Page 2 of Beckon

“Nope.” He popped thepand lifted his glass yet again.

“You know what, Chandler, you’re not the only one dealing with this shit. You’re not alone in this, you’re alone because you want to be. I was there too. I… you know what? Forget it. You’re not listening anyway.” Chandler watched his friend in the bar mirror as he pulled out his phone and started touching the screen before directing his attention back toward him.

“Your ride will be here in seventeen minutes.” Tate’s eyes shifted to the bartender. “Yellow Ford Focus, name’s—” He looked down at the screen. “Tamitha.” Tate was speaking more to the bartender than Chandler. The bartender nodded and went about his business. Chandler hated being treated like a child.

“I can’t beg you anymore,Benson, you have to want it, and when you do, call me. Until then…” He let the statement hang in the air, but he continued to stand there. After a minute or two, he shook his head and left.

“Fuck.” Chandler propped his elbows on the bar, resting his head on his palms. He had nothing and no one left. It was what he was pushing for, needing to punish himself, but he wasn’t expecting the overwhelming sense of loss. He still wasn’t numb, but the bottle was empty. Before he could remedy that, the bartender came around and helped him off his stool.

“Come on, man, your ride should be out front.”

Chandler let the man pull him from his seat and lead him outside. Why did he find it easy to allow strangers to do what he would not allow from his friends?

He shook off the self-imposed question. It sounded more like something one of his many therapists would’ve asked, and to be honest, he didn’t want to know the answer. Or rather, he already knew it but refused to accept it.

The humid night air smacked him in the face the second the bar door opened, making him want to throw up.

Fucking humidity.

Why was it every damn time his government sent him on an“if you get caught, we don’t know who you are”mission, it was always to someplace goddamned humid?

“Okay, buddy, look alive. This is your ride.” The bartender spoke in a sympathetic tone. A car rolled up in front of them, but he’d be damned if he could identify the make or even color through his whiskey vision. Luckily the bartender paid attention to Tate’s instructions.

The alcohol was finally hitting him hard. He picked up bits and pieces of the exchange between the bartender and his driver before the man loaded him into the back of the car. All he knew at that point was the voices were finally silent. If he was lucky, he would be home and passed out cold before any type of coherency crept in.

The car lurched forward as it pulled out of the parking lot. He watched transfixed as the Queen of England bobbed her head at him. That didn’t seem right. What was she doing driving rideshare in the states? Maybe hewasdrunker than he thought.

“So, had a bit too much to drink tonight?” The voice that spoke didn’t have an English accent, so not the Queen. It was soft and timid. But when he met startling green eyes in the rearview mirror, they were anything but timid.

Of course, she had four of them, so maybe that was the startling part.

Chandler wanted to answer in a normal tone, with pleasant words, like a decent human being would. Instead, he responded like an asshole.

“Come to that conclusion all by yourself, did ya?” The second the words left his mouth, he wanted to take them back. But if his days on this earth had taught him anything, it was that time didn’t go in reverse no matter how much you wished it could.

“Okay then. Not much for conversation I see. And yes, before you ask, I figured that out all by myself too. I won’t bother you for the remainder of the ride. But just FYI, you can turn down conversation politely, no need to be a complete and utter butthole about it.”

She’d set him down without cursing, then turned her attention back to the road. It was strange to feel scolded by someone using the word butthole instead of ass.

Chandler had been properly chastised by a stranger. Something his own friends were intimidated to do.

Until Tate earlier. But even then, he just had enough and walked.

His first thought was how his mother would’ve been disappointed in his behavior. Second, was how for the first time, in a very long time at that, he was disappointed in himself.

As the alcohol pulled him under, he hoped he’d managed to utter the apology that was perched on the tip of his tongue. The apology was forgotten as soon as oblivion claimed him.

Chandler was no longer drunk in the back of a piece of shit car driven by a woman he didn’t know and couldn’t see straight enough to identify. Instead, he was a few years in the past and miles away.

The scream of a child and the wail of a wife assaulted him. One he’d heard in real time, the other a product of his imagination.

That was the day everything changed.

But he’d somehow been pulled back from the edge, only to be pushed back out on that precipice once again.

As hard as Chandler tried to accept that what happened was somewhat justified, at least on his team’s part, it didn’t change what that kid watched.

Nor did it change what Wilson’s own wife and child felt when they were notified of his death.I bet they wailed like the other wife and child did.

---