AllFreeNovel
Share Us
I had successfully stayed clear of them.
Except for now.Eli,Coop wanted to show you his Halloween costume.
I hope prison is better than it looked on Oz.- AutumnWhat the fuck was that?
Even as I reached for the picture still in the envelope, I couldn't for the life of me figure out why the fuck she was sending me a letter.
She was a good-looking woman. She didn't need to write some shithead in prison so she could get some male attention.
What was her motivation?
I pulled out the picture, unable to hold back a laugh/snort hybrid that escaped me at what was staring back at me.
Autumn, whoever the fuck she was, was either really creative herself, or shelled out a shitload of money to have a three-headed dog costume made. With two extra of Coop's heads. One was missing an ear as if the real Coop had maybe gotten to it. Which, well, was very much like him.
Unfortunately, looking down at it, my first thought was how much Becca, Izzy, and Mayla would have liked seeing him like that.
This Autumn chick was making it hard to forget about my old life the way I wanted, to seclude myself away from it, to avoid any thoughts that could conjure up images of my family.
Why then did I reach for a pencil and paper?
Why did I write back?
Why the ever-loving hell did I actually mail it when I did?5 years -It was wrong to think.
I knew that.
I knew that there were men in here, men with women and children they desperately wanted to get back to, but likely wouldn't until the kids were grown, if ever at all.
They would kill for it.
To be on their last leg.
To be one foot out the door.
And here I was, half not wanting to leave.
What can I say, after over five years, even a place like prison can start to feel like home. You get used to the rhythms, find a certain comfort in the sameness. Nothing changed. Faces did, power dynamics as well, but every single day was almost identical to the last.
It wasn't the routine, though, that had a fist of trepidation settled in my stomach. I liked my old life, being able to come and go as I pleased, eat what I wanted, go to bed if or when I wanted, go for a drive, see movies, buy shit without a strict budget set in place by someone other than me.
It was what I knew would be waiting for me when I left.
Hell, I would bet my left nut that someone - if not a group of them - would be sitting outside the jail on release day.
The letters still came.
Even the ones from the adults.
And now it wasn't just Becca, Izzy, Mayla, and Jason.
Now there were new names too.
Jake. Joey. Danny. Ford.
And, to top the cake. Eli. Little Eli.
If I had any heart left, that would have fucking sank it down in acid.
One of them, and I had no idea which, had named a child after me. Even after not seeing me, hearing from me for five years. Even after having letters and gifts sent back. Even after I turned my back on all of them, they still had hope.
Only fools had hope.
I didn't have hope anymore.
I had plans.
I had goals.
I had a system of things to set in place to make a new life.
A life I couldn't allow them into.
A life they wouldn't want to be in if they knew the man I had become.
Or, knowing them, they would still want in, but only because they thought they could fix me, they could undo the five years, the shame, the humiliation, the regret, the disappointment in myself.
There was no fixing that.
But they were good people, and they loved me, so if they found me, they would work their asses off to get me back.
Unfortunately, I was getting paroled to Navesink Bank, so I had no choice but to set up shop there.
According to my lawyer who was the only connection to my old life I allowed, my family had kept up my apartment for me to go back to. I thanked him, not telling him that that wasn't my intention. I would deal with it eventually, but I wasn't going back to it, right where they would look for me.
Instead, I had had Bobby, who was surprisingly not back in a cell yet, work out a duplex for me in a crummy area of town. They were somewhat secluded, and I could come and go without being seen. He was in one of the duplexes across the street with his girl and, if he was being honest, working a straight job. I figured he wasn't being honest, but I needed someone on the outside who wasn't connected with my family to help me arrange shit for release day.
