11. Chapter Eleven
Chapter eleven
Nash
I take off my coat and look around for a place to put it.
“Sorry,” Carter says. “I, uh… usually put all my stuff in the bedroom.”
“It’s fine,” I say. “Is it okay if I leave it here?” I gesture to the recliner.
“Yeah, that’s fine.”
I lay my coat over the arm of the chair and lay my bag on the cushion as Carter heads down the hallway and turns into his bedroom. He returns a moment later with his coat off.
“Do you want something to drink?” he asks.
“What do you have?”
He goes into the small kitchen and pulls open the fridge. From here, I can see it’s mostly empty. A container of ketchup, mayo, and BBQ sauce are on the door, and there is a takeout container on the middle shelf and a few bottles of something on the top.
“Milk or room temperature water. I could make coffee or tea?”
“Water is fine.”
He glances at me, his cheeks slightly pink. “Are you sure?”
“Absolutely. I’ve had enough caffeine for the night.”
He nods, closing the door and grabbing two bottles of water from a case on the floor on the other side of the fridge. He hands one to me. “We can sit at the island or on the couch?”
“Couch is fine.”
I stop at my bag first, opening it up to pull out a pen and a white legal-lined notepad. We sit on opposite ends of the couch, but it isn’t big, so there isn’t much space between us.
“How are you feeling?” I ask.
“Nervous. Embarrassed,” he mutters.
“Why embarrassed?”
He gestures around. “This place is embarrassing.”
“It’s your home.”
“It’s pathetic.”
“I’m not judging where you live, Carter. You shouldn’t worry about it too much. Honestly, mine doesn’t look so different. In fact, it’s probably worse because it’s bigger with less things in it.”
“Yeah, but you can afford something bigger.”
“Doesn’t make it better.”
“I just…” He blows out a breath. “Never mind.”
I set down my pad and pen and give him my full attention.
“No, go ahead. Tell me.”
Sighing, he scratches the back of his neck, his hand lingering there for a moment before it drops back by his side.
“This isn’t what I wanted my life to be.
It’s not what it was supposed to be. Ryan and I had a beautiful apartment in a nice neighborhood.
We had friendly neighbors who used to borrow sugar and milk and actually return it.
Not people who won’t even look at you because they don’t want you to remember their face. ”
A few responses run through my head, and I’m not sure what to say. Telling him life throws us curveballs sometimes diminishes what happened to Ryan, so I can’t say that. Telling him that it’ll get better feels cheap and generic. Supportive feels like the right direction.
“You’re still dealing with the loss of someone who was a big part of your life. It’ll take time for things to get to a place you want them to be.”
“How long? It’s been three years.”
“You can’t put a time frame on it.”
“How long did it take you?”
I watch him carefully and give him an honest answer. “I’m still not sure I’m there, but I’m getting closer.”
He huffs a humorless laugh. “That’s not helpful.”
“No, but it’s realistic.”
I am not the right person to help him, at least not in this capacity.
I am not a therapist. I’m giving him too much of myself, but something tells me I need to.
Something tells me he needs to know that he’s doing okay, that he’s doing what he can, that it’s okay to not have your shit together all the time, especially after losing someone.
We can relate. And it’s not my job to make sure he’s okay, even if it’s what I want to do.
My goal is to solve this case. But if I can help him along the way, I’m going to do it.
I wish I had someone to help me through these last twenty years.
“Let’s just get started,” he mutters.
“Are you sure you’re okay to do this still? If not, you can tell me.”
He scoffs. “You picked me up from group, drove me to dinner, paid for my dinner, and then brought me home. It’s the least I can do.”
“You don’t owe me anything, Carter. I don’t care about what I’ve done for you. If this is too much, you need to tell me.”
“It’s always going to be too much,” he says matter-of-factly.
“Yes,” I agree. “So you need to decide if it’s something you can handle right now or if it’s something that needs to wait for another day.”
