl my leg around his and drop him. Textbook leg sweep.
"Dude, you may as well call terminal uncle." I laugh as I haul him to his feet.
"It's been too fucking long." He gives me a hug for real this time. "How ya been?"
"Good." Lie. "You?"
"Same shit, different day, y'know?" Rusty shrugs.
I have no idea what it's like to be the nineteen-year-old night manager of Taco Bell with a pregnant girlfriend. I'm not saying Rusty made the wrong choices—he's living an honest life and it's not my place to judge—but, no, I don't know. I've spent the better part of a year on the other side of the planet in a country where a guy will shake your hand and smile, then go pick up his AK-47 and shoot at you. Where a little boy will demand—with no tears in his eyes—that you give him a hundred bucks compensation for accidentally killing his mother, which is less than the going rate for killing his dog. Normal life just isn't something I can relate to anymore.
Stella hops down from the table counter and heads toward me and Rusty. She's grinning wildly and her hips sway as she walks. Shit, I have to force my eyes to stay focused on her face.
Stella cocks her head at me and smiles. "Well, if it isn't G.I. Joe."
"G.I. Joe," I take her drink and down it in a single swallow. It's fruity, but the alcohol is strong. "Was a pussy."
She laughs her smoky, sexy laugh and kisses my cheek. Her breasts brush against my arm as she hugs me tightly and I return the embrace with one arm.
"Both arms please. At least act like you've missed me."
I roll my eyes with an fake sigh, but my other arm wraps around her with a grin. She feels good between my arms, warm, and I feel my pants stiffen slightly. I'm not ashamed though,even if she's just my friend. Stella's beyond attractive and I'm chalked full of hormones since I haven't gotten laid in over seven months.
If Johnny "Chopper" Dickson were here right now, he'd theorize in his Tennessee drawl that chicks like Stella are naturally attracted to Marines since we're — in his own words, not mine — 'warfighting badasses'. He's a wiry little guy with bright red hair and a lower lip constantly bulging with Copenhagen. We call him Chopper because he snores like the exhaust of a Harley Davidson, which is extra funny considering just how small the guy is. He talks real fast, as if he doesn't get all the words out at once, they'll disappear. He talks shit about girls, even though he has zero experience and even less game. Clyde and I never used to let him get away with it.
"I call bullshit, Johnny," Clyde said once, after Chopper claimed he had sex with a University of Tennessee cheerleader. "You're just a lying, red-haired little bast—"
"Shut the fuck up." Chopper gets all huffy when we make fun of his hair or call attention to the fact that he is the smallest guy in our platoon. "Indy's got a weird hair color, too." Yeah, my snow-white hair wasn't exactly common, but he thought including me in his affliction will lend him credibility. He was dead wrong.
I laughed and dropped my arm around his shoulder. "The color of your hair is irrelevant when you're as handsome as me."
The memory brings both happiness and pain. I squeeze my eyes shut and inhale a deep breath.
"You okay?" Stella asks, bringing me back to the moment and I release her from my hold.
"Yeah I'm fine. Guess that drink I stole from you was a little strong for me."
Stella smirks. "Bit of a lightweight there Lincoln Loud?"
She's not wrong. I haven't had a sip of alcohol during my seven months in Afghan, and I wasn't really up to drinking back in the barracks when we got back. My tolerance is basically nonexistent now. "It's definitely been awhile."
"All the more reason to drink then." Lynn says, appearing behind us with a pair of beers in hand. "Here ya go bro." She passes me a cup and I thank her with a nod.
"Oh my God, Lynn! What did you do to your hair?" Stella exclaims as she pounces on Lynn and I take a step back.
"Oh, I, umm," Lynn stammers a bit and I blink in surprise. She's nervous? Embarrassed maybe? Regardless, that doesn't seem like her at all.
Stella, through whatever otherworldly-female intuition, salvages the conversation. "No no, it looks really good! Where did you go? Marcy's Salon?"
"No, I uhh, cut it myself."
Me and Rusty balk in surprise while Stella squeals in delight. "You cut it?! Oh you've gotta show me how. I've been wanting to cut my own hair for forever now!"
The girls' conversation takes off from there, a bit one-sided on Stella's part, but I pay no mind. I look over to Rusty who offers me another beer as I've already finished mine.
"Thanks man."
"No prob." He says and a thick, awkward silence falls over us.
"So how are the other guys doing?" I ask him, taking a decently sized drink from my cup.
