I couldn’t hold back a chuckle, but the seriousness of the situation and of his words didn’t allow the levity to last very long. “When I left I didn’t plan on staying away. At first I couldn’t leave because of boot camp, and then I got shipped overseas and there was a whole learning curve there that kicked my ass. Eventually it was easier to keep some distance because I had a job to do and I couldn’t think about both staying alive and all the what-ifs happening back here.”

He narrowed his battered eyes at me and gave me a dirty look. “It was better for you, Dash. It was never better for us. Your country might have needed you, but so did your family.” He scoffed at me and pointed one of his wrapped fingers in my direction. “Do you have any idea how long I thought it was my fault you took off?”

That made me take a step back like he’d hit me in the face. “What? Why would you think that? You were five when I left, Dalen.”

“Yeah, you left because Caroline got sick. You loved her, but so did I, and losing her hurt me just as bad as losing Mom hurt you. Caroline was the only mom I ever knew, and I know she never would have met Dad if I hadn’t been born. I’m also smart enough to know neither one of you would have lost Mom if it hadn’t been for me. She wanted me so badly it cost her her life. I was the reason you lost Mom and the reason Caroline was around in the first place. That all leads to you leaving because of me. I used to cry about it to Dad. I missed you. Dad missed you. Elma Mae missed you but you were nowhere to be found and I blamed myself for that. It took years and years for him to convince me your choices had nothing to do with me and everything to do with you. He still tells me all the time that even though he lost Mom, he got me, and he got to have Caroline even if it wasn’t for very long. He always tells me that he gained as much as he lost.”

Thank God he’d had Jules to set him straight and to battle the blame and guilt that I’d allowed to suck me under. Dalen hadn’t been allowed to become a victim of all that grief and sorrow that tore apart my insides. “I left because I was a coward, Dalen. I can’t lie about that. I didn’t have it in me to hold Jules up under the weight of losing another woman he loved, even though I owed it to him to at least try. I was pathetic and I was pitiful … honestly, I still am because I should have been here. The army took me in, gave me purpose and regimentation. I was lost and they put me on a path that was easy to navigate after I felt like every move I made here pushed me closer to the edge of catastrophe. The army told me where to be, what to do, how to act, how to look. I didn’t have to think, all I had to do was follow orders and it worked for me. I knew if I came home all of that would go away, it already has.” I waved a hand at his face. “Look what happened to you not even a day after I got home, kid. Shit gets fucked up and I don’t even have to try …”

His swollen eyes widened and he took a step closer to me, which brought him off the curb and had us almost chest to chest and eye to eye. He was tall for his age, but I still had a solid three or four inches on him. That didn’t stop his anger from making him seem much larger and far older than he was. He poked me in the center of the chest and his voice raised as he spit furious words at me. “The people we’ve lost, the heartache we’ve suffered … none of that makes us unique or special. People lose loved ones all the time because bad stuff happens to good people every single day.”

I thought about Dixie’s dad and all the families I’d had to contact while I was overseas when one of their sons, husbands, or fathers had come to their end at the hands of our enemies. Good men dying while doing what they were trained to do. I thought about the bullet Rome took in the center of the chest when he was home because he made the wrong man mad during a bar fight. He could have easily died and left Cora and their daughter behind when he was supposed to be living a safe, quiet, civilian life. I couldn’t ignore the fact that my brother, young, innocent, and blameless, had simply been in the wrong place at the wrong time today and paid for it heavily. Bad things did happen to good people every single day because fate was a bitch and there was no controlling her, even if you desperately wanted to.

“You know what does make us special, what does make us unique?” He put both of his hands on the center of my chest and pushed. “That we had not one, but two moms that loved us unconditionally for as long as they could.” He pushed me back again and I caught his wrists so that he didn’t hurt himself more than he already was. “We have a dad that has never given up on us, never walked away. He lost just as much as we did, even more because he lost you, too, but he’s always been there and he always will be. He could take a bullet tomorrow while he’s on the job, Dash. He could be taken away just as easily as Mom and Caroline were, but I don’t think about that because he won’t let me. He wants me to appreciate the time we have together and not get lost in what could happen because if either of us did that we would stop living, stop caring about each other … just like you did. Do you know how lucky we are, Dash? You ran away from everything that you lost and totally turned your back on everything you still had. Maybe you had an excuse at first, because everything that happened with Caroline did suck, and it was scary and you never really got over losing Mom, but every time you chose not to come home after that, you chose wrong because we were still here.” He shook me loose and turned his back on me as he pulled his hood back up over his head. “You’re right. You are pathetic.”