AllFreeNovel
Share Us
So I’m better at it now. I can make it through meetings at Phoenix without giving myself away.
When I’m alone, at my cabin, I don’t hide it. That’s a purposeful strategy. This is the one place on Earth I don’t have to pretend. Knowing that it exists gets me through the day. That, and a bunch of honorable crimes.
Who knows? It might be great to sleep next to her without having a nightmare. I’m not going to test the theory now.
I lie next to her as long as I can. Tucking her in is a bonus of still being awake. Lily doesn’t stir when I pull my sweatpants and T-shirt on and pad out of the bedroom. The sun’s going down. Long-ass summer days make it easier to avoid sleeping. Out here, at the cabin, they’re beautiful as fuck, too.
Snowball fluffs his wings at me as soon as I’m in the kitchen, singing a happytweet-tweet-tweet.I open his cage and take him out.
“There. Stretch your wings.”
He tweets some more and hops from one of my palms to the other, looking up at me with a certain amount of impatience.
“She’s sleeping.”
A low tweet.
“I know. It’ll be nighttime soon.”
Tweet-tweet-tweet-TWEET?
I laugh out loud, feel ridiculous for laughing at a bird, and decide I don’t care. “That’s the biggest problem, isn’t it? I can see how things would be if we were together. If she was my girlfriend instead of…” I hesitate to saya hostageto Snowball, regardless of the things he’s indirectly witnessed over the past couple days. “If she was my girlfriend. That would never be enough for her.”
A thoughtful series of tweets that sound for all the world likeshe could be your wife.
“No, she couldn’t.” I stroke Snowball’s head, and he hops up into my touch. He trusts me, which he shouldn’t. This little bird could rely on me to get him out of that warehouse. No one can rely on me for anything long-term.
Snowball pushes off my hand and does a quick circle above my palms before he touches down, tweeting the whole time. A barrage of bird questions.
“My dude, she can’t live with me.”
I can live with you.
“You’re a bird. She’s a human woman.”
Offense.
“Well, you’re happy in your cage. And obviously I’d let you out to fly. She has plans for her life. Law school in the fall. Her grandfather’s a judge, so my guess is, she’ll become a bulldog of a prosecutor. She can’t spend her life with a crime scene.”
Not always a crime scene.
“Literally, Snowball, you’re living in a crime scene right now. This entire cabin should be surrounded in police tape. I should call the cops myself.”
What would I do?
“You would stay with Lily.” As soon as the words are out of my mouth, a bolt of worry shoots across my chest. Lily, short for Lilith, has a future ahead of her that doesn’t include taking care of a bird rescue.
I think you’re not being smart.
“That hurts. It’s not something I have any control over.”
Why not?
“Because…I don’t know. I’ve been a broken jackass since Mom and Dad died. There’s nothing I can do about it.”
You found me.
“And I’ll never regret it.”