He’s quiet for a moment, staring at the floor. “I need to do this.”
“Okay.” I pick up my notepad and get comfortable on the couch so I can take notes. “Tell me what happened that night.”
He flinches, then takes a deep breath and lets it out slowly. His gaze stays on the floor, hands clasped together, fidgeting. I give him the time he needs—I’ll stay here all night if that’s what it takes. It’s not like I have something to go home to.
“We had gone out to dinner, like we always did on Thursday nights. It was the one night we had off together, so we always went out to eat. Sometimes we went to the movies after. We had money to do that then. It was a mostly safe neighborhood, so we didn’t think anything of walking home.
We always did. It was cold out, but Ryan loved the winter, and I dealt with it for him.
We got to the alley to cross through, because it’s shorter than walking around the block.
A lot of people use the alley, even though it’s dark. We’d done it a hundred times before.”
He clears his throat, taking a moment to breathe.
I want to tell him it’s okay, that he can keep going, but I know he will.
“We were just a few feet in when we heard something. Crying. Then a man’s voice but we couldn’t make out what was going on.
We didn’t say a word, but I felt that something was up.
There was another sound, like a bang against the dumpster.
Ryan called out to ask if someone was there because he was the brave one.
No one answered. It was quiet. We kept going, Ryan moving faster to see what was happening.
I reached for him, something in my stomach telling me something was wrong, but he was too far ahead.
He swore, then ran toward the dumpster. He shouted at someone to ‘get the fuck away from her.’ Then everything happened so fast.”
He goes quiet again. I take notes, watching as he takes breaths to calm himself down.
His eyes fill with tears, and I see the way he’s tensed up.
This isn’t easy. I had to go over what happened with my parents too many times, but I did it so they wouldn’t have to ask my brothers to go over more.
I made sure to take that burden from them.
Carter doesn’t have someone to do that for him and I really wish he did.
Maybe it would be a little easier for him.
“There was shouting. Screaming. A man and a woman. Ryan cried out. The man and woman ran off, and I went to Ryan, wondering why he wasn’t running back to me.
His hand was on his side, and he moved just right so the light came down and showed blood oozing from his side.
It was—He—” His voice breaks, and I put my pad down on the coffee table and scoot closer. I put my hand on his back.
“It’s okay if you need to stop,” I say carefully.
He shakes his head and wipes his eyes. His body is trembling, hands twisted in the bottom of his t-shirt.
“He looked at me and he was so scared. So fucking scared.” His voice cracks as a sob breaks through.
“It terrified me because he never looked like that. He was always so brave, so happy, so ready for anything. And if he looked scared, then I knew I had to be scared too. Only, I couldn’t be.
It took a moment for my brain to work, but I pulled out my phone to call 911.
Ryan fell against the wall, sliding down to sit.
It’s all flashes of memories at this point.
My phone is on the ground, the call on speaker.
I’m applying pressure. Ryan has tears in his eyes.
He’s shaking. I’m shaking. My vision is blurry.
Then there are lights. EMTs. He’s on a stretcher.
We’re in the hospital. A doctor walks out.
There is still blood on my hands. My clothes.
I don’t hear the words but I know what he’s telling me.
Then I fall to the floor. I swear I’m having a heart attack, but who has a heart attack at twenty-eight? I don’t remember much after that.”
I realize my hand is still on his back, rubbing gently. He hasn’t told me to stop. Maybe he doesn’t realize. Maybe it’s helping. So I don’t stop.
“Do you remember speaking to the police?” I ask.
“Vaguely. They bombarded me right after I got the news. I don’t remember what I said, but I tried.”
“Did they come back another time?”
“Someone called a few days later, but that’s it.”
My insides twist with fury. That’s it? That’s all they did?
“I’m so sorry,” I say gently. “For all of it. For what happened to Ryan. For having to deal with it and be strong all alone. For no one supporting you through it, or working harder to find who did this.”
