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You are cared for, Soldier, andas long asI'm around, you will never ever be alone in this world. You willalwayshave somewhere to go. Remember that.
Harry
CHAPTER NINE
AN UNWELCOME SURPRISE
Wayward Correctional Facility was two hours away from where I’d grown up on the south shore of Connecticut, and I spent the ride checking out my new phone while the cab driver made invasive small talk.
“You were a prisoner, huh?” he asked.
“Yeah,” I replied, turning the phone on and marveling at the smooth, bright screen.
“How long were you locked up?”
“Uh … nine years and some months.”
“Wow, man. What’d you do?” His eyes flicked to the rearview mirror to meet mine.
“Killed my best friend,” I muttered while pressing my pointer finger to the icon that looked like a phone. It took me to a list of Favorites, and the only name on that list was Harry.
The cab driver grumbled a shaken, “Shit,” as I fumbled my way through sending a text to my only living friend.
I just got myself out of two awkward hours of small talk, I typed with a triumphant smirk as the driver turned the radio up.Thanks for the phone, by the way. I know you don’t want me to say you shouldn’t have, but, man, you shouldn’t have.
And I told you not to worry about it, Harry replied almost immediately.Hope you didn’t scare the driver too much. Tell me when you make it home.
I smiled at his message, feeling for the first time since I had been a child what it was like to check in with someone.
Man, it felt nice.
The cab pulled up to the curb outside the apartment building I used to recognize. But it didn’t look the same now.
That was what was funny about the passing of time. Things were constantly changing around us, but when we were actively witnessing that change, it was subtle. We didn’t notice until we sat back years later and thought,Huh, what the hell happened to this place?But if you went away for a while, our minds were tricked into believing that change happened all at once, with the snap of a finger, overnight, because for us, it did. And that type of shock, man … it really fucked you up.
“Holy shit,” I muttered under my breath at the sight of the trash and overgrown grass and graffiti splattered across the front of the building.
“You need anything else, man?” the driver asked, not bothering to look at the building.
“No,” I replied, opening the door slowly, unable to tear my eyes from the place I used to call home. “Thanks.”
The cold December air encircled me with a crushing sense of foreboding as I stepped out onto the crumbled sidewalk. A gust of wind lifted the hair off my neck, almost as though the universe were sending a message—awarning—and I wondered for a moment if I should listen.
But I’d never been one to pay attention to caution and alarm bells, and I walked up to the door like I was about to step through the mouth of madness.
And I soon found out that was exactly what it was.
***
The scream came instantly the second I opened the apartment door, and I almost thought about running away, thinking I’d had a lapse in memory and unknowingly broken into the wrong place. Until I peered inside, past the kitchen and into the living room to see my mother, naked from the waist up and hurrying to cover herself up.
Then, I remembered she’d told me once that she had a boyfriend. Silly me for believing it wouldn’t have lasted this long—unless, of course, it was a different guy.
I clapped a hand over my eyes, giving her the privacy to hide what I didn’t want to see. “Hey, sorry. I should’ve knocked but—”
“What thefuckare you doing here?!” she shrieked.
I dropped my bag on the kitchen floor. “I don’t have anywhere else—”
