Saving Rain(25)

Harry chuckled. “Good?”

“You have no fucking idea.”

I took another bite, and as I chewed, I left behind the memory of women and instead thought about a time from even longer ago. A whole other fucking life really, and I said, “The last time I had pizza on my birthday was the only time I had a party. My grandparents—I told you they raised me in the beginning, right?”

Harry nodded, a hint of melancholy touching his eyes. “You’ve mentioned it a few times.”

I’d known Harry for eight years, and there were only so many things to tell.

Hell, it was likely he’d heard this story before too. But he didn’t stop me from telling it.

“Right. Anyway, my gramma wanted me to have a normal birthday, I guess, and had me invite a couple of friends over. Billy was one of them. We ordered pizza, and right before I sat down to eat, I went to the bathroom to take a piss and walked in on my mom popping pills.” I studied the pizza crust. The hardened bubbles of sauce. The crispy edges and softer middle. “All my grandparents had ever wanted was to give me a normal childhood while still protecting my mom. She was their only kid. I always got that they genuinely thought they were doing the right thing, and I don’t blame them for anything ever, but …”

“All we can do is our best,” Harry said, injecting a bit of wisdom into my moment of reflection. “Even if our best isn’t all that good at all.”

I nodded thoughtfully, turning the piece of crust over in my fingers. “It’s crazy. Like … sometimes, we have these moments, you know, that are so profound in our lives, but we have no clue they’re happening when they’re actually happening. And all Gramma wanted that day was for me to be a normal kid, but there was Mom, fucking it up again. Gramma could never stop the inevitable. The only way she could’ve done that was to stop protecting her own daughter, and no matter how bad shit got, she could never abandon her.”

Just like me.

“You know, Soldier … the thing about the past is, it isn’t always up for speculation. Sometimes, the best thing you can do is to simply accept that what’s happened has already happened and move on.”

I laughed and took a bite of the crispy crust. “You say that shit like the very nature of my situation isn’t because my past is under speculation.”

“True,” Harry said, nodding reflectively. “But rumor has it, your present has been looked at quite a bit as well. And what I hear is, you might be getting out of here soon.”

I nearly dropped the rest of the crust as I looked up at him and gawked, so fucking scared of letting hope take control. “Wait. You heard that?”

Harry shrugged, but the little smile tugging at his lips was unmistakable. “Like I said, rumors. But I thought you’d like to know. Anyway, it’s almost lights out. So, grab a book and head back, all right?”

I could barely nod as I considered the possibility that I could maybe get the hell out of this place sooner rather than later. “All right,” I replied, staring off toward nothing at all but a potential future I could almost see, taste, and smell. “’Night, Harry. Thanks for the pizza.”





CHAPTER EIGHT


SOMEWHERE TO GO



Six months after my thirtieth birthday, nine and a half years after my time behind bars had begun, I was officially up for parole. I’d been given the notice that my hearing was coming, and I had a pretty good feeling what the outcome was going to be. And, hey, maybe that was a little cocky of me. Maybe I should’ve expected the worst—hell, I’d only been doing that my entire life. But like I’d already said, I had woken up on my thirtieth birthday with a good feeling settled deep in my bones. Maybe it was safe to believe it had something to do with getting out of here.

I mean, it sure as fuck had nothing to do with my mother’s second visit in over nine years.

I didn’t know how it was possible for someone to age fifteen years in only three. But somehow, Diane Mason had done it. She looked like a witch from one of those old kids movies. An ancient hag, settled deep in the woods. Her eyes were sunken in, her cheeks hollowed out. Her hair as dry as a scarecrow’s straw. I sat across from her, wondering how the hell this could’ve been the woman who’d given birth to me when I looked absolutely nothing like this sack of paper-thin skin and bones.

And just like that, for one of the first times in over thirty years, I wondered about my father and who he might have been.

“So, you still popping pills, or have you moved on to harder shit?” I accused, guarding my heart with my arms folded over my chest.

“Well, I see you’re still a wiseass.”

I inconspicuously diverted my gaze to the table beside me. Evan—a really great dude, serving twenty-five years for shooting a man in the back as he fled from Evan’s home, after the guy had broken in and brutally raped his wife—was sitting with his kids, crying unabashedly over his wife not coming. He’d said she had a hard time seeing him here, knowing she’d eventually have to leave without him, and I guessed she just couldn’t find it in her to come at all.

I wished she had, for his sake.

I also wished Mom had never shown up for my own.

Glancing back at her, I drawled, “No. I’m just wondering what bullshit I’ll have to deal with once I get out of here.”