star dangling from a red, white, and blue ribbon.
“What the hell are you doing?”
“Let go of me.”
He tries to wrestle free, and for the first time in my life I stop him. For the first time I’m stronger than he is. I put him against the railing, and the medal he was holding falls to the ground. As soon as it happens, Jakes stops struggling. He goes limp in my arms.
“Jake, what are you doing?”
“I’m doing this for you. Don’t you get it? First the medals and then—” He motions to the backpack.
“Jake, man. I don’t understand. What are you doing for me?”
He’s fading in front of me, and I can’t let that happen now. I want to slap him, the way Dad did to one of his army buddies who passed out on our porch one night. Right in the face.
“Where are the other medals?”
“They’re gone,” he says.
I look out into the river, impossibly black and who knows how deep. I let go of him and walk in circles, trying to think. Should I call Mom and Dad? Maybe they would finally take him to the hospital; maybe this will finally force them to see who Jake has become. But then I would be stuck, too. There’s no way they’d let me walk out of the emergency room or psychiatric ward—wherever they put him—and go to the recruiter’s office alone.
Mallory yells just as I see Jake’s arm move. The last medal arcs against the sky like it has wings.
Jake doesn’t move as I sprint toward the bridge, as I jump off the side and drop twenty feet into the river. I expect it to be cold. Instead, the warm water swallows me. I sink until my legs disappear into the wet mud at the bottom. Almost immediately a sharp pain travels up my right leg. When I pull up, it feels like I’ve lost my entire leg. But I still try to swim, to move, to catch even the smallest flicker in the dark water.
CHAPTER TWELVE
I dive down five more times before I finally listen to Mallory and get out of the river. My calf pulses blood, the cut long and deep. When Mallory sees it, her breath catches. Jake doesn’t move.
“Oh, God,” she says, bending over as I limp toward Jake. “What were you thinking?”
I ignore Mallory and shove Jake with both hands, nearly falling.
“What the hell?” He doesn’t answer, but I keep at him. I’m pushing him, trying to force him to react, to do something, even if it means taking a punch. I want to know he’s alive, even a little bit.
Only when I go for the backpack does he come to life, jumping backward and holding it away from me like it might explode. Mallory is shouting, too, trying to get my attention. When she grabs me, I reluctantly face her.
“Thomas, you need to go to the hospital.”
“I’m fine,” I say, turning back to Jake. I want to know why he threw the medals off the bridge. Why he can’t just tell me what’s wrong, what’s happening inside his head. I want to know why he cares more about some damn backpack than what just happened.
She steps back in front of me and points to my leg. “You’re bleeding.”
I try to step around Mallory, but my leg buckles. She tries to look me in the eyes, but I’m so pissed at Jake I can’t focus on anything else. “Hey, hey,” she says. “You need stitches. And a tetanus shot. We’re going to the hospital.”
“What the hell is he doing?” I ask, finally looking her in the eyes. This softens her face, her words.
She turns and looks at Jake. “I don’t know. But we have to take care of you first. We’ll take him with us, and then . . .” Her voice trails off.
“I shouldn’t even care,” I say.
“Of course you should,” she says. “He’s your brother.”
A lot of good that’s done so far because I can’t shake the feeling that if I had taken even the smallest of actions to help him, we wouldn’t be standing here right now. But what can I do? Even the simplest moves he makes can’t be anticipated. It’s like living with a bomb that could go off in a hundred different ways.
Mallory looks down at my leg.
“But really, that cut. It’s deep.”
“I’m not leaving here without him,” I say. Jake is back near the edge of the bridge, hands on the railing and chin dropped to his chest.