On Friday, the day after Thanksgiving, Pike and I load the kids up in the backseat of his shitty Honda and drive into town. I don’t want anyone seeing me, but in this podunk town, that’s easier said than done.

Especially when Pike is driving around slowly, almost leisurely, with me in the passenger seat. Like a fucking Sunday drive with Miss Daisy.

“Dude, step on it,” I hiss.

“Dude, this is as fast as we go with five of us,” Pike replies. “Fix your fucking Mustang and we can talk about stepping on it.”

I glare at him. “I crashed the Mustang, you idiot. Remember?”

“It’s in Lawrence’s yard, bro. You’re a mechanic. Figure it out.”

My chest tightens as I remember the corner of Lawrence’s Auto Lot where old cars go to die. I guess I’ve never really thought about where my car went after. I’ve blocked it from my memory, just like the accident itself. Suddenly I’m antsy, wondering if the wreck might be salvageable. I could never drive it around here, but maybe one day, when I finally get my license back and leave Gun Creek…

Speaking of. I wanted to come out by myself, but I’m not allowed to drive, a condition of my early release. Guess that’s fair when you almost kill somebody.

Eventually, we get to the garage attached to Dana’s Grill. I’ve come to beg for my old job back. I expect my former boss to chase me out of the place with his old sawn-off, but when Lawrence sees me he drops everything and shakes my hand.

“You’re back,” the old man says as if I didn’t almost kill somebody last time I saw him. As if I’ve been gone the weekend, instead of almost a decade. “I’ve got a sticky one for you….”

And he shows me Mrs. Lassiter’s old Buick on the hoist, pointing out bits of rust and parts that need replacing, and eventually I have to stop him talking so I can get the kids home before they freeze to death in the car outside. He won’t let me go until I promise to come back and start work on Monday morning.

While Pike is getting bread in the store, Sheriff King passes right by our car. He stops dead when he sees me, and I don’t think I’ve ever seen someone look so full of hate.

I can’t say I blame him. Pike does odd shifts as a patient care assistant at the hospital sometimes, with Amanda. Apparently she’s the night nurse for Teresa King, and she told Pike once that Cassie’s mom is the saddest patient she has ever had to deal with.

I can’t help myself.

After Pike drives us all home, the kids set up in front of the TV and watch cartoons. Pike leaves, for what I don’t ask. The less I know about the shit he’s up to, the better.

In the time I’ve spent at home, I’m going crazy. Crazier than when I was locked up. And now that I’ve seen Damon, I want to see Cassie. It’s like seeing him has confirmed that she exists. I go full psycho, or at least full armchair stalker, camped out in an old rocking chair by the window, binoculars in hand. I don’t think about Jennifer, about what I did to her, and that’s a terrible thing, isn’t it? I should be sorry for what I did to her, but I’m just… not. Maybe the feelings will come later. Maybe the image of the way I left her will stop making my balls ache, and instead make me feel guilty.

Binoculars in hand, I search all day for Cassie. I cast my magnified gaze along the windows that line the front of her house on the hill, but I don’t see anything. She keeps the blinds drawn. Almost like she’s afraid of catching a glimpse of this old place and remembering me. But in the evening, just as I hear Pike’s car in the driveway, I finally glimpse her.

It’s just for a second, and it’s so fleeting I’m not even sure she’s real, but there she is: curtains flung open, looking out into the orangey dusk as it rapidly turns black. My chest hurts when I see her. I think about going up there, to her place, breaking in, taking her away. She’d struggle, but Jennifer struggled, piece of cake. I’m stronger than Cassie. I’m stronger than ever. I could have her in the back of Pike’s car in under a minute, some rope around her wrists, duct tape to seal her protests away. I could drive her somewhere far away, somewhere out in the mountains where nobody would ever find us. Keep her there until I could make her understand how much I still love her. Keep her there until she loved me back.

Rage courses through me. I ball up a fist and slam it into the side of my skull, hard enough that I see stars for a second. Don’t you ever think about hurting her, the good part of me commands. I hit myself again, in the fleshy part of my temple. Don’t you ever show your face to that poor girl again.

