“Are you out of your fucking mind?” Wayne yelled.

I had expected this from him. I knew this secret had weighed as heavily on him as it had on me over the years, and I had known that telling him the truth of our intentions was likely only going to freak him all the way out.

“Wayne, listen,” I spoke quickly. “You can come with us, or not, but I’m doing this. I want this done with, once and for all. You hear?”

“You’re crazy,” he snapped from the other end of the line, his voice cracking like a whip in my ear. “You’re going to get us both arrested, you hear me?”

“I’m sitting outside the sheriff’s office right now,” I told him, glancing up at the building and feeling my heart punch in my chest at the sight of it.

Mia was waiting outside the car. She was wearing a large pair of shades to deflect the sunshine, and an expression on her face I couldn’t read.

“Get away from there,” he snarled. I knew that if he had been right in front of me he would have grabbed me by the collar as he spoke, “You don’t know what the fuck you’re doing!”

“I won’t mention your name,” I promised him. “If you don’t want me to. I’ll just tell them what happened and that the body’s in the lake, and you don’t have to be involved at all. I’ll tell them I did it. How does that sound?”

“You better keep my name out of this,” he warned me. “Last thing I need is an excuse for the cops to come knocking on my door again.”

“I will,” I vowed. I’d hoped that he would be supportive of this, but I had always known the chances were slim, but he still deserved to know I was finally going to dredge up the family secret that I had done my best to hide for him all this time. I wasn’t going to do this without at least making sure he knew about it first.

“Jesus, Jesse,” he muttered. “Just…be careful, all right?”

“I will. Look, I have to go in. I’m getting this over with.”

“Good luck. And don’t get arrested.”

I hung up without answering. I still had no idea how this would go down. Mia had assured me, over and over again on the drive down here, that there was no way they would arrest me for this. I was a panicked kid. It was an accident. So much time had passed. The lawyer we contacted had said nothing would happen. Mia’s father knew someone who knew the local Sheriff.

The sunlight bounced off Mia’s lips making them shine. I wished I was back in bed with her, sucking on those lips. I took a deep breath. If I kept Wayne’s name out of it, especially considering that he was on their watch list already given his current activities, it should be fine.

At least, I prayed, it would be.

I opened the door and stepped out. Mia smiled at me and I again, saw the future that we could have together threatening to fall away because of something I should have been able to keep my mouth shut about. I wanted to grab her, throw her in the car, and put the pedal to the metal. Leaving this all behind and forgetting I had said a thing. We’d drive away to Mexico, or somewhere nobody would find us.

I stood staring at her.

When I’d woken up that morning the day she’d left, I knew exactly why. I’d deflected her questions about me and reminded her what we had was nothing but fun even as it ripped me apart to say the lie. She’d left that party for me, walked away from all her fancy friends to be with me, and that kind of acceptance of who I was and the life I led made my heart hurt. I knew I loved her, but I didn’t know how much until she was gone. Without her, I felt completely lost. I couldn’t even function that day. I went to work and ended up burning myself with battery acid. For two days, I walked around like a damn zombie. It was hell on earth. Then I realized I’d drag myself through anything to get out the other side as the kind of man that she should be with.

So here we were, outside the sheriff station in my old hometown.

I’d never come back here before, terrified about what it would do to me, as though it could drag me straight back to the person I’d been when I was here; terrified, bullied, hidden inside myself. But with Mia at my side, it was just a place, just somewhere I remembered parts of and forgot chunks of too. Mia made it feel safe. And now Mia was here, sitting outside the interrogation room, waiting for me to tell the truth.

My palms started to sweat. Shit, I didn’t want to go to prison, but then I looked at Mia, at the woman I loved, the one waiting for me to get started on the life I wanted to live with her, and I knew I had to do it— I had to make this work.

I took one step and then another until I reached her. She caught my hand, smiling up at me. “Come on, baby, you can do this,” she encouraged softly.

