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.”
Her demeanor shifted subtly. Like a storm cloud passing quietly through an otherwise clear sky. “So, it’s true. You’re up for parole.”
I nodded. “Yeah. My hearing is in a week.”
Her jaw shifted as her eyes dropped to the table. She picked at her frayed cuticles, at her brittle nails, before saying, “I don’t want you coming home.”
Off to my right, Coop—a guy who’d attempted a bank robbery after finding out he was gonna lose his house—must’ve just told his wife he had a good shot at getting out of here, too, because she was jumping out of her seat to throw herself at him. The guard allowed the hug for a few seconds before asking them to break it up.
And there was my mom, telling me she didn’t want me coming home.
It must’ve been nice to have someone who wanted you out, where they could hug you without someone telling you to stop.
A muscle in my jaw twitched. “Why not?”
“Because …” She squeezed her hands into white-knuckled fists, like she was suddenly angry. She leaned forward and dropped her voice to a whisper. “Do you even know what you have done to my life since you murdered Billy?”
The air was sucked out of the room as I stared at her skeleton face. Those words—murdered Billy—sliced deep, cutting through bone and muscle, until they pierced what was left of my heart. Except she had it wrong.
I hadn’t murdered Billy.
I hadn’t wanted him to die; I hadn’t asked him to take her poisoned drugs. But he had done it anyway, and I would live with that for the rest of my life.
The fact that she thought I’d murdered him though … that hurt when I knew it shouldn’t. Her opinion shouldn’t have mattered. Yet it did. It always would.
“I didn’t murder anyone,” I replied, my voice low.
“Bullshit,” she hissed, sneering. “And I’m not the only one who thinks so. Billy’s mother? You ever wonder what it’s gonna be like for her, seeing you wandering around like nothing happened? You think anybody is gonna wanna see your face, knowing what you did? You embarrassed me, Soldier. You disgraced our entire family. God …” She sucked at her teeth as she looked away, shaking her head. “I can’t even imagine what your grandparents would say right now if they were alive.”
I could’ve sat there and taken everything she gave me without even moving a muscle. But the moment she brought Gramma and Grampa into it, everything I saw before me turned red.
“Shut the hell up,” I said through a jaw clenched too tight.
But she just wrinkled her nose and stared right into my eyes as she continued, “Grampa wouldn’t have been able to even look at you. You disgraced his name. You tainted it and everything he’d taught you. He would’ve regretted ever talking me out of aborting—”
I smacked my palms against the table, allowing the sound to echo through the room. A heavy hush settled over the inmates and visitors alike as a nearby guard warned me to settle down, but you know what? Fuck that.
I leaned forward, nearly touching my nose to hers, and said, “I should've let you die.”
Her eyes widened. Fear ignited in her tiny, pencil-dot pupils as her mouth fell open. “What … what are you—”
“Everything … everything I have ever done, everything I did to myself … the reason I am here is because of you. To save your ass. To protect you. That’s what Gramma and Grampa taught me to do—to protect you.” I jabbed a finger at her bony chest.
“Mason, this is your last warning,” the guard said, edging closer to where we sat.
“That’s fine. I’m finished,” I said, standing up from the bench. But before I could walk away, I leaned over my mother, purposely intimidating her with my size and height and whatever the fuck she thought of me. “Just remember, you are alive right now because of me. Billy is dead because of you. And I’ve been the one paying for it for the past nine and a half years, and you thank me by telling me I’m not welcome in the home I fucking helped pay for? You’re the fucking disgrace, Diane. Not me.”