Zombie Soap 2: Conspiracy

Thirty-Seven

"What happened?" he asked tentatively, taking the bait.

Taking a photograph from the desk, Benson passed the wooden frame over, speaking as Taylor inspected it. "That's my son, Mark. He was in the military too; he went into the Engineering Division after college."

Mark stood in his dress uniform, smiling wide with Benson for the camera and holding a certificate. The resemblance was striking, leaving no question of relation. Mark possessed the same striking eyes and Roman nose, uncanny grins that were uneven on one side, and similar body frames. Mark had an innocence in his smile, contrasting against his father who'd seen too much, but Taylor had no doubt of the elder man's claim.

"Where is he now?"

"Six feet under," Benson stated in a bitter tone, reaching for the photograph. His cheeks clenched as his lips contorted in anger, and venom dripped from every word after. "He wanted to serve his country, just like me. I didn't want him to go because I worried, but I tried to support his dream; I really did. After he'd completed boot camp at Camp Pendleton, he received his commission and went to his post in Hawaii. Last time I spoke to him, he was having the time of his life. I got a phone call in the middle of the night a week later with the news his fellow soldiers had killed home in a hazing gone wrong."

Holy shit. Why was Benson sharing this? The pain seemed so fresh, but if Taylor were a parent, he would probably have it at the front of his mind, no matter how much time had passed.

Taylor bit his lip and swallowed as he stared at his feet. Nothing could alleviate that kind of grief, and no matter what Monica and the others said, he couldn't help the overwhelming empathy swelling inside his heart like a balloon stretched to its limits. No one deserved to lose a child. "I'm sorry."

"I see him in you," Benson replied, prompting Taylor to meet his gaze once again. "He valued loyalty so much; he loved his friends."

"Were these the same friends who killed him?" Taylor wondered aloud, instantly cringing. He hadn't meant to voice that thought. "Shit, ignore me. I misspoke."

Tracing the edges of the frame in his lap, Benson's lip quirked upward at the corner. "Mark used to say uncomfortable truths too. It's okay. But yes. His friends didn't even call the MPs. They panicked and left him for dead — they abandoned their moral code every soldier is sworn to live by and ran like cowards. I miss him every single day, and there is no amount of justice or atonement to fill the void he left behind."

His voice rose with each word until it trembled, and his eyes watered until they brimmed with moisture. It was the first time Taylor had seen a normal, human reaction from anyone outside his small circle of friends. The women hated him, and though he couldn't discount their warnings, Taylor understood what it was like to lose the most important person in his life. For him, Jayson's death was too fresh and painful to process. And he might not have been a child or a parent, but he was the closest thing Taylor ever had to family.

"I feel that way about Jayson," he admitted quietly, picking at a hangnail left from biting then down to the nubs. "Everyone says he deserved to go because of what he did, but imagine the one person you love more than anything being torn from you. I know he made a terrible mistake, but it was because he was off his medications. No one gave him a chance to defend himself — not even you."

As he dragged his sleeve across his eyes, Taylor realized why he'd been so resentful all this time. Jayson had screwed up, but he never would have abandoned Taylor. The other man would have beat himself up and accepted the responsibility. Everyone else tried to change Taylor and mold him into the image they envisioned. Never Jayson. Not once.