“Isn’t that what brothers do?”
“I guess.” He took another sip. He wasn’t sure where to start. “You have to be prepared for anything.”
“You’ve said that for years,” Ford said.
“It’s one of those things that will always remain true.” Ford said nothing, so he kept talking. “We had this young guy on the team. Came in really cocky and full of himself.”
“Bet it was like looking in the mirror.”
He laughed. Not a funny sound. “I wasn’t nearly as bad as Colin. I wasn’t reckless.”
“You’re not one to tolerate that.”
“No. But I didn’t have to speak up. I wasn’t the leader. Colin got a lot of shit from others. He never had his gear ready. He didn’t plan or study like the rest of us. He wanted to go in and be the hero because he was physically good. I mean, his ability to get by the enemy unheard was off the charts. I often wondered if he was a ghost and could walk through walls.”
“Sounds like he might be your ghost.”
“Yeah. He is,” he said. “He’s gone now. Got cocky one too many times.”
“And he was caught unaware and you blame yourself?”
“He wasn’t the only one caught unaware,” he said, turning his head to Ford. “No one saw what was under the surface with him. No one saw his demons.”
“How did he die?” Ford asked slowly.
“He took his own life.”
Clay blinked his eyes a few times. He’d shed enough tears in private.
“And you blame yourself?”
“I was the last person to talk to him that night. I gave him shit. I tipped the scale.”
“Don’t do that to yourself,” Ford said. “You don’t know what he was thinking.”
“No,” he said. “I don’t. And I should have seen that too.”
“You’re not Superman,” Ford said. “You can’t save everyone even though you damn well try. You’re human, like the rest of us.”
“Says the man that ran into the line of fire to get the woman he loved.”
“You’d do the same thing,” Ford said.
“I would.”
“We can’t change who we are,” Ford said. “You know I’m here if you need to talk.”
“I know. I appreciate it. Mom would freak out if she knew.”
“Mom has never freaked out a day in her life.” His brother was laughing. “She’s the strongest woman I know.”
“True.”
“What else is going on? You’ve been more ornery than normal in the past few weeks. I’m not the only one that has noticed it,” Ford said.
He shrugged. “Just busy.”
“You like to stay busy,” Ford said. “There is more to it. I feel as if I look back, it’s around the time Meredith was hired. I know the whole wedding thing wasn’t your first choice. I would have thought it’d be easier having her deal with it.”
