Chapter 21 #2
He nods. "I know." Another sigh. "She was married to her high school sweetheart. He joined the Marines and served in Afghanistan. Survived like, fuckin'…four tours? Five?"
"Jesus."
"Came back home to be a civilian, but he…
" Nyx trails off, shaking his head. "PTSD killed him.
He kept having issues with his benefits not covering his therapy, tried to get one of those dogs, y'know?
That money kept getting held back for one administrative bullshit reason or another.
Wrong form, needed another form, needed this signature or that other form, also signed, in triplicate, and all the while he was fuckin' drowning in survivor’s guilt and depression and flashbacks.
Woke up to find himself choking Barb. Almost killed her. "
"Jesus," I whisper again.
"Wish this was an unusual story, but it's not."
I nod. "Oh, I know. Dad served in Vietnam. You know this."
He nods. "Yeah. He seemed pretty well adjusted, though."
I shake my head. "No. He just hid it well.
Can't tell you how many times I'd get up in the middle of the night as a kid to get a drink or pee and I'd see the light from the study from the top of the stairs.
I'd go down and peek in there and he'd have his feet up on the desk, drinking Jack outta the bottle, flipping through photo albums. He had this little TV in there, one of those TV-VCR-DVD player combos, and he'd have Platoon playing, or a documentary.
You know, the Hueys landing in the field while 'Fortunate Son' plays.
He never, ever talked about it. Never let on how bad he struggled, sometimes. I know Mom worried about him."
He nods absently. "Our government failed Paul Yanetti. They made it so damn impossible for him to get the help he needed and deserved, help he was fucking owed after spending six goddamn years in combat for…" he trails off, shaking his head. "Any-fuckin'-way."
"Damn, Nyxie. I had no clue you had such strong feelings on the topic."
"Yeah, well, fuck war. Fuck politicians.
Fuck all that bullshit. Sometimes I get the wackos who go live off-grid in fuckin' Alaska.
It all feels hopeless, sometimes." He waves a hand while swallowing a big gulp of beer to dismiss that line of talk.
"He hung himself. Barb came home from a shift and found out he’d called 911 on himself.
Called in and reported a body at their address.
She came home and found cops and ambulances everywhere. He made sure she didn't find him."
"Jesus fucking Christ," I mutter.
"He was her person. She…she told me, last night I mean. She told me she cared about me as much as she would ever be able to care about anyone, but she couldn't give me her heart. No matter how much I deserve it."
I grab and squeeze his shoulder. "Fuck, man. I'm so sorry. That’s brutal.”
"I knew. And I…" A shrug. "I knew. I always knew.
Any time she felt herself starting to care too much, any time we got too close, she'd pull away.
Pick a fight with me, and she knows the shit that I can't help but get stupid about, y'know?
She'd do shit on purpose to piss me off, just to put that space between us. "
“That's kinda fucked up, Nyx."
"It's a lot fucked up, Cole. I knew when she was doing it, too.
Which is even more fucked." He scratches his now-damp hair.
"She told me it wasn't fair of her to keep going in circles with me.
She said she'd never be able to give me what I deserve.
But like, what does anyone deserve, man?
I don't know what love even is, Cole. Except you guys, no one has ever loved me.
And don't get me wrong, you, Fee, and Rye are the only…
" he chokes off, starts over. "You're all that's gotten me through life. "
I blink hard, scrub roughly at my eye with a wrist. "Goddammit, Nyxie. Fuckin'…dusty in here."
He laughs, a thick-throated chuckle. "Right? Goddamn dust." A sigh. "She said I was settling for her."
I groan, passing a hand through my hair. "I…buddy, she's not wrong."
"Okay, and? So what? If that's what I want, so what? It's not settling, it's…making a choice."
“To settle for someone who can't ever love you and who you don't actually love."
"I do love her, I’m just not in love with her. As far as I understand the difference to be, at least."
"But Nyx…" I sigh, hunt for the right thing to say. "I feel inadequately wise to be the one you're having this talk with."
He laughs. "Who is?"
"Someone who's not currently and actively trying to figure his own shit out?"\
"So…no one."
"Fee has shit figured out."
"Cole."
I wave. "I know, I know, I'm here, so I'm it. I just…I guess I agree with Barbie, Nyx. You're a brother to me. More than just a friend or best friend. You, Fee, and Rye, we're…"
"Hetero life partners?" he suggests. "Who smokes the blunts? We smokes the blunts."
I stare at him. "You're quoting something, I can tell."
"Jay and Silent Bob, man. Jesus, we gotta get you a fuckin' TV."