"They're good man. I don't see Liam much since he spends most of his time at the farm, but Zach should be around here somewhere… probably sucking face with his underage girlfriend." He shudders slightly and I give him a fake chuckle in order to keep the conversation alive.
"He's still cradle-robbing huh?"
"Yeah bro, its gross," He gags. "Don't get me wrong— I love the guy, but he really needs to start picking up chicks his own age."
I nod in agreement and a spark of inspiration hits me. "We should all hang out soon. Just like old times man." I speak without thinking and immediately regret my choice as the implications of what I say hits me.
Rusty tries not to let it show, but over the past year I've gotten better at reading people. I can see, plain as day, his face drop and I know I just screwed up. "Yeah man, just like old times…" His voice is quieter than it was, muted. Empty. And what's left unsaid hangs in the air between us.
Just like old times… except without Clyde.
"So how long are you home?" To his credit, Rusty bounces back from a conversation I was almost certain I prematurely ended. I'm both in envy of his ability to move past shit and also in gratitude for him not bringing up Clyde, even if both of us were thinking it.
"A month," I say.
He nods. "Nice."
The noise of the party fills in the space where the conversation should continue but doesn't, and Rusty just does that nervous little laugh people do when they don't know what to say. If Clyde were here, he'd say something to keep us going. A joke or some stupid question that would certainly start a lighthearted argument. We used to talk about everything, from the philosophical to the ridiculous—like who would win in a fight between a liger and a grizzly/polar bear hybrid. We nearly got into a fight ourselves over that one.
Without him here, it feels like there's something incomplete between me and Rusty. Something empty.
"How's, um—how's Sadie?" I ask lamely.
"She's good." He nods again. "The baby is due in September. A girl."
"That's awesome, man, congratulations." I take a sip of beer, looking for an escape. Rusty was one of my best friend in high school, but now… I know there's a place inside me that still cares about him—about all of them—but tonight I can't really find it.
The DJ inside starts playing his set list, and Rusty looks relieved. Maybe we were both looking for an escape. "Talk to you later, bro?"
I nod and he's soon swallowed up by the dancing mass of people in the living room. The bass makes the walls rattle and I wonder if this will be one of those nights when the neighbors call the police. In the middle of the crowd I see one dark head, standing still in the middle of the thrashing bodies. Black hair puffs out from his head in random cowlicks just like… Clyde.
He stares at me.
I blink, and he's gone.
"Lincoln, are you okay?" I hear Lynn's voice pulling me back to reality. "You spaced out for a second."
"Yeah, I'm fine." But I'm not. Sweat trickles between my shoulder blades beneath my shirt. I tip my cup back and drain it. "I just need a beer."
Trent is at the keg, refilling his cup. "Linc, my man! Where you been?"
Kid seriously needs to cut back on the weed. "We've already had this conversation, Trent."
"Oh, yeah." A stoned giggle rolls out of him. "Afghanistan, right?"
"Right."
"Dude, did you see any poppies?"
Leave it to Trent to ask me about the drugs. "Like the Wizard of Oz, man," I say, because that will make him happy, but we didn't take naps in the poppy fields of Afghanistan. We took contact from the Taliban.
I fill a cup, then go inside to the living room, my insides still coiled from—I'm not even sure what to call what happened.
Hallucination? Haunting? Maybe a bit of both?
Standing with my back to the wall, I watch the party going on around me. A couple of girls in tiny skirts stare at me on their way upstairs to the bathroom. My buddy Zach, who graduated with the unofficial senior superlative of Most Likely to Do Time for Dating Underage Girls, is hitting on a girl who looks about fifteen or sixteen. Trent and his girl - I think her name was Zoey or some shit? - Are deep into one of those stoned conversations filled with profound insights they won't remember tomorrow. A plate full of shots makes its way around the party and I inhale one with gusto. The shot is dark, bitter, and I know from the taste that it's bottom shelf cheap stuff. I don't care though and I reach for another one. Somebody I don't know cheers me on.
Used to be I was part of this, this devil may care attitude and lifestyle. Now though? I wonder where, if anywhere, I fit. And if I even care.
A familiar head of raven locks catches my eye and I spy Lucy and Rocky sneaking up the stairs, hand in hand. Sensing the change in gravity — in that creepy little way that she does — Lucy glances back and holds my gaze. We stare for a few seconds before I man-up and offer her a little wave along with a weak smile. She returns the wave about as half-hearted as I sent her, before disappearing with Rocky and I feel slightly better about myself.
