MY FATE FOR YOURS

Chapter 21- EAMON

Eamon

 I call Jerry, and tell him about the train stunt--fudging the details and letting him know that I won't be in today. I feel like an ass because normally I just work through whatever I do to myself on my down time, but after running on no sleep and my head being such a mess, I really just want my own place for a night or two. Ma gives a quiet gasp and a telling shake of her head from the porch when I finally make the walk home, but I wave her off and stumble up the stairs with my small bottle of Percocet.

I wash two pills down with a beer from my mini-fridge, turn on the TV and slowly ease myself into my recliner. I don't bother taking the pain meds very often so it hits me pretty hard, and I don't think I make it halfway through the first inning.

I don't wake up until just before I need to be at work...the following day. Every time I blink I see Rachel in scrubs, Rachel in her swimsuit, Rachel laid out naked waiting for me, Rachel smiling. By the time I finish at work, Tobin's long gone because I'm moving so slow. Days go by where I feel like I'm only half present, but at least some of the small scratches are starting to heal. Being at work, unable to weld, puts me in a position for a lot of really shitty, stupid jobs--stock, sorting parts, learning payroll while trying to avoid Jerry asking me if I've made any decisions.

There's a small part of me that wants to talk to Tobin. Tell him everything. What a fucking mess I am. God, I think I've ruined everything. I can't even stand next to her without feeling everything. And that's not what I want. I've never had a hard time ignoring things I don't want.

I send Tobin a text asking him where the hell he is because even though I'm not searching for him to talk about Rachel, sometimes hanging with your brother sort of fades out everything else. Trying to be with a different girl, and keeping to myself for the past few days sure as hell hasn't worked.

He texts back. AT CABIN.

I asked Tobin about the cabin after he got back from running off. He admitted that he stayed there for a night, but it was too much, so he took off with some friends down to the Gulf. I know the tracks well enough that it doesn't take me long to find the trail Rachel showed me. I shake my head when the feeling of kissing her in that place rolls through me. That's not what I need right now.

Tobin's sitting on the end of a dock I'm sure will collapse at any moment, drinking a beer. I walk along the side over the supports not in the mood to get wet. "Hey."

"Hey." Tobin starts peeling off the label, staring over the water.

"Isn't it hard to be here?" I ask, setting the tone of our conversation in a way I didn't mean to.

"Sometimes, yeah. And sometimes it's harder to be away."

"Do you think she's your soul mate or something? I mean, you don't really buy into that, do you?"

"No."

I feel at least a little relief that he still has a grain of sense about him.

"But," he continues. "I think when you give enough of yourself to a person and they do the same, it changes you. It changes them. And from that point, maybe yeah. I think we sort of create soul mates in each other because we want to."

He pulls a bottle from the small cooler he packed with him and hands it to me. Sort of pathetic that he planned to come out here to sit and drink, but as I pop off the top, I realize I sort of did the same thing.

I take another long drink, knowing that with Rachel I'm fucked either way. If I walk away from her I'm going to have to see her with other guys and I nearly go insane right now when I think about someone else touching her. At the same time, I want to throw up when I think about being stuck. Only one girl... Even if it's someone as cool as her. It's pressure. I could hurt her. I could ruin things for her. I will ruin things I could...no, I will fuck it up.

"I don't want anyone like that. Ever. I can't imagine it."

Tobin finally looks at me, and it's times like this that I can see parts of me in him. Parts of our family. "Why not?"

"I don't... It's too damn much, Tobin. It's just not what I want." I down the final few swallows before hurling my bottle into the lake.

"But you might at some point."

"Not after watching you." I elbow him, trying to give him a hard time, but he smiles at me like he's in on some secret I don't know and shakes his head.

"It's worth it, Eamon. Because being in love is worth it."

He's such a pathetic romantic. I have no idea where the hell he got that from. "You got sacked, Tobe."

He tosses his bottle into the lake and reaches in the cooler for another. "She doesn't love him."

He's more messed in the head than I thought. "How the fuck would you know? Do you seriously hold out any kind of hope for you and Delia?"

He pops off the top and flips it between his fingers, watching the bottle cap roll back and forth. "I saw her."

"Her who?" I ask.

"Delia."

I freeze as a million scenarios involving possible restraining orders from Delia's father spin through my head. "When?"

"When I took off.

"I thought you said you went to the Gulf, T," I say.

He shakes his head, and I gotta say, I'm pretty damn shocked he lied to me. I can't think of the last time he did, but I'm sure as shit not about to bust his ass for it right now when I'm keeping a big ass secret, too.

"I hitched all the way to D.C. to watch her dad speak at some hospital outdoor thing. Watched her with that guy. She doesn't love him." He says it very matter-of-fact; there isn't a doubt in his mind. "At some point, the girl who loved running barefoot through the trees with me is gonna come back. I have no idea what the fuck I'll do with it when it happens, but it'll happen. It's meant to be, I know it."

"No point in talking logic with you, Tobin, because your brain just isn't wired to work that way."

He snorts. "Maybe not. But I'd do it all again in a fucking second."

My brother is a crazy ass romantic, even months after being dumped. Even after I watched him turn away everyone since Delia. At the same time, he admits he doesn't know what he'd do if Delia came back to town. He can't move forward, but can't go back, and I wonder if I'm doing him any favors by letting him stay frozen like this.

And the word hits me like a ton of bricks. Frozen. I'm not moving forward or changing anything about my life either, and suddenly buying half of Stine Welding, doesn't seem like the best way to move forward. I'm not doing anything different than Tobin, just in a different way. I'm screwing a different girl every weekend, working a job I don't want a stake in. I'm not growing. I'm not moving forward or changing.  Fuck it. Maybe the best way to get moving comes with a kickass smile, and a body I can't get enough of. A girl who takes me as I am. All my screw ups. Maybe I can learn to be the kind of man she deserves. Maybe.