Page 76 of Mischief Mayhem
“Is this real?” I asked. “You’re dead, aren’t you?”
Trojan shrugged and reeled in the line. “Who the fuck knows what’s real anymore?”
“Am I dead?” A strange relief eased in my chest at the question, as if it might be okay with me if I was, as if being dead would ease the burden of being alive. At least I’d get to stay with my brother. At least we’d be together while we waited for our other family to join us.
“I don’t think so,” Trojan said. “I’m pretty sure you’re dreaming.”
“Oh.” I took a sip of my dream-beer and grabbed my dream-fishing pole to check on my own dream-line.
“How ya doing, Matty?” Trojan reached across the bench to grab my shoulder, giving it a fraternal squeeze. “You taking care of everyone?”
“I’m trying,” I said. “But it’s fucking hard.”
He barked out a laugh and nodded, resetting his line before casting it back out into the river. “No one ever said life was going to be easy.”
“I’ve got a girl now,” I told him, grinning as I thought of V and how much I cared for her. I could only pray she felt the same way for me, too—that when she thought of our love, she swelled with the same sort of heat and pride. I’d make things right as soon as I woke up. I had to. “It’s Verona.”
Trojan widened his smile, flashing the same dimples we’d both inherited from our mother. “I always knew there was something special between you two.”
“She makes me happy,” I told him. “Hey, if I’m here with you, where is everyone else?”
Again, Trojan shrugged. “Don’t know. But it’s peaceful here, isn’t it?”
I nodded, letting my dream-self indulge in the symphony of that summer by the river.
“It’s bad, isn’t it?” I said, suddenly remembering the reason why I’d been knocked out so cold I was imagining the ghost of my dead brother. “Did we lose a lot of people?”
Trojan hummed to himself and nodded. “It’s bad. But it’ll get better.”
I turned to face him, all the things I’d always wanted to tell him bubbling up in my chest. “I’m sorry this happened to you,” I said, my eyes burning as I choked out a sob. “I’m sorry I wasn’t there to save you. I’m sorry, I—I’m sorry I let Marissa run off. I haven’t talked to her. She won’t take my calls. I can try harder.” The words were pouring from me faster than I could stop them. I had to get it all out, even if this was fake, even if this was in my head, I needed him to know. “I miss you so much, every day. I love you, brother, and I’m so sorry.”
Trojan didn’t say anything for a moment, just let me blubber the things I needed to get out. Once I caught my breath and wiped away the tears, Trojan bumped my shoulder with his again, drawing my attention back to his familiar friendly features, ones I’d been staring into ever since I was a baby.
“I know that,” he said. “You don’t need to say it. You don’t need to carry it anymore.”
“I feel it every day.” I shook my head, taking another long sip of beer to clear the choking in my throat. “It should have been me. I should have died instead of you. They needed you more, the Roses need?—”
“You shut the fuck up right now,” he said. “If it shoulda been you, it woulda been you. But it wasn’t. It was me, and you need to come to terms with that.”
I winced like he’d slugged me in the gut. “What if I can’t?”
Trojan made an amused sigh, shaking his head like he used to do when I’d fucked up at school over something stupid. “Still that same boneheaded idiot, aren’t you?”
I narrowed my eyes, shocked he’d used whatever spiritual/memory/hallucination this was to insult me.
“You’ve got a good woman now, someone who loves you more than anything else in this world. Your job is protecting her, protecting the club. If you’re so dispensable, she wouldn’t have given you the time of day and you fucking know it.” Trojan wrapped an arm around my shoulders and pulled me closer as I broke down from his words, the proverbial father figure consoling his son. Given the relationship Trojan and I had growing up, that wasn’t too far from the truth. “And I better never hear you say you shoulda died again. I swear to God, Matty, I’ll come back from the dead and kick your ass myself. Enough of this heroic martyr shit. You hear me? Enough now.”
I nodded and sat upright, taking a deep breath to calm the sobs before I wiped my eyes. “Enough now.”
“Hmm.” He reeled his line in again before throwing it back out to the water. “It really is peaceful here, isn’t it?”
“Yeah,” I repeated. “Yeah, it is.”
“Don’t worry about Marissa,” Trojan said. “I’m watching out for her. You worry about you and Verona. You worry about taking care of Mom. And when the time is right”—he set his stare on me again—“really right, I’ll be here, waiting for you, little brother.”
“You promise?” I didn’t know why, but the thought of knowing Trojan still had my back, still loved me, still protected me, even if this was a hallucination, it made going back to the land of the living that much easier.
“I promise.”