AllFreeNovel
Share Us
Fuck the world. Therewasno world if Maddox wasn’t in it.
Month One
Maddox’sbedroomathismom’s trailer was a hot box of hell. Memories swirled amidst the humid air with a lack of movement similar to the stagnant pace my life progressed at. They got stuck in motion, paused while I paused. This closet of a bedroom felt fucking massive without the domineering presence of Maddox in it.
I loved this room. I hated this room.
Lot 62 was a crime scene. I hadn’t been allowed to enter since Maddox was arrested, not even to grab my clothes. It had been taped off and guarded continuously. The contraband they claimed he had was now sitting in a police evidence room, being inspected, counted, and documented. They kept our lot taped off because the more they dug, the more they found. And barely any of it was on our actual lot. Most of it was in the forest beside our lot, and now I knew whysomeonehad asked Gary about the trail that connected there through our property. But no matter how much they dug up in the forest, Maddox’s fingerprints remained on some of the cash.
Which was bullshit. Someone was adding more to their so-called evidence, but I wasn’t allowed there without being arrested for trespassing and tampering with evidence. Our trailer had been ripped apart and searched, but nothing was ever found inside. And no one from the park had anything to say because no one had seen any of this happen. Not even us, and we lived right fucking there!
Fucking Gary was behind this. Seth had warned us months ago that he saw my dad talking to Gary, buzzing around Lot 62, and now I knew why. He was either planting this evidence back then without us noticing, or he was scoping it out to plant it the night before Maddox got arrested. But why? Just to get Maddox locked up? Jim was a greedy fucker, so you’d think he would have wanted everything in those crates more than he wanted to ruin Maddox’s life.
I was fucking useless. Maddox had been sitting in a prison cell for two and a half weeks already, and I’d done little more than annoy the shit out of the guards, cops, and the lead detective on his case. I managed to get a lawyer, but I didn’t have the money for a good one, and no one wanted to take a pro bono case for trailer trash. Instead, I got him a community appointed lawyer without much experience. She was nice, but nice wasn’t going to win. I needed to find someone else to help her. I’d sell everything I owned to do it.
I stared at the peeling cardboard ceiling tiles of Maddox’s old room, feeling tears slip down my cheeks to water the pillow—they’d done nothing but grow despair ever since Maddox was taken from me.
Fuck, I missed him.
I worried about him. Maddox was a hardass, and I knew he’d have all his guards up in there. How long would it take for that hardness to become permanent? How long could he hold on to hope? I was the world's shittiest boyfriend for not even being able to provide him with any hope yet.Yet.
A crash from the kitchen startled me. I wiped my tears and walked out there in my boxers like I had every night for the past two weeks. Naomi sat in a heap on the kitchen floor, a pan of uncooked eggs spilled all around her, and a bottle of wine mostly gone on the countertop.
“You okay?” I asked, gripping her arm and pulling her to her feet. She tried. Fuck, did she try. I’d give her that.
She smelled rank, hadn’t properly showered in a few days, and her breath was sour with stale wine. I sat her down at the kitchen table and got her a plastic cup of water. She was too unsteady to handle a glass one. She didn’t answer me, but I knew she needed to eat something to soak up the alcohol.
“I’ll make them. What else do you need?”
Her hands shook as she lit a cigarette. “I need my son home.”
I turned my back on her, tears welling in my eyes. I cleaned up her mess and tried not to lose my mind to pain and pathetics. She never outright said she blamed me, but I knew she did. Maddox was in prison because of my dad, and there was no other way to put it. If he hadn’t been my boyfriend, he’d be out in the world right now. I was surprised she cared this much; she hadn’t been a bad mom, but she hadn’t been a good one either. I guess her son in prison was hitting her harder than all the black eyes and bruises she ignored over the years.
The more time I spent lying in his old bed, staring at the water-damaged ceiling, the more I lost hope. The more I realized how much shit I brought into his life.
He’d been cut, scarred, abused, shot and now arrested all because of his relationship with me. And those were only from my dad. Because of me directly, he’d been neglected, and his confidence and importance had been questioned. What good did I bring him? And not only that, but Naomi, who had been doing really well with her drinking and pill-popping, had slipped right back into the deep end. She drank herself stupid every night, only making it worse with an assortment of random pills. Between me, Xavi, and Seth, we did our best, but she drank her heartbreak from a bottle, and I couldn’t even fault her for it.
Seth had a relapse, too. It was the night Maddox got arrested. He was so ashamed of using again, but he did the right thing. He called Xavi for help. So now Seth lived at the shop with them, just until he trusted himself a bit more. Meetings and his sponsor were an important part of his life, but finding a way to help his son was more important. Yes, he wanted Maddox out, but playing detective kept him busy and away from the drugs.
I turned on the stove, cracked new eggs, and finally faced Naomi. “We’ll get him home. I promise.” If I couldn’t prove his innocence, I’dShawshankhim out and spend the rest of my life on the run with him.
“I know,” she said around the filter of her smoke. She searched the bottom of her purse for any forgotten loose pills, but she came up empty. “I just… I’m worried about him in there!” she cried. “He’s too angry for prison.”
She wasn’t wrong. That was my biggest fear.
Maddox spent so much time being angry at everything that it’d become his default setting. At what point would he not be able to come back to himself? If I didn’t find him something to be hopeful for soon, I feared it’d be sooner than later. In a place like prison, Maddox would be his own worst enemy.
27
-Devon-
Month Two
“Ithadtohavehappened in the hospital,” Xavi said. “He signed a shit ton of forms when he was being discharged. I bet some of them were about the shipping container.” He paced the length of the deck behind the shop. “I’m going there to find that nurse.”
“Wait.” Nate held him back with a palm to the chest. “We should get someone else to do it. She knows you.”
“I don’t trust anyone else, Nate! This is my brother’s life we’re talking about!” Xavi was one wrong breeze from a meltdown, and I didn’t know how to soothe him either.