I won’t. I will stay away from Cassandra Carlino, even if it kills me. Even if I have to kill myself to keep my greedy heart from trying to have her.

She will not be my vice. She will not be my forgiver. She will not be my redemption.

These are the promises I make to myself. These are the lies I cannot bear to admit.

---

Old habits die hard; old addictions, even harder. Because they just won’t fucking die. Like a moth to a fucking flame, I find myself standing in front of the refrigerator, the door flung open, my mouth watering as I look for my favorite poison. My eyes light up as I spy a six-pack of Budweiser, my tongue already wet and bursting with the flavor of something I haven’t tasted in nearly a decade. I grab at the glass bottles feverishly, the balm that will ease my suffering, the thing that will wipe away the scent of Jennifer, the memory of Cassie, the taste of Karen and the well. I put the six-pack onto the counter and rip a bottle from the rest, the twist-top popping away neatly in my palm like a sharp blade in butter, like a shovel in wet soil. It’s that easy, clink, and then I’m lifting the bottle to my lips, ready for froth and hops and cold relief.

I’m excited, but I’m afraid, as well. My hand shakes from the anticipation, from the knowing of what comes next.

“Leo.”

I’m so deeply entranced by the beer in my hand, I almost have a fucking heart attack and die, on the floor of the kitchen in my mother’s shitty trailer. I startle violently, spilling beer all down my shirt, my jeans, onto the floor, the hypnotic spell broken. Now, I just feel embarrassed. And sticky. And cold.

“Hannah.” She’s standing in the doorway that separates the living space from the bedrooms, and she looks like she’s been crying. I set the beer down, worry for my sister eclipsing my dirty drink cravings — for now, at least. I reach out to her, noticing the way she’s holding her swollen stomach, the fear in her eyes. “What’s wrong, kiddo?”

“I can feel something,” she says. “Here.” She takes my hand and places it on her stomach. Something inside my sister’s stomach hits me square in the palm and I jerk my hand away, staring at her.

“See?” she says, starting to cry again. “What’s happening to me?”

I put my hand back on the same spot, a smile just for my sister. “Hannah, that’s your baby. Your baby’s kicking. It’s saying hello.”

I guide her hand back to the spot where her baby is currently holding a boxing match for one. She’s awestruck, and I can understand why. I remember so many times, when I was tiny, Leo, give me your hand. When Ma had good days. When she was pregnant with Hannah, and she’d take my little-boy hand and place it on her stomach and say, Leo, your sister is saying hello. Can you feel her saying hello? And I’d always marvel at the way you could love somebody before they existed, when they didn’t even know the world yet. I’d always marvel at the way my mother was so cruel, so kind, so in love with her children from the moment she learned she was pregnant; and yet so determined to destroy us all at once.

“It’s okay?” Hannah asks uncertainly, her big eyes searching mine for reassurance. I nod, swallowing back the lump in my throat. Because she’s fourteen. And she’s my sister. And this shouldn’t have happened to her.

“Get some sleep, kiddo,” I say, giving her shoulders an affectionate squeeze.

“Thanks, Leo,” she replies, wandering off. That’s the beautiful thing about Hannah — you tell her something and she accepts it. I know she won’t worry now. She’ll probably spend the rest of her pregnancy poking her stomach, saying hello back.

I turn back to the beer. My sweet poison, the destroyer of worlds. Whatever runs through my veins, it calls out to the alcohol cells suspended inside the wheat-liquid brew, begging. Come back to me. Disgust holds me tight and slams me down, again and again. You are pathetic. I open the other five bottles and up-end all of them at once, watching blankly as beer froths up and pours down the sink.

I hear movement behind me and look over my shoulder. It’s Pike. “Hey,” he says.

I make a sound in the back of my throat. I would say hey back, but my eyes are burning and that lump’s in my throat and I can’t speak, so I just stare into the sink instead. The smell of the beer makes me want to vomit.

“Glad you’re back,” Pike says, edging closer. “You okay?”

I gulp down a breath. Nod.

“You’ve always had this way of looking after everybody,” Pike says. “You know? I never had that.”

I brace myself over the sink. I nod again.