"I have a laptop, Nyx. I can watch TV, I just choose not to. It's just not my thing. I can't sit still for that long without my brain going haywire." I shrug. "But yes, hetero life partners is pretty damn accurate."
"Fifteen bucks, little man," he sings, "put that money in my hand—"
"Nyx, shut up. I'm tryin' to be serious."
He snorts. "Sorry, that shit's an earworm."
"I'm sure." I grab his forearm. "Cody, brother. Listen to me. There is a whole huge motherfuckin' world of difference between being with someone you care about but don’t love and being with someone you're crazy fuckin' in love with. Trust me on this."
“You're talkin' about that fine-ass dispatcher you think none of us knows about."
I frown hard. "You know about Heidi?"
He nods, laughing. "That big Fourth of July barbecue at Fee and Sparky's last summer," he says. "You got super fucked up."
I groan, remembering. "Whoever let me double-fist a handle of Jack and a whole joint should be in jail."
"The great and mighty Cole Mannix doing the Captain Morgan pose in his skivvies, reciting 'Oh Captain, My Captain' while blitzed out of his fucking skull? Not gonna stop that, no way, no how, no ma'am."
I huff. “Would everyone quit with the ‘great and mighty’ bullshit? For fuck's sake."
"Point of me bringing this up is that later that night, the girls were up in the house doin' whatever girls do. Talking about dicks, probably."
I cackle. "If you think women sit around talking about penises, you don’t know much about women."
He arches an eyebrow at me. "I beg to differ, sir."
"We'll ask the ladies later," I say. "What's your point?"
"Point is," he emphasizes, "The four of us were sitting around the bonfire at like three in the mornin', colossally fuckin' wasted, talkin' shit. And you…" he snickers. "You just popped out with 'I've got a fuck-buddy.'"
"I did not."
"You did. Outta nowhere. I'm the only one who heard it, I think. You spilled all the tea, buddy boy. Just blabbered like a fool to li’l old Nyxie.”
"So how do you know she's fine?"
"You showed me a picture. "
I pull out my phone, frowning at it, and scroll through my photos. "I don't have any of her."
He takes my phone from me and swipes down aggressively with his index finger, then slows the scrolling, then stops, taps a thumbnail, and shoves the phone at me.
Oh.
Right.
"Forgot I took that," I mumble.
It's a candid shot of her. She's facing the camera, blurry from being in motion—she was lunging for me, laughing. Her hair is loose, and she's obviously naked, though the blur obscures the details. Mostly. Sort of.
Okay, fine, not at all.
I stare at it for a moment, hesitate, then hit the red trash can icon.
Nyx eyes me, nodding. "Alright, now. Respect."
I glance at him. "What?"
"Deleting it, now that you're back with Lacey. It's a boss move. Respect."
I snort. "It's self-preservation, if nothing else."
He blows a raspberry. "Bullshit. Self-preservation isn't one of your things."
"Nyx—"
"Probably have to delete my pics of Barb, huh?"
I shrug. "That's a personal choice, man.
She sent them to you, so she doesn't mind you having them or looking at them or whatever.
When you meet someone and you fall in love with her, you'll delete them out of respect for her, if nothing else.
And because you won't need or want to look at them anymore. "
He nods, then pulls his phone out—the screen is cracked in several places and scratched to hell.
I laugh. "God in heaven, Nyx. Get a new phone. I mean damn, son—that thing is fucked."
He shrugs. "Eh, I will eventually. I need one of those indestructible Otter cases next time."
I watch him navigate to his Photos app and pull up an album. Scroll through the photos, slowly.
They're not quite upside down to me, but I can see what’s what. Lots of them together, in his '66 'Stang, at The Borderline, she behind the bar and he half on it, leaning toward her. In bed together, the sheet pulled up to their noses, making identical arched-eyebrow expressions.
And then there's one that makes my eyes bulge half out of their sockets before I manage the wherewithal to avert my gaze.
She's got her arm under her breasts, the phone held at arm's length—a necessary distance to capture the, um…enormity…of her bust.
I blink hard a few times, trying to clear the image from my brain. Not that, as a boob-loving man, I don't appreciate what she’s got going on, but it’s not meant for me, and the only nudes I want to see are Lacey's.
I involuntarily glance at his phone again when I open my eyes, and he’s looking at another one, this one a bathroom mirror selfie where she’s facing away from the mirror and snapping the pic so you get a full front and back view.
I cough into my fist. "Nyx." I cover my eyes. “Have mercy, bro."
“Oh, shit. I'm sorry, my bad."
He taps the three dots at the top and his thumb hovers over the 'delete album' tab
"Nyx, you—"
He taps the button and then lets out a long, sad sigh. "Bye, Barb."
"Dude, why?"