Jake

“You died, Jake,” says Cole.

I glance at the TV screen and there’s my video game character, lying flat on his face. “Shit, sorry.”

My little brother squints at me, his disappointment in my gaming skills splayed brilliantly across his face. “I thought you wanted to play. You’re not even trying.”

I drop the controller and take a swig from my Yeti, which is full of orange juice and vodka. There’s a soft glow over the world, a bloom of heat in my belly, and numbness in my brain. I can almost forget that Jessica Sanchez ever existed. I pick up the controller, get a new life, and try again.

Our house feels hot despite the drafty windows letting in the night air. I pull off my shirt and wipe the sweat off my shaved head. The bruises from my fight with Brendon have spread like rotten spots across my face, as if I’m spoiling from the inside out. I also have a nagging pain in my shoulder socket, but none of that compares to how battered I feel on the inside. I close my eyes, resisting the blackness that rises up when I imagine life without the girl I loved with all my heart.

Someone egged our house last night and spray-painted Crystal Cove Killer on our garage door. Today I painted it white to cover the words.

I did receive a piece of good news. My STD results and Tegan’s pregnancy test came back negative. It’s good, but I’m not as elated as I thought I’d be. I feel more like someone who narrowly avoided walking off a cliff—relieved and grateful—but also stupid and sad. The truth that someone brutally attacked Tegan hits me full force. Someone broke her arm and stuffed her in that bench, someone who hates her, I imagine, and she may never be able to tell us who. I fixed a drink to absorb all that, and now I can’t stop. I want to scream—I want to go outside and scream at the sky.

I lean against Otis, using him as a backrest, and his loose hair makes me sneeze.

Cole scoots away from me. “Are you sick?”

I snatch him up and breathe all over his face. “If I am, then so are you.”

He rolls and kicks me hard, right in the center of my chest. “That’s not funny!” His cheeks redden as he tries to scrub my germs off his face with his T-shirt. Otis circles us, whining, and then a defeated noise from the video game we’re playing makes Cole groan. “You died again, Jake.”

“I think we need snacks, you know, to keep up our strength.” Cole and Otis follow me into the kitchen, where I try to open the refrigerator door, miss the handle completely, and stagger into the counter. Laughing, I try again.

Cole stomps on my bare toes. “You’re drunk!”

Collapsing, I grab my foot as the kitchen floor spins and the dog tries to lick my face. Shit, I wasn’t feeling those vodkas until I stood up, and my poor little brother has me to thank for knowing what drunk means. It’s probably a good thing his friend Sawyer isn’t allowed over anymore.

I glance up at Cole with his naturally pointy ears sticking out of his hair, and swirl my finger at him. “You look like an elf.”

He swats my hand away. “You’d better not let Mom see you like this.”

“Like what?” Our mother’s clipped tone fills the room as she returns from running errands all day. Otis greets her with soft whimpers, upset because Cole and I are fighting. As soon as my mother’s eyes meet mine, hers harden with suspicion. “Jacob Monroe Healy!” After clacking across the tile, she drops the grocery bags onto the counter and then yells at my brother, “Cole, go to your room.”

“What did I do?”

Otis darts behind my brother, shaking because he hates yelling.

Mom rubs her head. “Nothing. Let me talk to Jake, alone. You’re not in trouble.”

My brother glares at me. “You ruin everything! I just wanted to play with you.” He grabs Otis’s collar and drags him out of the kitchen.

I watch them leave, floating in the glorious glow of oblivion. Mom squats next to me. “How much have you had?”

She scrunches her face, and I laugh. “You look like a squirrel.”

Mom groans and then grabs all the liquor out of the high cupboard and starts pouring it down the drain while throwing words over her shoulder. “You need help, Jake. Your uncle is an alcoholic; you know that. This drinking is out of control. You drove home drunk, you—you made that video—”

I heave myself to my feet and roar at her, “I didn’t make any fucking video!”

Her weary eyes search my face. “If you hadn’t been drunk—”

“No!” I slam my fist on the countertop. “No! The camera was hidden. Tegan and Jessica tricked me!” I snatch a dirty glass from the sink and hurl it against our tile floor, and feel a huge sense of satisfaction when it shatters. I reach for another.

“Stop it! Just stop. You’re right. I’m sorry.” Tears fill her eyes. “I don’t know why I said that. I’m just—so angry about that bet.”

“I’m angry,” I growl, smacking my chest. “I’m the one—I’m the one that…” Sobs fill my throat, choking me. “I’m the one everyone’s laughing at.”

She crosses the floor, avoiding the broken glass, and presses her forehead against mine. “No one’s laughing at you.”

I push her away. “You have no idea what it’s like. My teachers, the principal, all the other moms, and the fucking middle schoolers—they saw me. And now everyone knows my girlfriend bet on me and lost. The looks I get, Mom. Everyone in Crystal Cove has seen…” Shaking my head, I can’t finish my sentence.

She nods. “You’re right, I don’t know what it’s like, but I know drinking won’t help.”

“It doesn’t hurt! It makes me forget. It makes me feel fucking good.”

She grabs the broom from the pantry, sweeps the ragged glass shards into a safe pile, and throws them away. Then she returns to me and tilts her head, lowers her voice. “Why are you so angry?”

My arms flail. “Because I’m stupid. I’m mad at myself.”

She shakes her head, and her dark hair shimmers. “I don’t think so. What are you really mad about?”

I lean against the wall to steady myself. “I just told you,” I rasp.

Her lower lip trembles. “I think this goes deeper than the party. Do you remember when you first started drinking like this?”

“No.” I reach for my Yeti, and she yanks it out of my grasp.

