AllFreeNovel
Share Us
He wanted the reaction, and I wasn’t going to give it to him. Because he might’ve chosen this piece-of-shit life for himself, but I was going to be better. Iwasbetter.
So, without another word, without looking back, I walked through the door and slammed it behind me.
***
“Harry?”
My voice cracked on his name, but I didn’t think Harry had noticed because he said, “Hey! I didn’t expect you to call me so soon. How’s it going?”
I wiped the snot pooling beneath my nose with the back of my frozen hand and said, “She didn’t change her tune.”
“What? Soldier—”
“Sh-she didn’t want me there, so I left.”
“Ah, man …” He sighed, sounding so far away now. Farther than I needed him to be. “I’m sorry, son.”
I sat on the side of the road, staring across at a patch of dirt. My ass was freezing, I couldn’t feel my fingers, and my teeth were chattering against the cold. But I couldn’t stop staring. I hadn’t stopped since leaving my mom’s apartment over an hour ago.
“Where are you?” Harry asked.
“I let him die for her,” I said as another round of tears began to soak my wind-stung face. “He’d still be alive if I hadn’t been so fucking busy saving her goddamn life.”
“Soldier, tell me where you are. I’m coming, okay? Just tell me where to go, and I’ll be there.”
So, I did, and he came. It had taken an hour for him to drive to me, but he had. It was more than I’d expected when I called. I could’ve walked down to the motel outside of town and gotten a room withthelittle bit of money in my pocket. But I had called Harry to have someone to talk to, and instead, he’d given me warmth.
But before he did anything else, he sat beside me on the side of the road and stared across at the last place I’d been in this shitty town before spending a third of my life behind bars.
“He died right there,” I said, pointing toward the patch of dirt that looked so much the same. Not like everything else around here.
Hell, even the woods had been plowed down. The Pit was gone, thank God.
Where do the kids pop their pills these days?
How is Levi doing business?
I cringed at the thought, and then I cringed at the idea that he, a guy only a handful of years older than me, was fucking my mom.
And why?
Harry nodded solemnly. “It’s an unfortunate thing that happened,” he said, his breath creating puffs of silvery clouds against the black sky.
“They were her pills.” It was a truth I hadn’t uttered to a single soul outside of my letters to a girl named Rain. And now, Harry knew too. “I had been swiping them from her for years to make some money to pay our bills and so she’d have fewer pills to take.” I laughed at that now, shaking my head and rolling my eyes. “I was such a fucking idiot for not realizing she’d just buy more. I just … I thought I was doing agoodthing,you know? Like, the lesser of two evils or some stupid shit.”
Harry had turned to look at me, his mouth frozen with parted lips.
“We needed the money for rent andelectric, and I was going to pull from my savings to pay it off. But she had stolen it all. Nine thousand dollars gone”—I snapped my aching fingers—“just like that. God, I hadn’t known she evenknewabout that fucking money, and she’d takenevery lastpenny. I was going to use it to leave, to get us the hell out of here, and she had taken it.”
Harry released another silvery breath, closed his eyes, andhunghis head, letting it shake a little.
“She had bought four fucking bottles,fullof pills, and I took them from her. I was only going to sell enough to pay our rent—that’s all. I could’ve lived without lights—I’d done it before—but we needed the roof over our heads. That’s all I wasgonnado, but f-fucking Billy …” I choked on a sob I thought I’d been holding for nearly ten years as my stomach clenched and heaved. “FuckingBillyhad to go ahead and take one. Because fucking Billy had a problem. He’d been popping pills since we had been kids, but I never told anyone. I didnothingbecause I thought it wasfine. I thought,as long asI was in control, it was okay. But it wasn’t okay, and I wasn’t in control. I couldn’t save him. I tried, and I tried, and I fuckingtried, but I couldn’t save his stupid fucking life.”
I wrapped my arms tighter around myself and gritted my teeth against the winter chill, staring at the patch of dirt across the road. I imagined that Billy’s ghost was there, forever tethered to the last place he’d been alive. I imagined he could see me, angry and hateful and so fucking pissed. I wondered what he’d say to me now, knowing he’d never uttered anything worth saying while he was alive, and I shook my head.
“Billy Porter was such a fucking asshole,” I muttered, dropping my chin to my chest. “He was an idiot and a loser, and if I’m being real with myself, he probably would’ve been dead by now anyway. I just wish I hadn’t been the one who killed him. That’s all. I wish that weren’t a part of my shitty story.”
With another sigh, Harry wrapped an arm around my shoulders and pulled my body against his. Then, he said, “Soldier, do you know how many other people would’ve died had Billy not taken that pill?”
