I had tunnel vision. I knew there were people around me, and I knew the judge was speaking, but my brain was so exhausted, I couldn’t process what anyone was saying. Even when the judge read my sentence, I had no reaction, because I couldn’t absorb it. It wasn’t until later, after I was given an IV for dehydration, that I found out I had been sentenced to seven years in prison, with the eligibility for parole even sooner than that.
“Seven years,” I remember thinking. “That’s bullshit. That isn’t nearly long enough.”
I try not to think about what it must have been like for you in that car after I left you there. What must you have thought of me? Did you think I had been thrown from the car? Were you looking for me? Or did you know I had left you there all alone?
It’s the time you spent alone that night that I know haunts us all, because we’ll never know what you went through. What you were thinking. Who you were calling out to. What your final minutes were like.
I can’t imagine a more painful way for your mother and father to be forced to live out the rest of their lives.
Sometimes I wonder if that’s why Diem is here. Maybe Diem was your way of making sure your parents would be okay.
But in that same vein, not having Diem in my life would mean it’s your way of punishing me. It’s okay. I deserve it.
I plan to fight it, but I know I deserve it.
Every morning, I wake up and I silently apologize. To you, to your parents, to Diem. Throughout the day, I silently thank your parents for raising our daughter since we can’t. And every night, I apologize again before I fall asleep.
I’m sorry. Thank you. I’m sorry.
That’s my day, every day, on repeat.
I’m sorry. Thank you. I’m sorry.
My sentence was not justice considering the way you died. Eternity wouldn’t be justice. But I hope your family knows my actions that night didn’t come from a place of selfishness. It was horror and shock and agony and confusion and terror that guided me away from you that night. It was never selfishness.
I am not a bad person, and I know you know that, wherever you are. And I know you forgive me. It’s just who you are. I only hope one day our daughter will forgive me too. And your parents.
Then maybe, by some miracle, I can start to forgive myself.
Until then, I love you. I miss you.
I’m sorry.
Thank you.
I’m sorry.
Thank you.
I’m sorry.
Repeat.
CHAPTER THIRTY-FOUR
KENNA
I close out the document. I can’t read anymore. My eyes have filled with tears. I’m surprised I made it as far as I did before crying, but I tried not to absorb the words as I was reading them aloud.
I set my phone aside and I wipe my eyes.
Ledger hasn’t moved. He’s in the same position, leaning against his driver’s side door, staring straight ahead. My voice is no longer filling his truck. Now there’s just a silence that’s thick and uninviting, to the point that Ledger can’t seem to take it anymore. He swings open his door and gets out of his truck. He walks to the back of it and begins unloading the table without so much as a word.
I watch him in the rearview mirror. Once the table is on the ground, he grabs one of the chairs. There’s a pause before he chucks the chair onto the table. It lands with a loud clank that I feel in my chest.
Then Ledger grabs a second chair and angrily tosses it across the yard. He’s so mad. I can’t watch.
I lean forward and press my hands against my face, regretting ever reading a single word of that to him. I have no idea if he’s mad at the situation, or me, or if he’s just back there throwing chairs as a way to process five years’ worth of emotions.
“Fuck!” he yells, right before I hear the crash of the final chair. His voice reverberates in the dense trees that surround his property.
The whole truck shakes with the slam of his tailgate.
Then there’s just silence. Stillness.
The only thing I can hear is my shallow and rapid breathing. I’m scared to get out of the truck because I don’t want to have to come face to face with him if any of that outburst was directed at me.
I wish I knew.
I swallow a lump that forms in my throat when I hear his footsteps crunching against the gravel. He stops at my door and he opens it. I’m still leaning forward with my face in my hands, but I eventually pull them away and hesitantly look up at him.
He’s gripping the top of the truck, leaning in my doorway. His head is resting against the inside of his raised arm. His eyes are red, but his expression isn’t filled with hatred. It isn’t even filled with anger. If anything, he looks apologetic, as if he knows his outburst scared me and he feels bad.