It wasn't a real apology, not even close, and I know I owe her an actual one later - but at least now she knows that her older brother doesn't hate her. That there's no bad blood between us. It might be small, but it's a step in the right direction.
My cup empties and I return back outside to refill it. Lynn and Stella are gone— where to? I don't know and in my buzzed state, I don't really care. I beeline for the keg and fill up another cup, one which I down in seconds. A few beers later, I trigger the nozzle again, but nothing except for foam comes out. So I move on and try the next keg. This one is an empty as the last.
"Son of a bitch." I mutter to myself.
"Whoa, pump the brakes there, cowboy." A perky voice chirps off to my side — there's a girl with a mass of light brown hair pulled into one of those sexy-messy librarian knots. Compared to the other chicks at the party, she's overdressed; the only skin she has showing is a narrow strip between the top of her threadbare Levi's and a washed-out blue T-shirt. "Save some booze for the rest of us."
Her green eyes meet mine and I frown as my inebriated mind tries to put a name to her face. She looks familiar and I know that I know her from somewhere, but I just can't seem to remember right now. So instead, I play it cool and shrug my shoulders.
"Just trying to get a drink around here."
"I can see that," her voice is light even though she has to talk over the thumping of bass and the cheers from the nearby beer pong table. "But unless you brought your own, I think you might be out of luck."
A thought strikes me. "Did you bring your own?"
She cups her chin and taps at it idly. "I think I may have a bottle of rum stashed away in the kitchen somewhere."
"Somewhere where exactly?"
"Somewhere secret," she grins.
Oh, so it's gonna be like that, huh? "Are you willing to help a guy out?"
"I might be," she says. "What do I get out of it?"
"My time and attention." It's not the smoothest line I've ever used, but I'm not feeling smooth. I'm jagged. And drunk. But she laughs anyways so I guess it's okay. "I'm Lincoln by the way."
"I know." She's smug in the way she says it and I mentally kick drunk-me for not remembering who she is. "Follow me."
"Okay." My eyes wander down to her ass as I follow her inside. It's nice. Kind of bubbly. My beer-soaked consciousness has got sex on its mind. Hormones and all that shit.
I'm not ashamed though. It's been a long time since I've gotten laid, and I'm currently surrounded by cute girls as far as the eye can see. It's a far cry from Afghanistan, where women are hidden under burqas and not allowed to talk to you. Besides, the women there… well, the Qur'an forbids nearly everything fun anyway, so even if you could see their faces, there's not much point in even considering it.
I did kiss a Muslim girl once. When Clyde and I first arrived at Camp Lejeune, the rest of our unit was on pre-deployment leave. We had to stay on base for a crash-course version of all the training the battalion had done while we were still at school of infantry. Just before we were scheduled to deploy, Clyde and I were given a few days of leave so we could go home. Instead, we went to New York City. Chopper—we didn't even really know him very well, but he was new like Clyde and me—invited himself along.
At a club the first night there, Clyde was hitting on this girl from some upstate college. She told me her roommate had just broken up with her boyfriend and a kiss from a hot—her words, not mine—Marine would restore her friend's faith that not all men are assholes. As Clyde's ever loyal wingman, I knew there was a better than average chance her friend was beat, but I was committed and drunk.
Except she wasn't ugly. She was beautiful, with dark, hopeful eyes— even though she was trying not to look hopeful— and I couldn't have been an asshole if I wanted to. She wouldn't let me do anything other than kiss her—believe me, I tried—but the gods of getting laid smiled on me for the rest of that weekend. Afterwards, Chopper— who failed to seal the deal with every girl he met — called me a haji-lover for kissing a Muslim girl.
He spent the trip to Afghanistan nursing a bruised and busted bottom lip.
I follow Miss 'I-know-your-name-but-I'm-not-gonna-tell-you-mine' to the kitchen, where Rusty, Lynn, Stella, Rocky, Lucy and a few others are sitting around the table, reminiscing about some camping trip they went on last summer. Lucy is sitting on Rocky's knee, his hand curled around her hip - part of me wants to jump in and break the two apart, as per any overprotective older brother would. But I don't want to make things worse between us, so I swallow down the urge and follow Miss Librarian Knot to the sink. She fishes out a bottle of spiced rum hiding within a cabinet and starts pouring us both a shot.
