Harmony lowers her head. “I’m sorry about that. So . . . what does this have to do with prison?”
“I was working in a restaurant called Bambino’s at the time. It’s closed down now. But it was a fancy place, and the business people who came through Blackwell would eat there a lot. It was getting to me, thought that almost every night, going home and hearing my sister Kennedee cry. So I came up with a plan. I was working with Jerry Malek at the time. He thought I was insane. But I needed to do something.”
She swallows. “So what did you do?”
My muscles tense, remembering my general stupidity back then. “We came up with a plan . . . to rob our own restaurant.”
I see Harmony tense up. She runs her thumb and forefinger along her forehead. “Uh-oh,” she says.
I nod, forcing myself to tell the story and not spare any details. “So we came up with a plan. We just wanted the cash. We started writing down what time the owners and suppliers came in and out of the restaurant to a T. We knew when the weekly cash supply for change got there, everything. We rehearsed what we were going to do. We had alibis. It was all set.”
“So you got sent to prison for robbing the restaurant?”
I tingle with guilt as I think over the moment when it all went wrong.
“Not exactly. The night we were set to do the heist, I was the one breaking and entering, and Malek was just going to wait outside and keep watch. It was a Tuesday night—the least busy night in the restaurant business. I’d tracked the owner George Caladino’s weekly habits, and he was never there. It was going to be an easy job. I had made a copy of the key to break in. I was wearing a mask and gloves so no camera would catch me. But there was a problem. Once I got into the manager’s office—Caladino was there. I still don’t know why he stayed late that night—it was one a.m. Usually he left at eleven thirty, and both me and Malek thought we saw him leave. So I didn’t even have a weapon on me. This was his family business, you have to understand. As soon as he saw a masked guy in a black mask, he lunged for a drawer—which I assumed held a gun. I stepped to him and knocked him out cold. He was an older guy, you know. After that, I tried to open the safe, but the key I’d copied wasn’t working. And I was just staring at Caladino, out cold on the ground. I started to panic. What if he died? What if the cops could peg me for a murder instead of a robbery?”
Harmony’s mouth is wide open. She puts her hand over my leg. “So what did you do?”
“Well, I couldn’t call 9-1-1 from my cell phone, obviously, so I did the dumbest thing I’ve ever done. I called from the restaurant, told them to send an ambulance, and got the fuck out of there. When I ran outside, Malek helped me get away.”
“So how’d they find you?”
“The old man was in intensive care. I felt like shit. I started to come down sick, almost like my sister had. Eventually, they just played back the recording of the 9-1-1 call and matched the voices. I was fucked—though in reality, I almost felt relieved. I actually should have been put in prison for longer than the sixteen months I was in for, but because I made that call, they went easier on me. It didn’t matter, though. I was in the papers—all over—it was a money-making story if there ever was one. Not a single newspaper ran the part about me wanting to get money for my sister, though. Caldino survived, but it didn’t matter. They painted me as a villain, a demon. I left Malek out of it, even though he’d helped me in agreement to get half the cash.”
She swallows, nodding. “Okay. Okay.” She takes a deep breath. “That’s . . . that’s bad. It is, though. That poor man.”
Harmony takes her hand away from my leg and I clench up.
That’s it. I knew it. She’s going to walk away while there’s still daylight. Or demand that I drive her home.
My chest aches as I think about it all, wondering why I thought I could trust her. I hang my head down and bite my lip. I’m a fuckup, and now she knows all my dirty secrets.
She sighs.
I lean back on the rock, listening to the babbling creek. Everyone who has heard me out on this story has said the same things:
Dumbass.
You shoulda been in prison for longer.
You’re an even bigger fuckup than your father.
“Damn, Zach. Damn.” She stares out at the water. “I’m not going to lie. This is hard to process. That was a really stupid thing you did.”
She stands up, hands on her hips, and paces around.
“And that’s all there is to the story? You’re not leaving anything out?”
I arch an eyebrow defensively. “Why, do you think I’m leaving something out?”
She shrugs. “It’s just—my dad and my stepmom really don’t like you. It’s like I’m Juliet trying to date a Montague.”
“You’re okay with what I did?” I swallow, my heart pounding like crazy.
“No, I’m not okay with what you did at all. But on the other hand, you tried to rob a restaurant for your sister. That’s actually a little admirable, in a fucked-up way. And don’t get me wrong. You shouldn’t have done it. Why didn’t you just start a GoFundMe like a normal person?”
My eyes widen. “I really wish I knew you back then so you could have talked me out of this silly idea. You would have saved me a whole lot of trouble.”
“What happened to your sister, anyway?”
I clench and unclench my fists, then swallow the lump in my throat. “Well, after that whole ordeal, my mom—who lives on the West Coast now, and remarried into money—decided she’d had enough of letting Kennedee live under my ‘horrible’ influence. So she arranged for Kennedee to move to the West Coast. Ironically, I was in prison for sixteen months, so it wasn’t like I was ‘influencing’ her. And even more ironically, a few months after she moved, she got healthier. The last time I talked to her was when she sent me a letter about how good she felt, and that she was going to study law in college. I tried to find her on social media websites, but I couldn’t, for the life of me. I haven’t talked to her for a while now.”
“You literally have not talked to her since you got out of jail?”
I shake my head. “Last letter I got was from my mom, saying she was sorry for me but that I was just like my father—and she had moved again and was asking if I would please stay out of Kennedee’s life. She said time in prison changes people.” I shrug. “She was right. I’m cold. Distant. Hell, I haven’t touched a woman until you came along. It freaked me out when you put your hands on me. I still have flashbacks to a guy laying a hand on me just to mess with me, and me having to defend myself immediately. Those instincts don’t die easily.”
The sun filters through the leaves of the trees and onto Harmony’s face. She shuts her eyes tightly, then reopens them, rubbing her arms and staring at me.
“So, do
es
prison change people forever? Is your mom right?”
I close my eyes and think about how I’d spent my time there. “She was right about my father,” I say gruffly. “He ended up incarcerated when I was little, and I haven’t heard from him since then. He’s just lost to the system,” I continue. “Honestly, I don’t know, though. I’ve seen a lot of crazy shit. Criminals so violent they’d even scared themselves. Acts so horrible I don’t even want to talk about them. The system eats people up, and when it spits them out, they ain’t the same anymore. That’s just the truth.”