Deshawn sent him an unimpressed look. “You’re not my wife, or my mom, so do me a favor and stop acting like it.”
Rooster sighed, deflating. He was still too shocked and exhausted to carry anger for very long. “That’s not what I meant,” he repeated, pathetic this time.
Deshawn added a little mustard and laid the top slices of bread on the sandwiches. Slid one across to Rooster. “Eat that.”
Rooster picked it up and took a dutiful bite.
“As long as we’ve been friends,” Deshawn said, “I thought you knew me better than this.” He sighed. “Me joining the Corps, that wasn’t just putting in my time. It didn’t traumatize me, the things we did over there; I’m not broken. I don’t have any regrets – except that you got hurt.”
Rooster set the sandwich down, stomach too tight to eat.
“I thought – I think everybody thinks – that when you get out, you can take a deep breath again. That you can go back to your life. That you have nightmares, yeah, but that it gets better over time. You start to feel human again.” He shook his head. “It wasn’t like that. It…” Rooster could see his friend struggling to say it just right. “I was so goddamnbored. I was climbing out of myskin.”
He breathed a laugh. “I know that makes me sound shitty, but it’s the truth. I was home with my family, I was trying to set up my own business, and all I could think was that I was wasting my – I dunno – my talents. Not everybody has the stomach to do what we do,” he said, seriously, looking at Rooster. “It just seems like a waste not to spend my time protecting the people who need it. Doing something positive. Any kid on summer break can cut grass; but I can put a bullet in a man, and not even lose any sleep.”
Rooster went still; he’d been standing still, but he realized, when a moment of perfect calm stole over him, that he’d been twitching.Yeah, he thought,I get that. A bone-deep understanding passed between them. Maybe they were sick, but it didn’t matter: there was no changing it.
“I have a family,” Deshawn said, “and I love them more than anything. But I’m a Marine, too, and that’s not something I can switch off. I’m not more normal than you, brother. I’m just not.”
Slowly, Rooster nodded.
“Now. You gonna tell me again what I’m like? Or can we actually get some shit done?”