"Jordan!" Stella cries, delighted. "You didn't tell me you brought rum!"
"That's because you didn't ask Stella." The brunette beside me says in a sing-along voice as she hands me a cup. I blink once.
"Wait, Jordan? As in Girl Jordan? That Jordan?"
She shoots a toothy grin at me. "Awww, Lincoln, so you do remember me."
I feel the blood rush to my cheeks, or maybe it's the alcohol? Regardless, I don't know what to say, so I swallow down my drink first before speaking. "Sorry. I uhhh, I didn't recognize you." Fucking smooth Loud. Smooooth.
Jordan rolls her eyes. "It hasn't been that long, Linc."
"I know, it's just, well, you used to be taller." It's a lame excuse, I know — but Girl Jordan used to be able to look down on me. She was the tallest girl in our grade.
"Yeah well, your hair used to be longer." She reaches up to ruffle my hair and I don't flinch away. "I like it short though. It looks good on you. Clean."
I grumble something in response, still too embarrassed to think of anything clever to say, and instead pour myself another shot of rum. I'm too drunk for this shit… or maybe not drunk enough.
"How much have you had to drink?" Lynn asks me and I squint my eyes at her, or at least I think I do. It's hard to tell with the room spinning as it is.
"Dunno. A little."
"He means a lot," Jordan says, taking a seat at the table. I stumble a bit when I take the empty spot next to her, something Lynn takes notice of. "He was outside, chugging beer after beer until the keg was empty."
"Lincoln!" Lynn cries, "Did you forget you drove us here?" I totally did actually. Whoops.
"You can drive, can't you?"
"No genius," she lifts up the cup she's holding. "This is my fourth cup. And I'm not risking a DUI."
"Why bring me along if you didn't want me to drink?"
"I didn't say that." She huffs, annoyed. "I just wanted you to relax, get a little buzz, maybe. Not get completely shitfaced."
I blink. "Shit."
Before I joined the Marines, I wasn't really an avid drinker. Getting a little buzzed was fine, but I never really tried to get wasted. Just enough to relax a bit, y'know? But light drinking doesn't relax me anymore - only when I'm shitfaced does that happen. I don't tell Lynn that, though. It'd do nothing but send up red-flags.
"I can drive." Lucy's monotone voice silences us at the table. "My heart might be dark and shrouded, but my mind is clear and sober."
"You're good to drive Luce?" Lynn asks her, ignoring her melancholy.
"I am. I don't drink beer or liquor. Just wine."
Jordan cocks her head, "Why wine?"
"It reminds me of blood." Lucy simply shrugs and almost everyone at the table groans. Typical Lucy.
"So we're all good then." I say to Lynn, "Lucy will drive. You worry for nothing." My words are slurred and messy and she doesn't look impressed.
"Yeah great, only one problem though."
"What?"
Lynn looks over to Lucy. "Luce, can you drive stick?" And she shakes her head.
Oh. Right. Shit.
"Ohhhh." Rusty winces, "Tough break dude."
"I can teach her as we go." I say stupidly with much bravado and even drunk me knows this is a terrible idea. I doubt I could teach her sober, much less drunk off my ass as I am now. Stupid stupid stupid.
"Annnnd we're back to square one." Lynn says with a frown.
"I can do it." Lucy says flatly. Lynn stares back at her skeptically.
"You sure about that Luce? It'll probably be a little… rough."
"Good." She nods, "My spirit has been remarkably unbroken for sometime now. It would be a welcome change to dwell in perpetual sorrow once more."
Rocky sighs beside her. "Babe, can we at least try to keep the mellow drama down? Just for tonight, please?"
"Meh. I'll think about it."
The conversation takes off from there, and I sit for a while, but I'm not really paying attention. Instead, I'm thinking about the last time I got drunk. Just before we deployed, Chopper smuggled a bottle of cheap, nasty-ass tequila into our room and we drank it while watching episodes of One Tree Hill on Clyde's laptop. When Chopper passed out, snoring and drooling on my pillow, Clyde and I talked about being back in Royal Woods, for what felt like the first time in ages. Although the guys in our platoon knew we we're from the same home town, they never knew anything about our home because we never bothered to talk about it. They never knew I had ten sisters, and they never knew that Clyde had two fathers.
"I don't really talk about it because I don't want to get shit for it, you know?" He said. "McBride has two daddies. Shit like that."
