“Oh God. Is it time? I … I’m not ready!”
“Not yet,” Officer Hoyt mutters to my neighbor. “Governor Steele has a sentencin’ to do first.”
Then, he flashes me a remorseful, sidelong glance.
“Mr. Parker, I’m afraid I have to escort you to the courtroom now. Please stand with your back against the bars.”
Regret and panic shoot through my veins as Hoyt gestures for me to step forward.
“Stick your foot out through the bars, please.”
I do as he said and feel a metal shackle clamp down around my ankle.
“Other foot now.”
“Doug,” I ask, suddenly needing to know how his story ends, “if you’re in here, does that mean you saved your son’s life?”
Hoyt finishes shackling my legs and instructs me to stick my hands out through the bars next.
“Yes.” Doug sniffles as cold steel greets my wrists. “I think he’s going to pull through. My sister has him now.”
My cell door opens with a deafening squeak. As Hoyt leads me out by the elbow, I turn and glance at the man imprisoned beside me. He’s an older guy—maybe forty? Forty-five? His hair is thinning, and his skin is so pale I wouldn’t be surprised if the only light it saw was the glow of a computer screen. He’s wearing a blue button-up shirt with jeans and athletic shoes that have obviously never been used for athletics. He lifts his head as I pass and meets my sympathetic frown with one of his own, despair oozing out of his unshaven pores.
He looks like something I’ve always wanted. Something I’ll never get the chance to become.
He looks like a dad.
A damn good one.
Rain
Twenty-four hundred.
I take the last bottle of prenatal vitamins out of the plastic Huckabee Foods bag and place it on the floor of my tree house next to the others.
Twenty-seven hundred.
I don’t know how far along I am, but I’m guessing that two thousand seven hundred prenatal vitamins is more than enough to get me through.
I slump back in my beanbag chair.
If Wes had seen me, he would have been so proud.
And so pissed.
I smile, remembering how mad he got the last two times we went to Fuckabee Foods. He told me I was “impulsive” and had a “death wish.”
Yeah, and he got shot in the shoulder because of it.
My face falls.
And I let the wound get infected.
I pull my hoodie sleeves over my hands and press my fists against my mouth.
And then he almost died in Carter’s house fire because I rushed back in to get his medicine and he couldn’t find me.
I close my eyes and inhale through my nose. My sweatshirt smells like the vanilla candles I used to burn in my bedroom. The ones he brought with him when he came back to get me from the mall.
It’s all I have left of him now. These memories … this smell …
My stomach churns again, reminding me of one more thing he left me with. Something that, unlike a scent or a memory, will only grow bigger and stronger with time. Something that, God willing, I’ll be able to keep forever and ever.
My gaze drifts over to the spot across the yard where the red dirt is piled up in two neat rows as long and wide as coffins. The spot where the people who made me now lie. I stare at it for what feels like hours, waiting for the panic to come—the grief I’ve been running away from ever since that night—but it doesn’t.
All I feel right now is the still, silent, soul-crushing weight of acceptance.
I climb down the ladder and trudge across my backyard, picking my feet up high as I wade through the knee-high grass. The sun is directly overhead now, but it’s shady under the oak tree where Mama and Daddy are buried. I realize once I get over to them that I don’t know which is which. Wes buried them while I was passed out on the bathroom floor. The mound on the left looks a little bigger, so I decide that that one must be Daddy. I turn away from him and face the mound on the right.
“Hi, Mama.”
A squirrel peeks out at me from behind a branch.
“I don’t know if you know this, but … I’m gonna be a mama too.”
A bird chirps in response.
“I probably won’t be as good of one as you”—I ball up my sleeves in my fists—“but I’m gonna try.”
The wind chimes I made in art class tinkle and twirl.
“I got vitamins today … prenatal ones. And fruits and veggies, too.” I beam through my sudden tears. “Aren’t you proud of me?”
A gentle breeze whips around me, ruffling my hair like one of Daddy’s noogies.
Silent tears stream down my face, but I don’t fall apart. I wipe my runny nose on the sleeve of my sweatshirt and tell my parents what I came over here to say, “I love you guys … I’m so sorry they did this to you.”
The moment the words leave my heart, I feel a little bit lighter. Not because the weight of my grief has lessened—I don’t think it ever will—but because I’m carrying it differently now. It used to feel like a ball and chain around my ankle, but now, I’ve picked it up and put it on like a backpack.
I feel a little bit stronger.
A little bit more capable.
And for the first time in days, I feel really, really hungry.
I don’t want to leave them. I don’t want to go back into that house with those people and all that stuff that isn’t mine, but I have to start thinking about more than just myself. Everyone I’ve lost has a chance to live on through this baby. Their blood flows in its tiny veins. If I can bring it into the world safe and sound, I might even get to see them again.
The baby might have my mother’s mischievous smile or my father’s button nose. I might be able to gaze into Wes’s pale green eyes again or run my fingers through his soft brown hair.
My heart skips a beat as I turn and head for the back door.
Water. I need water. And a can opener. And a spoon.
I jiggle the handle and sigh when I realize that it’s locked. Of course. I knock on my own damn door and wait for someone to let me in.
Seconds later, I hear the click-clack of the deadbolt. The door swings open, revealing one squeaky-clean Carter Renshaw wearing nothing but a pair of loose athletic shorts, as shiny and black as his sopping wet curls and bruised eye.
“There you are.” He tries to smile but then hisses as his fat lip splits open again. He dabs the cut with his finger and steps aside to let me in. “We were looking for you everywhere.”
“Really?” I deadpan as I walk past him into my dining room. Their dining room.
The sight of Carter with his shirt off used to instantly turn me on.
Now, it just pisses me off.
“Where were you? My mom made pancakes.”
My mouth waters instantly as I pass through the doorway into the kitchen. The aromas of pancakes and sausage and coffee fill the air. My eyes land on Mrs. Renshaw, drying her hands on a dishtowel as Sophie wipes down the counter.
“Well, good mornin’, sunshine.” She beams, turning to face me.
I’m shocked at how different she looks. She must have found a wig in the wreckage of their old house because her hair is suddenly sleek and shoulder-length, like she used to wear it, and I swear she even has on mascara. Her dress is ironed. Sophie’s, too. And they’re both wearing probably every piece of jewelry they own.