Shift

“Just . . . let me say this,” he grits out, frustrated and maybe a little embarrassed. My brother likes to talk with his hands when he’s uncomfortable, and right now, he’s pretty much all hands.

Dustin sighs.

“Fine.”

My brother’s jaw works, a trait he exhibits when he’s trying to spit out something he doesn’t want to say. He’s going to apologize; I can feel it. It won’t be obvious, like an “I’m sorry.” Tommy Judge doesn’t put words out there that might be used against him in the future. But he’ll be frank enough.

“I was a dick,” my brother says.

Yeah, that’s spot on.

“Like I said, forget—” Dustin begins, getting cut off by one of my brother’s gesticulations.

“I got piss-ass drunk because I knew you would resent it. To hurt you, really, because I don’t like my sister being put at risk. That wasn’t cool. And thank you for cleaning up my vomit,” my brother says, never making full eye contact with Dustin. His eyes shift over his shoulder to me and dim when he catches my smirk.

It’s sweet that he worries about me. But I was never in danger. I knew I wasn’t. Now’s not the time for me to say that to him, though. Now’s the time for his sorry-less apology to be accepted.

Dustin reaches over with a fist, holding it out for my brother to land his own on top of. He does with a breathy laugh of relief.

“We’re cool,” Dustin says, and my brother relaxes back in his seat. “I didn’t clean up your vomit, though.”

Tommy’s head slingshots to the side. He definitely vomited. A few times.

“Yeah, saved it for you. Not go

“Shit,” Tommy mutters under his breath.

We all bust out laughing about it after a few seconds, and for a moment, we’re those three kids we always were. Maybe this can work after all. Maybe, eventually, my brother will accept what my heart needs.

Any morsel of comfort is swept away the second we pull in front of Dustin’s family’s trailer. Flashing lights glare brightly, even under the harsh noon sun. The back of an ambulance is wide open, doors slung out on either side.

Dustin flings his door open and takes off in a sprint before we’re fully stopped, his voice breaking as he yells out, “Mom!” Tommy abruptly halts the car, choking us with our safety belts before we’re thrown back into our seats.

“This isn’t good,” my brother says.

I unbuckle and pull the handle of my door, but before I get out, my brother spins in his seat and holds up a palm.

“Just wait. Let him deal with this. It might be bad in there.” The crease in my brother’s forehead is deep. I meet his worried eyes with what I’m sure are terrified ones of my own.

“That’s exactly why I need to go in there, Tommy!” I shake my head and continue my way out the door. My brother gives in, following me as we take cautious steps around the side of the trailer to the oil-stained driveway. It’s littered with abandoned car parts and pans from work Dustin’s done here, and things Colt left behind. At least six cats huddle underneath the home, their eyes glowing from the daylight while they hide in the shadows. I wonder if Dustin’s mom has been feeding them.

“County, we’ve got a nine-oh-one N coming in, code three,” a voice says from just inside the door. Dustin and I remain at the bottom of the small set of porch steps, and I wrap my right hand around my throat out of fear for what’s happening inside.

“Can I go with you? Or do I need to drive myself? What do I do?” Dustin’s voice displays rare panic. It breaks me, and tears well in my eyes. Tommy’s mouth is a hard line, and his chest stopped moving. He’s holding his breath.

“Do you know what your mom took, son? Anything you can get us will help. Anything,” someone says to him.

Unable to let Dustin navigate this conversation alone, I pass by my brother and jog up the steps to enter the messy living room that I’ve never been allowed to see before. It smells of burnt plastic, chemicals, and cat piss. How Dustin ever survived a night in this place is lost on me. This is the kind of place people cultivate to slip away from the living, which seems is exactly what his mother has done.

Dustin is standing over his mom as she lays on a rolling stretcher that paramedics are about to carry through the door. His hands fist his hair and his eyes dart around the floor as if the answers he needs are written on the matted carpet and vinyl.

“It could be anything. Fentanyl, oxy . . . I don’t know. I—” Dustin’s gaze meets mine and his skin turns gray. I move to him and reach for his hand, not giving a shit about anyone seeing it or what Tommy will think when he does. I grip his hand tightly and force him to look at me.

“It’s okay,” I say, my voice low at his side. He squeezes my hand with enough strength that my fingers grow numb. I let him.

I don’t have to ask. His uncertain words are more than panic over finding his mom limp on her side, body twitching while medics hook up her IV and monitor her oxygen. Sadly, this isn’t the first time Dustin has walked in to find his mom overdosed on the floor. What has him truly worried is that Colt isn’t home, but he has been—recently. The half-drank bottle of beer on the coffee table is still cold, the glass beaded with sweat. The living room TV is on, though muted, and it’s showing basketball. Dustin’s mom is not the kind of woman who gives a shit about sports. To be fair, she doesn’t give a shit about much.

But the biggest sign? That’s coming from the vent swinging above the bathroom door, held on by a single screw. No, Colt isn’t here right now. But he was. And he left with something he didn’t want anybody to find. Something he kept behind that vent. Something more important than the woman who birthed his only son, who’s lying on the floor, seconds from death.