barty
He had enlisted to get away from home, to get away from his father and the expectations everyone had of him. He had also had fun in the academy, he had met many boys, he had trained, he had even gotten a tattoo. Then they had sent him to the front.
Everything had changed there
The bombing had started early in the morning, he and his companions had tried to hide and when the enemies had arrived he had grabbed his rifle, praying like every day to get out alive. By now he had gotten used to the explosions, the blood, his dead friends. Since he'd been there he'd wondered why people thought of hell as a place on fire, this was hell. Boys killing each other, watching helplessly as a friend die, risking their lives.
Barty dodged a bullet and hid behind a tank. He had to breathe, regain control of his body get out of there and do his job. Kill.
His best friend, Theo next to him tapped his shoulder "all right?" Barty nodded and smiled at him "When we get back to the base you can offer me a beer" he winked and ran away, Barty was about to follow him when he heard the explosion and then saw nothing more.
When he recovered he tried to get up, he felt excruciating pain in his leg but he was able to stand. He looked around there were so many dead, then he saw him, Theo was lying on the ground in a pool of blood, he immediately approached him and saw that a splinter from the bomb was stuck in his chest "Theo, no please" he pressed on the wound even though he also knew it was useless. Theo raised a hand placing it on yours "Barty..come home alive" Barty was crying "you'll come back too, everything will be fine" but Theo shook his head "take the plates, you keep them" Barty didn't want to, he wanted him to keep them in order to take them home but he knew that after all Theo would never come home, he took the necklace from his neck, adding the dog tags to his and remained there, until Theo died in his arms.
No one had prepared him for that, having to drag a dead friend of yours to at least get him home. He was still alive, he would have sent another letter to his mother, Theo would not. Theo's parents would get the phone call, they'd get a visit from other soldiers "we're so sorry but..." and then they'd bury their son, they'd only have a flag as a reminder of what their son had been. A hero.
When Barty got home the first thing he did was go to the cemetery cemetery, on Theo's grave, there were no flowers, nothing. Just a name, a date of birth and date of death. That's what dead soldiers became.
Coming back had been hard, his old friends didn't talk to him anymore because they didn't know what to say or how to behave, his father had kicked him out of the house. He had nothing. It was like hell again.
He ended up living on the streets, and then started taking drugs. The first time was by chance, he was with a group of guys and one of them had passed him a bag of cocaine. He had liked it, he had come out of hell. The second time he bought it, that time too he was out of hell. From there, he started doing at least three times a week. Part of him told him it was wrong, the other told him this was the only way to escape his monsters.
He found it ironic that he would die from drugs and not from war. But then he was saved. Again.
__________
He was better, it was obvious. He'd been clean for a long time now and had no intention of doing drugs again, and then there was Evan.
He would have done it for him.