Total pages in book: 126
Estimated words: 129881 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 649(@200wpm)___ 520(@250wpm)___ 433(@300wpm)
Estimated words: 129881 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 649(@200wpm)___ 520(@250wpm)___ 433(@300wpm)
“You’re a piece of shit!” my roommate yells, trying to get past my brother. “I’ve always hated you, you know that? Fuck you—get off me! Jesus! Do you see what he did to my stuff? You’re dead, Tully. You’re so fucking dead!”
I laugh and laugh. I can’t help it. My roommate doesn’t stand a chance against my brother.
“Oh, and by the way, I fucked your girl last year. Yeah. Who’s laughing now, motherfucker?”
My roommate smiles so fucking big.
I fly off the floor, and I think CJ lets me at him because my brother could stop me if he really wanted to.
Or maybe he’s just too shocked/stunned that I’m finally up and moving or too focused on keeping my roommate back that he doesn’t have time to turn around and grab me before I swing, connecting with cartilage and shattering that motherfucker’s nose.
“Jake! What the fuck?” CJ roars.
“What!” I yell back.
My brother is always worried about me. Maybe he thinks my hand is broken now. I should check.
I look down at my knuckles.
They’re bruising and swelling up, but I feel great.
Oh, and I know why too.
I leer at my roommate over CJ’s shoulder. “I bet you wish I hadn’t found your stash, man, cuz that looks like it hurts.”
CJ yells at me again, but I just laugh and cry. It feels so strange to do both. But at least I can stand now, and I don’t think my hand is broken, so, hey, good news all around.
And my roommate? That dick?
He’s bleeding all over the carpet and spitting out threats as the room starts filling with more people, all of them siding with him.
“You’re such a dickhead, Tully.”
What the fuck? He’s the one who fucked my girlfriend!
And then that douchebag is gone to rat me out, and for a moment, I think that’s the funniest shit I’ve ever heard.
“He’s going to tell on me. Oh no.” I crack up, bumping shoulders with my brother.
I expect him to agree. I listen for the low rumble of his laugh. I keep waiting for it.
“Jake,” he says, he begs, because that’s what it sounds like he’s doing. He’s scared now. I probably should be too.
I laugh enough for both of us.
It doesn’t really sink in and terrify me until hours later when all my shit is packed in the back of my brother’s truck, and we’re leaving the base I’ve been stationed at for five years, and I realize I’m never coming back here because I can’t.
That’s when it hits me.
And I spend the next six hours crying and wanting to die as I replay everything I did and every word my brother said to my staff sergeant when he pleaded with him to overlook this one tiny mistake.
“Look at everything he’s done for you. Look at everything he’s done for his country! Three tours! He’s given you everything. Please don’t do this to him. Please.”
His voice broke on that one, I heard it.
I cry harder and curl into a ball on the seat.
“It’s going to be okay, Jake,” CJ tells me again and again, and I want to believe him like I always do, but how can I?
I’m jobless and homeless.
I’m an addict who just lost seven years of sobriety.
I’m a Marine (former) who’s been dishonorably discharged.
And I want to get high, again. Right now, even though my life is over because of it.
That’s how I really know I’m fucked.
CAN WE TURN OFF MEMORY LANE? THE DRIVE SUCKS.
JAKE
I’VE WANTED TO be a soldier since I was six years old.
My father had been in the Army before I was born, and I remember finding his medals in the basement and seeing old pictures of him in his uniforms. I’d beg him to tell me stories about everything he did and every country he’d been to, and I’d just sit there thinking—whoa. My dad is awesome. I wanted to do the same things and travel to the same places and kill all of the bad guys again, the same ones he had, because I was six and that was the coolest thing he’d told me about.
I suppose being a soldier is a phase a lot of kids go through, but it wasn’t just a phase for me.
That Halloween and every Halloween after, I was always in full camo with my face painted green.
Except for that one year after the fire safety demonstration at my school.
I begged my mother to take me back to the store because I was going to be a firefighter now. Not a soldier, Mom. They’re not as cool. I never wanted to be a soldier again.
Until that following year when my brother got an air rifle for his thirteenth birthday and he let me shoot it once, and I was so, so good at it, even though he wouldn’t say I was. But I hit the target before he did, so he had to know.