Chapter Six
Kael
When we pulled up to Karina’s house, my instincts were going haywire before we even stepped out of the car. Not knowing what kind of situation we would be walking into had my mind creating every possible scenario, and none of them were good. Nothing on the exterior of the familiar house had changed, but a wave of alert went straight up my spine as we got out of the car. I told Karina to stay there, but obviously she didn’t comply. Fischer moved faster than I did, so I had to catch up as we approached the porch.
Karina pulled out her keys to open the door, but I stepped ahead of her and turned the doorknob. I had a feeling it would be unlocked, which was an example of the mental state Phillips was in—he hadn’t even locked the front door with his pregnant wife inside. When we stepped in, I wasn’t surprised to see the state of the room, but Karina’s gasp let me know she was.
Phillips was between lying and leaning on the couch, his back stretched along the cushioned surface and his long legs dangling over the arms. His eyes were glassy, and the coffee table was littered with empty beer bottles, unidentifiable trash, and enough take-out containers to have fed all of us for days. It looked like we had been gone a week, not one night.
“Where is Elodie?” Karina asked.
Fischer’s eyes darted around the room while he waited for a response. I could tell he was trying not to react, but he was dying to know where she was and if she was okay. To distract himself and make it less obvious, he immediately began to collect the mess on the table, but Phillips’s arm shot out, gripping his wrist. “What’re you doing?” Phillips’s words were slurred.
“Are you drunk? It’s eight in the fucking morning.” I grabbed his arm, making him let go of Fischer, who was shaking. Not out of fear, but out of barely controlled anger.
“Drunk? Me?” Phillips laughed, and the small gap between his front teeth seemed more menacing than before. “I may be.” His laughter grew.
Karina’s voice was louder now. “Where is Elodie!”
Phillips looked at Karina with an expression that made me want to snap his neck in half. “She’s around here somewhere.”
Fischer rushed down the hallway, calling Elodie’s name, with his sister on his heels.
“What the fuck are you doing, bro? You haven’t even been home twenty-four hours, and your wife—who you haven’t seen in months—is pregnant. Did you even sleep last night, or did you just drink yourself into a stupor?”
Phillips searched the table for something else to drink, and I smacked the beer bottle he found out of his hand. It flew across the room and shattered against the baseboard near the kitchen. He stood as if to challenge me, even though he definitely fucking knew better.
“What’s your problem? I’m home. I should celebrate.” He shrugged his thin shoulders. He had lost a considerable amount of weight, especially muscle, since I had seen him last, and something about him was drastically different, even beyond his physical appearance.
“Celebrate being home with your wife and unborn child, yeah. Not by trashing Karina’s place. How did you get home in the first place? You had months left.”
Phillips eyed me in a way I’d only seen him do in a war setting. If I was anyone else, I would probably be intimidated by his behavior.
“Wouldn’t you like to know? Now isn’t the time to get so technical. You’ve gotten awfully close to the Fischer family, what the fuck is up with that? Curious what made you switch sides and if it has to do with the hot—”
“Do not fucking finish that sentence. Watch your mouth,” I interrupted him before he said something that could risk his life.
He raised his hands, grinning again. “I’m joking, bro. Don’t be so sensitive. She is hot, though.”
I gritted my teeth, keeping my balled fists at my sides and trying to keep the shaking to a minimum.
“I got home exactly like you did.” He tapped his finger against his right temple. “For being too fucked up to stay.” Phillips stood up, swaying a bit, and made a move to clean up. “You’re not being very hospitable, Martin. You’re not even happy to see me,” he said, confusion on his drunk face.
“Because when you’re wasted, you’re not you.”
When I finished the sentence, he closed his eyes and began to laugh. I have never been afraid of a motherfucker in my entire life, but I’d be lying if I didn’t admit that a chill went down my spine at the sound he made mixed with the look on his face. He felt like a stranger, like something in him had cracked in the months since I saw him last. He was never perfect, but he’d tried to do his best by me, by our platoon. But he wasn’t the same man who’d pulled me out of a burning tank or who’d sung old country songs to distract us during our long treks through the desert.