"You never tried to hide it back home though," I said, taking a swig of tequila and passing the bottle back to him. "Why's it only bothering you now?"
"Because I was kid when I moved to Michigan dude." Clyde took a hefty drink and shuddered from the taste. "Everyone who knew didn't give a shit, we were too young for that. If I had been older, I probably would've kept it secret."
"Would you have told me? If we met when we were older?"
"Of course I would've. You're my best friend Linc. I love you man."
I smirked at him. "Gaaaay."
"Fuck you too, asshole." He said, punching me in the arm.
I might have made fun of him more if I hadn't been so drunk, but the tequila made us maudlin. Morbid.
"If anything happens to me over there, Lincoln, I want you to go see my dads, okay? Let them know I loved them."
"Dude, don't be so fucking stupid," I said. "I'm never going to see your dads because the only thing that's ever going to happen to you is me, kicking your ass."
I was wrong. God, was I wrong. The worst thing did happen—and I couldn't stop it.
I lift my beer cup for a drink. Dirt fills the lines of my hand, and my fingers are stained with blood. The cup slips from my grasp, splashing rum across the top of the table. Lucy jumps off Rocky's lap, and Stella is shrieking something at me, but I don't understand what she's saying. My chest is tight and I'm having trouble breathing.
I have to get out of here.
My chair falls over as I stand up. "Linc, where are you going?" Lynn calls after me, but I don't answer. I push my way through the living room and to the front door. Someone unfortunate stands in my way and I shove them aside as I breach the threshold and stumble to the grass. The air is cooler outside, clear, as I pull it into my lungs in great, giant gasps until my heart rate returns to its regular rhythm. I look at my hands. They're clean.
"Jesus Christ." I mutter to myself. The grass is damp and cold - it helps shock me back into focus.
"Hey motherfucker, what's your problem?!" There are footsteps crunching on the ground behind me. Two pissed off dudes are stomping their way towards me and my wobbly knees stand straight as I squint through the alcoholic haze. I know them.
Hank and Hawk. Two trailer-trash bullies who used to torment me and my friends back in grade school — all the way up to high school, really. I used to play pee-wee football against them, and they were the biggest douchebags I knew at the time. From the look of the their shitty ass clothes and rough exterior — it seems like they still are.
"What do you guys want?" I slur back at them.
"We want you asshole." Hank says and drunk me wants to laugh at how unbelievably gay that sounded. Instead, my blood boils when Hank emphasizes his point by shoving me once in the chest.
"The fuck is your deal man?" I literally, no shit, snarl at him for touching me.
"What's your deal?" Hawk says, closing the distance between us to yell right in my face. He shoves me again and I have half a mind to slug him right then and there.
In my heavily lidded alcoholic state, the small part of me that's still sober racks my brain for what I could have possibly done to piss them off. Then I remember — in that mad dash I made to get to the door, I shoved somebody out of the way. It must have been Hank. Or maybe Hawk. Either way, it would make sense why these two are so royally pissed off at me. I did kinda get physical with them first, even if I didn't mean to.
The smart thing to do right now is to apologize and explain what happened. We could be adults about this—even if Hank and Hawk are complete dickheads and deserved whatever shit happens to them— I doubt they want to start a fight. This is a party. They didn't come here looking for a fight, they came here to relax and drink. Like me. Like everybody else here. Talking things out would be the rational thing to do.
Thing is though, I'm not rational right now. Not even close — I'm drunk, angry and really want to kill something right now. My heart is pounding in my ears and I can feel the adrenaline rushing through my veins. It feels good, makes me feel alive and I don't want it to stop.
So I throw rationality out the proverbial-fucking-window by grabbing Hawk by his shoulders and smashing my forehead against his nose. Blood squirts, cartilage breaks, and my head immediately starts throbbing.
It feels fucking good.
Hawk collapses to the deck, his hands rushing up to grasp at his broken nose. I take a step to correct my balance and the right side of my face suddenly explodes in bright, hot pain. I'm seeing stars.
Oh right, the other guy. Duh.
I'm drunk as shit right now, so the pain isn't as bad as it could be, but I still stumble to the ground. Hank is right behind me, kneeing me harshly in the side and pushing me over so I'm on my back. Which was about the stupidest he could have done in that moment. Even as impaired as I am in this moment, I know how to fight - this position I was in, with my back turned to him - I would have been completely at his mercy. You can't fight back if you're not facing your opponent.
