Jess wore an old, tattered T-shirt with the arms cut off, and the front of the shirt was covered in mud. Her long, dark hair was tangled and held off her forehead by a bandana. Her arm was slung around Bailey’s shoulders and Bailey’s was likewise slung around Jess’. Bailey was wearing a black halter top, and she was covered in as much mud and sand as Jess was. She wore jogging pants that had been cut off into shorts, and her hair was up in a high, messy knot on the top of her head.
Bailey couldn’t remember the day for sure, but she knew they’d been out traipsing through the woods around the lake. They’d catch painted turtles before setting them loose after a while; they’d give the dead fish that washed up on the shore a proper burial by tossing their carcasses back into the water; they’d pretend they were in another world while they explored the thick and humid woods. And in the end, they’d show back up at the beach looking like two homeless beach bums, smelling of dead fish and lake water.
They’d no doubt been camping and boating during summer break, and Darren was most likely nearby laughing at their absurdity while he rolled his eyes. Their smiles were genuine and carefree. They weren’t posing to look good. They really didn’t give a shit if they did or not. They were just being young and fun. They had their whole lives ahead of them to be serious and grownup after all.
Chapter Fourteen
Four Years Before
“Honey, I have some bad news.” Her mother’s eyes were already tearing as she looked at Bailey through the glass. The tears were nothing new, but the announcement of bad news was. Bailey gritted her teeth and braced herself for it. She could do nothing else but wait for it. “Your dad is sick. Lung cancer.” Bailey’s face must have looked panicked because before she could respond, her mother rushed on. “He’s seeing an oncologist in Little Rock regularly, and he’s doing well. The chemo is taking a lot out of him, but we’re really hopeful, honey.”
Her mother had that nothing-can-get-me-down sound to her voice, and it terrified Bailey to no end. It was a contrived inflection, and she was trying to convince herself as much as she was Bailey. “Then why isn’t he here? You can only make this trip once every couple months, and he’s never missed yet. Why isn’t he here?”
Her mother didn’t respond right away. She looked like she was pleading with the world to open up and swallow her. Bailey understood. It couldn’t be easy to have this conversation through a glass window with your daughter who was sitting in jail and had been for over a year and would be for at least another four even if she behaved well. “Just a bit under the weather’s all. He’ll bounce back, baby. He’s a fighter. Don’t you worry ’bout your daddy. You know he wouldn’t want that.” Bailey nodded, but she was barely hearing her mother’s words.
Her ears were buzzing, and she knew there was so much to say, but she was failing to figure out what exactly. “Well . . . well . . . I mean . . . what are the doctors saying? Has it spread, how big is the tumor? How . . . well, I thought he’d quit smokin’. How . . . I just don’t understand.”
“Well, he smoked for years, and. . .” Her mother’s eyes flit away for a moment. “Well, he’s been smokin’ a bit more . . . lately.”
Bailey’s face fell. She could feel it in the slack muscles around her mouth. “You mean since his daughter was sent away to prison for ten years?”
Her mother didn’t even respond to that one. “Baby, the docs say he could have been sick for a while and no one knew. He smoked for years. You can’t blame—”
“Like hell I can’t.” And then she was crying. Living in a prison wasn’t the worst thing in the world. Hell, she didn’t mind the food, she didn’t mind the mattress, she didn’t even mind some of the other women there, but it was this. The helplessness of what this place did to a person. She was supposed to be with her family right now. They needed her, and she couldn’t be there. She deserved this type of punishment, but they sure as hell didn’t.
That was lesson number one she learned: your punishment is a far-reaching thing that destroys more lives than just your own. Her parents didn’t deserve this, Bailey did. She sat sobbing like a child as her mother tried to hold it together for her. That pathetic image of the loved one with their hand on the glass wasn’t just some overused cliché picture. It was Bailey’s life, and it was exactly what her mother was doing at the moment.
Her mother was standing bent over the table of the small booth she was sitting in with her hand pressed to the glass as though she could get to her daughter if she just pushed hard enough—as though she could send her support and love through the glass with just enough force. “Please, Bailey. You can’t think of that right now. He’s going to be fine. He really is. Stay strong, okay? Your daddy expects to see you when you get out, and he’s not going anywhere.”
Bailey stood, nodding her head. She told her mother she loved her and asked her to tell her dad too. Then she hung up and staggered away. The guard that escorted her from the visiting room didn’t bat an eye. She didn’t act as though a sobbing prisoner was anything at all to concern herself with. That’s all Bailey was. One of thousands of prisoners with a sob story. Hers was no better and no worse than any other. They didn’t give out awards for being the saddest creature in this place.
Bailey lay on her bed, and she stared at her ceiling. She spent a lot of time doing that. She knew every crack and crevice up there. She knew where a cobweb had made its home, and she watched it every day for signs of life. But there was no one home. Even the spiders were allowed to leave and move on from this place. Someday Bailey would too, but it would be many years from now. She couldn’t help but wonder what her life would look like then. Would she be happy again? Could she be happy again?
Chapter Fifteen
Now
It was a week after Bailey had told him she was leaving, and he was sitting in his car outside her home, staring at his steering wheel. He didn’t know how to do this, and he wasn’t even sure why he was doing it. But he was absolutely going to fucking do it.
He knocked, and he waited. He could hear her feet padding to the door, and his heart pounded. When she pulled the door open, he watched as her lips parted, and her chest instantly stilled as she held her breath.
“Stay.”
She stared as he spoke, dumbfounded.
“Don’t leave.”
She shook her head as though she could make sense of what he said if she could rattle her gears back into place. “What? Why?”
“I need you here!” His lips trembled as he spoke. “Because I know if you leave, then this is the place I’m going to be for the rest of my life.” His hands were trembling and his chest was tight. He felt as though he were breaking apart.
“Savoy?” She didn’t understand.
“No. This.” He shook his head in frustration. “This! Us. I need to deal with this. I have to, or . . . or I swear to God, it’s going to kill me.” He could feel his eyes tearing. “I hate you. I really and truly hate you.” He looked over her shoulder, seeking understanding that he just couldn’t wrap his head around. “But . . . I still . . . Stay. Convince me not to hate you because . . . because hating you is the end of me.”
She started crying then, and he stood forcing his diaphragm to work, trying to calm his emotions—the emotions that had been running rampant since he’d heard her say she was leaving and his heart had lodged in his throat. It made no sense at all. He’d been prepared to leave, and yet, hearing her say she was leaving was painful.