Just Remember to Breathe (Thompson Sisters)

whispered.
    “That guy’s got a martyr streak a mile wide. You need to understand… I doubt he ever told you the details, at least in the right time sequence. But after you guys broke up, and he shot up his laptop, our squad got mixed up in the patrol rotation as part of the punishment.”
    I nodded. “I know.”
    “That was the patrol when they got hit by the roadside bomb, Alex. When Roberts died.”
    I shook my head in confusion. “He told me it was several days later.”
    Sherman shook his head, sadly. “No. Now listen, Alex… nobody blamed him. Nobody said it was his fault. It could have happened any time. We were getting hit all the time. But Dylan blamed himself. He and I emailed back and forth about it a lot when he was in the hospital. I tried to get him to see it, but … well… guilt is pretty ugly stuff. And he’s convinced that if he’d just kept his shit together, Roberts would be alive.”
    “Okay. So… what does this have to do with now?”
    He looked at me, closely. “Think about it, Alex. What else happened to someone he loved after that?”
    I felt my stomach cramp. “Oh, no.”
    He nodded. “Yeah. I’d bet a million dollars he’s got the idea that it’s somehow his fault that asshole tried to rape you.”
    I shook my head violently. “No. It was not his fault. It wasn’t my fault. That was all Randy.”
    “Yeah, well… just be careful. Be prepared. Because I think Dylan’s going to be blaming himself, and I don’t know what he’s going to do about it.”
    “You don’t think he’s going to break up with me, do you?”
    “He might.”
    A tear rolled down my face. He reached out and touched my chin, and said, “You and me… it’s our job to try to bring him back, okay? I don’t know if we can, but… well… I love that guy. And I’m not going to let him go off the edge if I can help it.”
    “I won’t either,” I whispered.

CHAPTER ELEVEN

    Just stay quiet (Dylan)

    When I was escorted into the courtroom, my hands were still cuffed, in front of me now, and a police officer had me by the left arm.
    I was not in the best of shape. My cast had cracked, and most of it had simply fallen off. My fingers were curled, and I wasn’t able to do anything about it. They hurt like hell. My entire hand had the sickly grey pallor I associated with zombie movies. My shirt stank of vomit, though I’d done my best to clean myself in the sink before they took me out for the arraignment.
    The vomit happened when I’d had a seizure.
    From a clinical perspective, the seizures were minor. The doctors said I might have them for a year, or five, or maybe never again. There was no way to know. I’m careful to take my anti-seizure meds on a daily basis. But obviously I didn’t take any that Saturday or Sunday night, and sometime around four a.m. on Monday, I felt it coming. My whole body tensed, a blinding headache descended on me, and the next thing I knew, I was shaking, tiny rapid shakes that were so jarring I couldn’t move at all. I don’t think anyone would have noticed anything at all, except that I aspirated some of the vomit and started choking.
    I didn’t know what to expect walking into the courtroom, but this wasn’t it. I’d never been in a courtroom, and I guess I expected some old crumbly building, something like the old Night Court reruns my Mom used to watch. Instead, I walked into a clean, carpeted, well-lit room with lots of lush wood paneling. The police pushed me into a pen with the various other criminals and told me to sit and wait.
    That’s when I saw them. Not just Alex, but also Sherman, Joel, Kelly. They sat together, in a group around Alex, as if to support her. And she was staring at me.
    I had to close my eyes. I couldn’t do this. I couldn’t hurt her. I couldn’t break her heart all over again. But I don’t know what choice I had. I could hurt her in the short term, like tearing off a band-aid, or I could hurt her permanently, in the long term, by involving her in my fucked-up life.
    The hearings went on forever. One right after the other, with the judge basically handing out decisions rapid-fire. So I was a surprised when they called my case.
    The officer leaned over to me and said, “Come this way,” then led me to a table at the front. A man in a suit came up the center aisle and sat at the table next to me.
    I stared at him. “Who the hell are you?”
    He leaned close. “I’m Ben Cross. I’ll be representing you. For this morning