I fought the urge to contradict her, to scoop her up, bundle her back in the car and hit the road before anyone could figure out the horrors I had committed. But I managed to push the panic down. I was a frightened, abused kid when I ran away. I was a man now and I would face up to the music. The two of us made our way up the steps of the sheriff station and into the conversation that would change my life for good.

It all happened fast after that, and that was a good thing. Everything ran so quickly I didn’t have time to get stuck on what a crazy idea this was. I was called in to make my confession as Mia stayed in the waiting room and paced hard enough to make her legs fall off.

I sat opposite the Sheriff.

He recognized me. “You’re the younger Cooper boy.”

“Yes, Sir,” I said.

He nodded and switched on the recording machine. “Let’s hear it then.”

I began to talk.

“You sure it was you and not your brother who pushed your father?” he asked at the end of my confession. His eyes were hard and unblinking. He could probably guess that Wayne had been the wild one since he was involved with less-than-savory operations from back in the day. That he had been the one to pull the proverbial trigger on our father, but since he didn’t come in to confess and I was saying I did it, they could hardly pin it on him.

“Wayne had nothing to do with it. It was all me.”

“So you dragged your father’s body out to the car and drove it out to the lake?”

“Yes, Sir.”

“All by yourself?”

“Yes, Sir.”

“How much did your father weigh?”

I shrugged. “I don’t know, but I was a pretty strong kid.”

He exhaled. “Right.”

An hour later, I was sitting in a police car and taking them out to the lake. They brought the heavy machinery and dredged it. I couldn’t look as they pulled the car out. It was rusted and covered in seaweed, but I knew it was the one.

I was right. He was in it.

They didn’t charge me with any crime. I wondered, as they dealt with my papers and got me to recount everything I could about him, if they had suspected this. My father had plenty of run-ins with the law over the years, and they must have assumed something bad had happened to him.

“You’re doing so well,” Mia said when we went outside so I could have a smoke and steady my nerves. The day was turning into night. “You’re doing amazing. It’s almost over, Jesse.”

“I keep on feeling like they’re going to whip the carpet out from underneath me and charge me with something.” I shook my head. “Like, surprise, motherfucker, you thought you were getting away with it but you’re not.”

“That’s not going to happen,” she promised. “They just need your help putting this all to rest, and then it’s over. For good. You never have to think about it again, or come back to this place.”

“I’m so glad you’re here.” I smiled at her. “I don’t think I could have done any of this without you.”

“You’re a good man, Jesse. You didn’t deserve to have had to keep this secret all these years.” She shivered slightly. “God, I can’t wait for it to be over and get you back to bed.”

“Me neither,” I admitted. It felt as though I was hacking my way through a field of trees, waiting to come out the other side and for the branches to stop hitting me square in the face as I went.

We stuck around for one more day, at my suggestion. I wanted to see him buried. I had no idea whether it was a good idea or not, and we were the only people who turned up to put him to rest, but it felt right. Mia gripping my arm tight as though to let me know that she was right here beside me….that she wasn’t going anywhere.

I watched as they lowered his bones into the ground. I silently sent the image to Wayne, letting him know it was over. He couldn’t hear me or see it, but I knew he would know, somehow. I didn’t know how I felt watching my father finally get lowered into his grave. Relieved? Guilty? Glad? Angry? I would figure it out, eventually.

“It’s over.” Mia leaned up against me, pressing her head against my shoulder. “It’s done, Jesse. He’s buried.”

“I can’t believe it,” I muttered. “After all this time, and that’s all it took?”

“Don’t blame yourself. There’s a lot tied up in this for you. I get why you didn’t do anything sooner.”

“I didn’t have any reason to,” I remarked, sliding an arm around her shoulders as I watched them begin to fill in the grave. I did have a reason to now. Mia was the reason.

“You get to start over now,” she urged. “Just like you always wanted. For good.”

“With you,” I finished and planted a kiss on her temple. Then I turned to leave. “Come on, let’s get out of here. I’m done.”

And with that, I led her out of the graveyard and into the bright sunshine of the street beyond.

I was ready to leave this town behind. Forever.