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When you got together with Gary, it seemed like all you would ever do is drink. Loud and rowdy pints at the Legion, bottles of cider and a quick feel-up in the back of his truck, quiet glances and stories in the woods complete with a drop of the hard stuff. It was getting to the point where you could pick up a bottle and smell him; smell it on his breath, smell his sweat, his neck, his stance, the gunsmoke, rotting flesh--
You could trust Gaz. He loved you, and he needed you; he'd never let you down and he'd never waver. Trust him at your back, trust him at your side, trust him anywhere at all...except around your brother. And even then he was just trying to protect you. You thought. From the one person in this world you didn't need protecting from.
You couldn't stop drinking when you quit Gaz. It just wasn't that easy. That last little essence, distilled; Jem and Gary forever. One more bubbled laugh, one more sweet drunken kiss, one last whisper goodbye and he'll see you tomorrow. It numbed everything else, made it easier to stop thinking about the future. Just living in the moment, one more time.
Your dad doesn't want you going out at night anymore. You just laughed in his face and took your table down at the Legion. And if Gary didn't like it, if he stopped in the middle of his story to look at you in stony silence and then get all the louder, well, he could lump it. This was your place, as well as his, and you weren't giving it up just 'cause you were giving him up. So you stuck your feet up on the table, planted your flag, and asked for another pint because you were staying.
And if, at the end of it, you knew, walking out of there, that you were going to walk straight into trouble, you gave no sign. Maybe you even wanted it.
Wanted him to slam you up against the outside wall and hiss 'you bloody bitch' in your ear, just so you could smell it on his breath one last time; kiss him hard and drink the last taste of it off his tongue. So you could break it to lay your head back against the wall and laugh, laugh while you cry, because it hurts. Because it's so goddamn funny to see your rock solid iron bar planted in the ground--your steady place, the one who always held you up no matter what--see him swaying in the breeze like a piece of paper while he's trying to pin you to the wall. To realize he means absolutely bloody nothing to you anymore. And that you could rip him to shreds right now and you want to and he wouldn't even be expecting it, but you love him and maybe that little foolish place in your heart always will, or maybe it'll heal up in time when you're busy doing other things. So you push his hand away from you, slip away, and whisper, 'goodbye, Gary' as you're kneeing him in the crotch.
And you head back home, sliding through the light, and the dark, and the empty windows and the howling woods to your little place with the homefires burning. Where your mum and dad and fragile little older brother (who needs to be protected at all costs, even though he doesn't know it) have for some reason started a game of charades in the den.
So you flop down on the sofa and watch, and try and let the warmth of it thaw your soul.