“Do you remember the night I found you in the bathtub with a bottle of tequila, Jake? The water was cold. You were shivering and crying, and you wouldn’t speak to me.”

I hiccup, and that draws a bitter, sadistic laugh from my gut. “Didn’t you ground me for, like, a month?”

She offers a tight smile. “I did. Will you talk about it now?”

I shake my head. “Fuck, Mom, I don’t know what you want.”

She inches closer, tears sparkling in her dark eyes. “I want us to talk about what happened that day, before you ended up in the bathtub.”

The floor dips beneath me. “There’s no reason to.”

“This drinking is a reason. It’s when you started using alcohol to forget.”

I cover my head. “You know what happened. You were there.”

“Yes, but I don’t have anyone to talk to about it either, just you. Why won’t you discuss it?”

My heart bursts and I slide to the floor. “Because it was the worst day of my life. Because we buried Dad and everyone said he was in a better place, but he’s not!” I close my eyes, try to hide. “This is the better place—here with us! Are you happy now?”

She releases a breath, nods, and sits next to me.

I twist away as memories of Dad blast through me—Dad lifting me to the sky; Dad praising me as I climbed the bluffs; Dad teaching me how to surf; Dad hugging Mom, keeping her grounded, keeping me grounded. Then he died and we blew away. My shoulders tremble with the weight of his absence.

Mom keeps pushing. “We talk about everything, Jake. Why not this?”

“I don’t want to.” Fury at the unfairness of it unfolds its wings, and I rise to pace the floor, breathless.

“It’s okay to feel angry that your father died.”

I inhale a ragged breath and fresh tears drip from my eyes, my nose. The truth squirms inside me, ugly and oily. I open my mouth and it spews out, all over the kitchen, all over Mom and me. “It’s because he didn’t fight. He quit! He gave up.”

Mom catches me in her arms and wraps them around me. “He did fight, honey.”

I shake my head as ugly sobs pour from my chest. “No, I heard him. He told you to stop the treatment, but Dad was strong. He could have beat it.”

Mom’s fingers dig into my shoulders. “What are you talking about, Jake?”

I wipe my eyes, my throat raw. “I heard you guys talking, like a week before he died. He told you to stop the drugs. I heard him. He quit, and the cancer won.” My body shakes as an avalanche of grief shreds my insides. I never told anyone about this—how my dad gave up on us. I know it’s selfish to think that—I fucking know it and hate myself for it—but maybe, with more of the cancer treatments, he would have lived.

“Oh no,” Mom says, covering her mouth. “Oh, Jake, that’s not what happened.”

I stare at her, my breath coming faster.

“Dad asked me to stop the morphine, not the medicine. He hated how it knocked him out. He didn’t want to lose a minute with us, with you. He never gave up on us. The doctors are the ones who ended the treatment when it started causing more harm than good.”

“But—” Her words shatter me, and I can’t finish the sentence.

She pulls me into her arms. “Dad never wanted to leave you,” she murmurs, crying.

A soft, warm body joins us. It’s Cole, followed by a wet nose—Otis. My brother burrows between Mom and me and looks up, his glasses steaming. The kid likes to eavesdrop; he probably overheard everything. “I thought I killed Dad,” he whispers.

“What?” Mom rasps, and we both stare at him.

Cole is calm, not crying, but his body is taut like a spring. “I forgot to wash my hands. Dad was talking and I couldn’t hear him, so I got into his bed. He wanted to tell me something and I touched his face. Then I went to get you,” he says to Mom, “and you yelled at me for digging in the yard and getting dirt on Dad.”

She nods. “I remember.”

I swallow hard and finish Cole’s story because I was there too, sitting in the corner of the room, keeping watch. “And then Otis started howling.” Silence falls between us as we look at Otis. His tail sweeps the kitchen floor, and he whines, as if he’s remembering it too—the moment Dad died.

“I thought I gave him germs,” Cole finishes.

“Oh no,” Mom says, cradling and kissing us both. “It wasn’t your fault, Cole, and Dad never gave up on us, Jake. He loved you boys with all his heart. He loved you so much that he held on longer than any doctor believed he would.”

We hug her back for a long time, and then I ask Cole, “What did Dad say to you? Do you remember?”

My brother slips off his glasses and wipes them on his pajamas. “He told me I smell good.”

Mom smiles. “It’s true. You do.”

Cole shrugs. “That’s all I remember.”

We remain in the kitchen for a long time, talking about Dad and crying. After a while, our memories make us smile. I guzzle water, and the effects of the alcohol slowly leave my body.

The kitchen is warm, and Mom turns on some music, sways to the beat while she puts the groceries away. Cole makes hot cocoa, just like Dad would have, and Otis barks for attention.

Dad didn’t quit. It’s like a rock off my chest. I let out my breath, and Mom whispers to me behind Cole’s back. “Will you stop drinking?”

I gaze at her and shrug. “I don’t know how.”

“We’ll figure it out, get you some help. You’re not alone.” I nod, and she pats my arm and then joins Cole in the family room for a movie.

I glance out the kitchen window toward Jess’s house. I felt nothing but alone after my dad died—until I met her—and now she’s gone too. My gaze shifts to my mom and brother, cuddling on the sofa, and then to the photo of my dad on the fridge. His eyes stare back, happy, fearless, and green. His eyes are green.

I’m not alone. Mom and Cole lost Dad too, but we have each other. I decide to be a better son and brother. I lean into the family room. “Hey, Cole, I’ll kick your ass at that video game tomorrow, okay?”

“Jake!” Mom scolds.

But my brother laughs and jumps on the couch. “Promise?”

I draw an X on my chest, and my voice thickens as I say, “Cross my heart and hope to die.”