Austin was asleep in the back of Kael’s truck with his mouth wide open. Or maybe he was blacked out, I didn’t know for certain and the only reason I even gave a shit was because I wanted to cuss him out. His face was gray, his lips dry, and his palms were a little bit clammy when I reached back to check them.

“He’s an idiot. Why does he do this?” I felt so exasperated.

“I think he’s more than drunk,” Kael observed.

“What do you mean?” I lowered my voice so Austin wouldn’t hear us if he woke up.

“He seems like he had something more than alcohol. I’ve seen a lot of guys fucked up on all kinds of stuff. Mendoza’s one of them. I know what I’m talking about, and this is more than liquor and weed. Mendoza doesn’t do the shit anymore, but he was on pills for a while, too.”

I looked back at Austin again. “I appreciate your concern, but he’s not on drugs. Weed maybe, but that’s it. I’ve seen him way worse than this. He’s a professional partier. If he doesn’t wake up by the time we get to my dad’s, I’ll wake him up.”

“Fine. You know him better than I do and we’ve both had a long night.” He gave in as we pulled onto my dad’s street. I wondered how long it would take for word to reach my dad. Days? Hours?

I ended up waking Austin to have him sit upright while we drove through the gate. He managed to keep his eyes open long enough to have our IDs checked and then he fell back asleep for the few minutes’ drive to our dad’s. I thought about taking him to my house, but I didn’t want to look at his face right now and, really, I wanted Kael to stay over tonight.

Kael swore he was physically okay and half carried Austin into my dad’s house and up the stairs. Kael had just tucked Austin into his bed when I shook my brother’s shoulder. He opened his eyes and groaned, and Kael took over, asking him questions to check his cognitive awareness: When was his birthday? What was his address? Austin answered each one in a slurred version of his voice, using our dad’s house as his address. Kael shined the flashlight from his phone over Austin’s pupils and felt his forehead before standing up from the edge of the bed. Kael really did everything in life so thoroughly, even taking care of my drunken idiot brother.

“You’ll be okay, but you need to drink water tomorrow. A shitload. And lay off excess of anything. Trust me, man.” He leaned down over my brother. Austin smiled goofily at him.