Josh leans back in his chair. His face turns pink, and I don’t realize he’s crying until he swipes at his eyes with the back of his hand. It’s so hard to watch him cry quietly. I miss those loud, dramatic tears from when he was little. This is so much more heartbreaking.
“Josh,” I say, “please don’t cry.”
“You’re crying.”
I touch my eyes and realize he’s right. My entire face is wet with tears. Josh climbs into my lap like he used to when he was a toddler, and I hold him close to me while we both mourn the loss of yet another person from our lives.
Chapter 44
TWO MONTHS LATER
The sight of the barbed wire fence around the maximum-security prison still makes me edgy.
I quit my job at Raker Penitentiary about two months ago. I’ve been here several times since then, but only as a visitor. In the parking lot, you can see the sharp spikes at the top of the fence, and the guard towers flanking the outdoor yard.
I won’t be here long though. I’m barely going to get out of the car. And after today, I’ll never come back here again.
A lot has happened in the last two months. Aside from my new job, which I love, Tim is currently incarcerated, awaiting trial for multiple murders. While he was dating me, he was also stalking Kelli. I had no idea, of course. From my end, he seemed like the perfect boyfriend. Although several people from the elementary school claimed that they knew there was something a little off about him.
I recanted my testimony about the night at the farmhouse. Even though I knew I could get in a lot of trouble for it, I had to do it. I had to tell the police that I realized I got it wrong. Shane hadn’t been the one who tried to strangle me that night. It was Tim. He was the one twisted enough to try to kill me with the very necklace he bought me.
And then he saved it for an entire decade. Waiting for the right moment to use it against me.
Fortunately, I didn’t get into a lot of trouble after I recanted the testimony. It was an honest mistake on my part—it was, after all, an extremely traumatic night. And this paved the way for Shane to get a new lawyer and have the verdict of his trial overturned.
Today, after eleven years, Shane Nelson is being released from prison.
And I am picking him up.
The doors to the prison open, and Shane comes out, wearing an old black coat, a pair of blue jeans, and sneakers that likely used to be white but are now a shade of gray. He’s got a duffel bag slung over his shoulder, which holds all his belongings in the entire world. I wave to him so he sees me, and he waves back.
When he gets closer, the dark circles under his eyes are more visible, but at least he doesn’t have any bruises on his face. I had been worried that something could happen in the last few days that might keep him from coming home, but nothing else has gone wrong.
“Brooke. Hi.”
“Hi,” I say.
When I visited him at the prison the last couple of months, we had to talk to each other through a wall of glass, using telephones mounted on the wall. We couldn’t touch each other. Now there’s nothing separating us, but we just stand there, smiling nervously. I don’t know which one of us looks more anxious.
“Thanks for picking me up,” he says.
“No problem.” It’s not like he has anyone else to do it for him—besides me, he’s alone in the world. “How does it feel to be out?”
It’s such a stupid question, and I feel silly for having asked it. But for the first time in a long time, the smile on his face looks genuine. “It feels amazing.”
It won’t be an easy transition back to regular life. Shane at least got his GED, but he had planned to go to college, and of course, that never happened. He has no money, and although he’ll likely be completely cleared of all charges, it’s hard to erase the fact that he spent the last decade of his life in prison. He can’t just carry on like the last ten years never happened.