“And you’re not you. How could we be? Now come sit with me and celebrate that we’re both back and alive.” Phillips dropped back down on the couch and patted the empty seat next to him. “For now.” He smiled.
His humor had always been dark, but now it felt too real. I couldn’t get a grip on how to handle him, and that was what I was usually the best at, handling people. I’d known Phillips longer than Karina and Fischer, but it didn’t seem that way right now. He was like a stranger to me. And that felt dangerous.
I glanced down the hall but didn’t hear anything coming from Karina’s room, where Elodie, Karina, and Fischer were, so I assumed they were okay. If anything had happened Karina would have gotten me by now. I sat down next to Phillips and pressed my elbows on my knees to stop them from bouncing.
“Let’s get some air before you clean this mess up.”
I tugged on his arm and gently pulled him from the couch.
“Did something happen with you and Elodie?” I asked him, another attempt to gauge what he knew and didn’t.
He sighed as we sat on the edge of the half-demolished porch. His eyes were small compared to the strong bones of his face, and his cheeks were more sunken in than they had been the last time I saw him. His pupils were blown out from the alcohol and thin red veins filled the usual white of his eyes.
“Something’s been happening . . . lots of shit. But now I’m here and I thought we could figure it out together. She’s different now. I don’t know what changed, she used to be so happy and carefree but now she’s full of stress and always worried about shit. Instead of me, she’s focusing on work, the baby—”
I stopped him. “She should be worried about the baby, and so should you. Instead of coming home and getting drunk you should be spending time with your wife and figuring this shit out together.”
“She wouldn’t even fuck me, man. She’s acting like she doesn’t know me.”
I dropped my head into my hands. He couldn’t be fucking serious.
“Let me get this straight, you came home”—I looked into his eyes, forcing him to keep eye contact with me—“and immediately tried to have sex with your pregnant wife who hasn’t seen you in months, and from what it seemed like, you guys hadn’t been on good terms—”
“What do you know about that? What did she tell you?”
“Nothing, you just did.” No way in hell was I going to tell him a word about what Karina had told me about the two of them fighting on Skype lately.
“Hmph,” he said.
“You know damn well that most people don’t get home and rush right to the fucking bed. Especially in this situation—it’s fucked up that you put that pressure on her.”
“She’s my wife.” He defended himself with a snarl.
“Exactly. So why the fuck aren’t you respecting her?”
Phillips sat on my words for a few seconds before he spoke. “I don’t know? I just wanted to touch my wife and she freaked out, not getting why I got pissed, and acting like I’m a goddamn alien or some shit.”
“Give her time,” I told him, ignoring the fact that his wife was clearly in love with another man and we would all have to figure out what the fuck was going to happen with that.
He closed his eyes again and tilted his head to the porch ceiling.
“This time feels so different, Martin. This was my third time coming back but it feels at odds this time, and not from the booze. My head is all over the place, like I don’t know where I am or who anyone is anymore. Even you.”
This was more like the man I knew and cared deeply about. Being over there and then coming home is like being in a car wreck. One minute you know exactly what you’re doing, where you’re headed, and then you’re suddenly back and everything is upside down, body mangled, thoughts scattered like a broken windshield, mental scars for the rest of your life.
“That’s normal—well, not fucking normal for regular people, but for us, it’s normal. You’ve barely been back for twenty-four hours, and no matter how many times we go, it doesn’t become normal. It never will. A little bit of us dies each time. I’ve tried to accept that, and it’s made it easier, but give yourself and your wife some grace.” I bent the truth—nothing made it easier except Karina, but that wasn’t what he needed to hear right now.
“On top of that, you didn’t have a family or any responsibilities except keeping yourself alive before. Life is different now, you’re different now, we all are.”
Phillips’s shoulders began to shake, and he started to dry heave. He was crying hysterically within seconds, and I did my best to comfort the man I once knew.
It took a few minutes to convince him, but he eventually agreed to let me take him to my place so he could get some real rest and give Elodie some space. He fell asleep on the way there, and I practically carried him into the house. He mumbled something about bloody hands as I helped him lie down on my couch. I waited a few minutes until he was snoring to make my way back to Karina’s.