I close my eyes. "Don't start."
"I'm not starting anything. I'm telling you something."
"You're telling me because you saw or heard something and now you're doing the big brother thing where you either give me your blessing or threaten to break someone's kneecaps, and I don't need either one because there's nothing happening."
"I didn't say there was."
"Then why bring it up?"
He's quiet for a second. When I open my eyes, he's looking straight ahead at the parking lot, his forearms resting on his knees.
The tattoos on his arms shift in the low light. He looks like our father. The resemblance is so strong it hurts sometimes.
"Because I know you, Leah. You take care of everyone. You fix everything that's broken. And then you go home to an empty apartment and you don't let anyone take care of you." He pauses. "That's not a life. That's a shift that never ends."
"Wow. Deep thoughts from the Sergeant at Arms."
"I'm serious."
"I know you are. That's what scares me."
He turns his head and looks at me.
Really looks—the way only Garrett can, the way that makes me feel like I'm four years old and he's pulling me out of a burning house all over again.
My big brother. The one who saved my life and has been trying to save everyone else's ever since.
"He's a good man," he says again. "That's all I'm saying."
"That's never all you're saying."
The corner of his mouth twitches—and I hate that it reminds me of someone else's almost-smile, and I hate that I notice the similarity, and I hate that my brain has apparently decided to start comparing these two men without my permission.
Garrett stands up, squeezes my shoulder once, and goes back inside.
I sit on the steps for another ten minutes. The mountains are almost dark now, the gold fading to something deeper and cooler. Somewhere in the distance, a truck downshifts on the highway and the sound carries through the valley the way sounds do in West Virginia—far and clear and lonesome.
I think about Brianna. Twenty-three years old, blonde hair, fingernails digging into my wrist.Please don't tell my mom.
I think about Caitlyn. Sixteen. Junior at Morgantown High. Twenty-six minutes that weren't enough.
I think about a quiet man standing in a kitchen doorway with a laptop for his daughter and eyes that swept the room like he was looking for threats and found me instead.
I think about all of this, and then I get in my car and I drive home to my empty apartment, where I stand in the shower until the water goes cold.
I press my forehead against the tile and I let the day run off me.
I don't cry. I never cry. That's not what Mercers do.
But I stand there for a long time.
And when I finally get into bed, my hand drifts to the scar above my eyebrow the way it did the night I watched him carry his daughter out of my ER, and I think?—
I'm not looking for this. I'm not looking for anything.
But something found me anyway, and I don't know what to do with it.
So, I do what I always do. I close my eyes. I set my alarm for five a.m. I tell myself tomorrow will be easier.