Now though, with my back to the deck and my front facing him—even if he's on top of me, I can still defend myself. I use my weight and positioning to my advantage by reaching underneath his thighs and shoving him forward. The momentum pushes him up and over my head, his arms forced to reach out and catch himself on the grass to either side of my face.
My left arm curls around his, my right hand pushing up against his shoulder as I kick my leg up and drive my weight to the left. The energy of my push flips him over and I'm quick as I mount my self above him. The tables turn. Hank and Hawk, they're both brawlers, all brute force and heavy mass. They can be dangerous, sure— but if you can manipulate their own weight against them, the fight can go in your favor.
It was something the instructors taught us in boot and in the fleet — that you can't always be the biggest, the strongest, the fastest or even the baddest dude on the field — but you can be the most prepared. One mind, any weapon, they would say. Now, I'm not an experienced fighter by any means, but I've had these martial arts drills seared into my mind from almost day one— it's just muscle memory at this point. Even with all the alcohol flooding my system and the adrenaline drowning out my thoughts— something just clicks. I'm running on instinct.
I'm reigning over Hank now, my weight pressed down on his waist and I just start wailing on the fucker. To his credit, he tries to turtle up and block, but there's not really much he can do but just lie there and take it. And as his arms begin to slacken with each punch I throw, I find myself grinning wildly like some drunken fool. Every blow sends tremors shooting up my arms with recoil. I feel my knuckles split open and blood— either his or mine or both of ours— stains his marred face red. I feel alive.
The adrenaline I get from this fight is amazing, intoxicating even. The last time I felt like this, there were bullets flying over my head. I know how unbelievably screwed up it sounds, but being in the middle of a firefight is just about the ultimate rush you can get out of life. I mean, fuck drugs man, getting shot at is the ultimate high. It's something I'll never be able to top — I'll be chasing that dragon until the day I die.
Somebody's weight crashes into me and I'm suddenly thrown off Hank's unconscious form. I collapse to the lawn, and the cold dampness of the grass sorta helps to shock some sense back into me. Sorta. I'm still pissed and hyped up on adrenaline like it were dope, so I try to get back up to finish what I started. But there's a pair of unfamiliar hands weighing me down, pinning me to the grass. I struggle against them before somebody slaps me in the face. Hard. I blink.
Even drunk me knows, you don't slap someone when you're in a fight. You slap someone to get them out of a fight.
"Lincoln, stop!" Someone howls in my ear, and I look up to see Lynn and Jordan holding me down. Lucy and Stella are standing behind both of them— from my position, I can look up and see the former's eyes through her bangs. They're as wide as dinner plates— awestruck and maybe a bit scared.
"Oh Christ." A familiar head of red stumbles beside us. Rusty, wide eyed and hesitant, positions himself between me and Hawk. He's playing mediator, but he doesn't have to— Hawk is busy trying to wake up Hank, who's straight up knocked out on the deck. There's blood streaming down his nose, and Hank's face looks like beef jerky at this point.
Holy shit. Did I do that?
"What the Hell happened?!" Rusty shouts and Hawk looks up from Hank, who's just starting to come back around.
"Fuckface over there fucking jumped us!" He scowls at me, hate gleaming in his eyes and I feel my blood boil. Again. "He's a fucking psychopath."
I glare back at him. "You wanna say that again bitch?" I try to get up, but Lynn's fingertips press into my shoulder blades, her weight holding me down. "You started that shit."
"You shoved us! And you broke my fucking nose!"
I grin, even if that causes me a bit of pain to do so. "Looks like an improvement to me."
Hawk sneers at me as he helps Hank back to his feet, throwing his arm over his shoulder. "You talk a lot of shit Loud." He spits at the ground, towards me. "Fucking cocksucker."
"Takes one to know one shithead." I laugh in his face.
"Were you always like this? Or did it take your faggot-ass boyfriend dying to find your balls?"
It gets quiet then, quiet enough that you could hear a pin drop if there was one. Someone behind me gasps quietly and I feel Lynn's hand on my shoulder falter for a only a second, but it's enough. With a shove, I break free from her hold and rush forward. Jordan manages to keeps her hands clamped around my arm, but I just drag her along. Her feet carve themselves into the lawn and she lets out a yelp of pain as we go, but I don't care.
All that matters is that I kill this son of a bitch. Right here. Right fucking now.
