Page 44 of The Way We Swing Back

“Yeah, at parties. With other people. Not alone in a dirty-ass garage with no one here.”

“Now you’re making fun of where I live?” I said, my temperature rising, the alcohol taking control of my words.

“I’m calling you a moron for sitting here by yourself drinking; take it however you want.” He paced the room; he had the same strut as Tanner, the way they both came up short when they changed direction.

“Sorry I can’t sleep in a big fancy house my parents paid for, living the perfect life.”

“Oh, shut up, Easton,” he said, smacking a fly out from in front of his face. “You basically live there, too.”

“Not my house.”

“And yet you’re treated like the fourth son anyway, and you always have Tanner and Gavin up your ass to hang out,” he said, spinning away from me, his voice rising by the second.

I took another sip of my beer. Yeah, I was drunk. So what? “Maybe if you cared about anything they did, they wouldn’t like me more.”

Zach spun around, fists clenched, possibly ready to hit me. “You’re a shitty friend to me, you know that?”

“Maybe I am.”

“You still haven’t apologized for when you stopped talking to me. You apologized to Gavin, and then you apologized to Tanner. You bought me dinner but never once apologized. I was never worth it to you. You just came back into our lives and acted like nothing happened. Like nothing bothered you.”

Maybe if I were sober, I could’ve come up with a better response, but instead I sat there speechless, unable to come up with anything resembling a sentence.

“No words, even when I tell you? Always the Pity Easton show because life hates you, right? You act like no one gives a shit about you, yet my whole family loves you, man.”

The beer slipped in my hands as the lawn chair grew more uncomfortable than it had ever been. “They aren’t my parents, though,” I said. I held back the tears as much as possible, thinking about seeing my mom and all the breaths she’d never take again. “My mom is fucking dead, and I couldn’t stop it."

“This is what I mean, dude,” he said, softer now but still annoyed. “I’m going to leave. But will you be okay for the rest of the night? You need to sleep this off.”

I nodded, releasing the bottle as he took it out of my hand. I watched him take the remaining three bottles out of the mini fridge and dump them in the sink.

“Take some Tylenol or something.”

“You’re not supposed to do that when you’re drinking,” I said for no reason.

“Jesus. I really don’t care. Go to bed,” he said as he exited, not bothering to turn back around to see if I was okay.

Fuck Zach. Yeah, fuck him, I thought as I fell asleep in the chair.

I woke up the next afternoon to banging on the garage door, my arms still hanging over the chair. Stale beer stung my nose in the way it only did in the morning after drinking too much.

“It’s unlocked,” I yelled, my voice pounding in my head.

Gavin walked in, the sun streaming behind him like the day had forgotten I was hungover. “Mom and Dad want to talk to you,” he said, a smile spreading.

Zach must have talked to them. That little rat had snitched on me for drinking.

“Why are you so happy about this?” I closed my eyes so I didn’t have to see the kid wearing a powder-blue Rocket City Trash Pandas jersey over burnt orange shorts. And the red Crocs, because why not?

“They said I’m not allowed to tell you, just to grab your bike and come home.”

“Give me a couple of minutes.”

“No. Mom made spaghetti for lunch.”

“I haven’t even eaten breakfast.”

“You slept through breakfast. Time for spaghetti,” he said, grabbing my arm and ripping me out of the chair to my feet.