“It’s not your fault.” He sniffles, and I get up to go to the kitchen and grab a few napkins because I don’t see tissues anywhere. He takes them, wipes his eyes and nose.
“Doesn’t mean I’m not sorry for it,” I say. “I know what it’s like to go through that. It sucks. Especially when you have to be the strong one.”
He nods, taking a shuddering breath before wiping his eyes again.
“We had no description of either of them. I tried to give their height or something, but I don’t know how accurate I was.
It wasn’t until after I spoke with the cops that I was able to realize what was going on and why Ryan ran at them at all.
The man was trying to rape that woman—I don’t think he got very far, but...
It’s exactly Ryan to help someone, and it’s not that I wouldn’t have tried, or wished he hadn’t, it’s just… ”
“It’s okay to not be brave all the time, Carter. It’s okay to be scared. And it’s okay to be angry about what happened and wish that you and Ryan would have walked the other way. It doesn’t make you a bad person to wish something bad didn’t happen to you.”
“But if I had stopped him, then she… what if she would have died? What if that man would have stabbed her?”
I shake my head, sitting beside him again.
“You can’t think like that because you don’t know what would have happened. Maybe someone else came along and stopped it? What if a cop had happened upon it? There are so many scenarios, Carter, and it’s unfair to yourself to go through them over and over.”
Another deep sob escapes his chest, and I put my hand on his back again.
“But maybe if I would have helped, if I would have been with Ryan when he went toward the guy, maybe… maybe…”
“None of this is your fault. You did nothing wrong, and maybe had you gone with him, you wouldn’t be here either.
What ifs don’t fix things.” I sigh. “As humans, we want things to make sense, and this doesn’t make sense.
But the other scenarios don’t either. Because that man, whoever did this, he’s the problem.
If he didn’t exist, none of this would. Only then would it all make sense.
But there is bad in this world. Too much of it. ”
Carter covers his face, his shoulders shaking as he cries softly. I keep rubbing his back, and he leans closer to me, just a little. It’s okay. That’s why I’m here.
“How do you deal with this all the time?” he cries softly. “How do you deal with so much death?”
“I just hope that I’ll be able to help someone along the way.”
We stay like that for a little while. Five minutes. Ten. Twenty. I’m not sure, but it doesn’t matter.
For years, I craved for someone to hold me, to take control, to not have to be brave all the fucking time. It’s exhausting. But I didn’t have anyone to give that control to. No one I trusted.
My brother, Jericho, he made that mistake.
He found someone who became his husband way too quickly.
The man was older than him and a complete asshole.
But at the time, it’s what Jericho needed.
It’s how he dealt with it. So even though I’ve given him shit for being married to an asshole for years, I can’t blame him.
It’s not his fault. He was doing the only thing he knew how to do.
And maybe if I was around longer, if I had said more or taught them more, he wouldn’t have made that mistake.
Hollis never would have done drugs for the first time.
But I only had a few years of custody of them, and I was too busy working to pay the bills that I wasn’t around to help them emotionally.
But I try not to hold all that baggage because, at the base of it, it isn’t my fault.
It’s our father’s.
Had he not done what he did, maybe our lives would be very different. But thinking back on maybes doesn’t help you move forward. They keep you stuck in the past. In the pain.
It took fourteen years, but Jericho finally divorced Franklin.
That gives me hope for all of us. I don’t tell him that, though.
Maybe I should. But I’m not the emotional type, and being that person now would be weird for all of us.
I don’t open up to my brothers because I need them to know that I’m okay, even if I’m not.
If they just think I’m fine, maybe they’ll be fine too.
Only, I think Jericho really will be fine now that he’s moving on.
Now that he’s met Miles and is feeling real love for the first time.
“Why did this have to happen to me?” Carter whispers, his hands dropping from his face. He looks at me with tears in his eyes. “What did I do to deserve this? What did he do? He was a good person.”
“That’s the shitty thing about life. You did nothing. But it has to happen to someone.”