Hawk nearly drops Hank as he scrambles backward, clearly not expecting me to rush him like this. He collides into a crowd of people that are collected around us to watch the fight, the two of them falling over themselves in a avalanche of bodies. Hawk smashes his broken nose against somebody's shoulder and he cries out in pain. Too fucking bad. He shouldn't have insulted Clyde like that. He deserves worse. And I plan to give it to him.
Only I can't, because Rusty steps in between us and catches my balled fist, pulling me back by my arm. He gives Jordan a chance to readjust herself and she shifts her grip to wrap her arms around my waist in a tight bear hug. Lynn and Rocky are right behind them, grabbing whatever purchase they can get on my person, everybody is holding me back from smashing Hawk's fucking face in. Stopping me from killing him. I won't let them.
"Let me go!" I scream at them, thrashing uselessly in their grip. "Get off. Get the fuck off!"
"Linc! Calm down dude!"
"Stop bro, stop!"
I don't listen. I drive my elbow back hard, and it makes solid contact with something soft and fleshy. I hear a feminine squeak of pain and the grip on my chest lessens and I take the opportunity to free my hand and shove it against Rusty's face. He stumbles to the side and I whirl back around to Hawk with nothing but murder in my eyes and hate burning in my blood.
And Clyde is standing right in front of me.
I choke at the sight and my head throbs. I flinch away from him like he was a hot stove and I've just been burned. Only when I blink, Clyde is gone and Lucy is standing in his place.
"Lincoln!" Her voice breaks into a pitch and I freeze, momentarily shocked out of my anger. Did Lucy just raise her voice? "Lincoln stop, he's not worth it. Please!" She reaches forward and helps in holding me back. More hands secure themselves firmly around my arms and waist. I'm not going anywhere.
Rusty steps out in front of us, but he's not focused on me. He's busy glaring at Hank and Hawk
"Hawk," his voice is cold, ice cold, and I don't think I've ever heard him this pissed before. "Get out of here man. Don't come back. Ever."
Hawk picks up Hank from where he's crumpled up on the lawn. He sneers back at Rusty but his eyes magically avoid mine as the two of them limp away to their car. I'm dead silent as I watch their tail lights disappear around the corner.
I glance down at the same time Lucy looks back up to me, and even through the haze, I can see tears forming in her eyes. My heart rate continues to skyrocket and I'm suddenly very aware of the arms still holding he back. They're close. Too close. I break free with some force and take a few steps to make some distance from everyone else. My fists clench painfully at my sides and I breathe in and out with choked, ragged exhales.
"Lincoln," Lynn touches my shoulder and I shrug her off, turning around to glare at her in the process.
"Don't Lynn. Just… just fucking don't."
I flip around completely and see that Rocky is busy dispersing the audience that crowded around us, which is a small blessing in of itself. But other than that, everyone else is staring at me. Judging me. Pitying me. I hate it.
"What?!" I snap at them, and they all collectively flinch as one. Except for Lynn, who just keeps staring at me, searching my face for... something, I don't what. Over her shoulder, I spy Stella passing a beer off to Jordan, who takes it gently and uses it as an improvised cold compress. She nursing a cheek that's slightly swollen and already starting to bruise. My stomach lurches with guilt.
Oh fuck, did I do that? Fuck.
I can't stay here. I have to leave. Now. Coming to this party was a huge mistake. What the Hell was I thinking?
With shaky, sweaty hands—I dig through my pockets to fish out both my keys and a crumpled pack of cigarettes. I toss the former to Lucy and they jingle as she makes the catch.
"I'll be by the car." I mumble as I frantically light my smoke, ignoring everyone's eyes like a total coward. Somebody calls my name, but I ignore them. And as I stumble away, back to my Jeep, I notice my hands are still shaking uncontrollably.
I don't mean to act like this. I want to talk to them, to be normal again. I want to apologize—really, I do… but I can't. I can't face them like I am now— this broken mess of nerves and unpredictability that I've deteriorated into ever since Clyde died. I just can't do it. I can't look them in the eyes.
Because when I do, all I can see is Clyde, staring right back at me. And that scares me more than any insurgent or IED or impending mental breakdown ever could.
Author's Note:
This chapter just kept disappointing me the more and more as I wrote it — it actually pissed me off so much that I had to rewrite it from scratch... and I'm still not satisfied with it. And I don't know why, but I am. Oh well, take it for what it is.
Till next time—