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“Yeah.”
“You sell to high school kids?”
“N-no …”But that’s exactly what you’ve been doing, Soldier. It doesn’t matter how careful you’ve been. It doesn’t matter how good your intentions are. It doesn’tmatter. Don’t be a fucking idiot. “Yes,” I gasped, breathless, like the word had been pressed from my heart with every life I’d been helping to destroy.
The life I had ended.
“Okay.” Officer Sam sighed, disappointed. “And what happened? You sold one of those to your friend and …”
“No. I didn’t sell anything to Billy. H-he … he just took one, and I don’t know. I was talking to him, and … he p-passed out or something.”
“But he took one ofyourpills,” Officer Sam confirmed, speaking slowly, and I nodded. “All right.”
He stood up and said some shit into the transmitter on his jacket. Shit I didn’t understand, shit I barely heard. I was too busy staring at the dirty shoulder of the road, where I’d laid Billy’s lifeless body. Where I had pounded on his chest and tried to make him breathe,beggedfor him to take a fucking breath. God … he should’ve fucking breathed because it was my birthday, and it wasn’t fair, and none of this was supposed to happen to me or anyone, and yet …
It had.
Dammit,youshould run, my mind told my legs.Officer Sam is over there, talking to whoever the fuck, getting ready to slap the cuffs on you, and you have an opportunity to book it. Just run, run, RUN until you can’t run anymore, and even then, keep running.
Yet I didn’t. Because beneath all the shit I’d gotten myself into, beneath the mess I’d made of my life, I was still a good person. I would always be a good person. And I had killed my best friend, and I knew I had to pay for it.
“All right, Soldier Mason,” Officer Sam said with a sigh, like he regretted what he was about to do, and I thought,Maybehe knows I’m a good persontoo. “On your feet, man. Hands behind your back.”
I had seen enough of those cop shows where the perpetrator fought their arrest and the cop had to throw them against the car and slap the cuffs on.
This wasn’t one of those moments.
Officer Sam read me my rights as I stood there with my eyes on the patch of dirt where Billy had died. He cuffed my wrists and asked if they hurt and apologized when I said they did a little.
He loosened them slightly, enough to keep the circulation moving in my hands, and I muttered, “Thank you.”
Then, he walked me to his car, asked me to crouch down, placed a hand on my head, and assisted me in getting inside.
“All right, buddy,” he said as if he were my friend, and hell, maybe under different circumstances, we could’ve been.
As he shut the door, I looked out the window toward the parking lot adjacent to the high school and woods. The Pit wasn’t far from here, just a quarter of a mile through those woods. The kids there must’ve heard the sirens, and a bigger crowd had gathered to watch as one of their suppliers was hauled away like the criminal he was.
And there, in the middle of them all, pressed up against the chain-link fence with his arms slung over the top, was Levi, wearing a sinister, triumphant grin. And suddenly, as my eyes met his, I was so acutely aware of the vile animosity I hadn’t known existed, and as Officer Sam drove me away, Levi lifted his hand and waved goodbye.
CHAPTER FIVE
APOLOGIES & GOOD MEN
Age Twenty-Two
“In my twenty-six years as a judge, I have unfortunately had a number of these cases pass my desk. I will say, most have been colored in stark contrasts of black and white, and an appropriate punishment has nearly always been easy to decide.
“Mr. Mason, your case has not been one of those.
“I have thoroughly reviewed the charges against you over these last few days, and while I wholeheartedly agree with your plea of guilty on every account, I don’t hold the same opinion as you that you are, as you have repeatedly put it, abadperson.
“Mr. Mason, I believe that, while, yes, you committed these crimes, you unwittingly did so with curiously good intent and without a genuine desire to harm. And your outward displays of emotion and your cooperation with law enforcement, along with your excellent behavior since your arrest, have been greatly taken into consideration in determining your fate.
“And so, with all theaforementioned inmind, I have decided to sentence you to a total of twelve years of imprisonment at Wayward Correctional Facility, taking into account the year you’ve already spent in custody, with the possibility of early release on good behavior. Do you understand this?”
Eleven more years.
It felt like an eternity—a death sentence—and yet it still didn’t feel like enough when all I could think about was Billy and thelifeI had stolen from him.
