“Bye, little mouse.” I watch him jog to the door, turn back for one last grin, and disappear inside. For a moment, I sit there, hands slack on the wheel, and feel my heart steady itself around the words we finally spoke out loud.
I pull away from the curb and let the city roll by—past the park and the thrift store, out toward the water.
The parole board hearing is next week. My father wants out.
I pull into the gravel parking lot of my thinking spot before getting out of my car and heading down the beaten path to the clearing. Just like every other day, the bench is empty, and all you can hear are the sounds of the crashing waves below.
I sit on the bench and blow out a breath. I haven’t made up my mind about what I’m going to say at the hearing, so I’m going to start with what Beckett said. I’m going to write down all the things I want to say to him, all the things that I’ve been pretending never hurt me.
It seems I’ve been doing a lot of that… pretending.
I used to think that my childhood never affected me, but now I can see it’s where I learned to put on a mask. Pretend. Never show who I really was, because it could be used to hurt me.
When my mother was sick, I didn’t dare show emotion. I knew my father already had inklings I was gay, and showing emotion is not something big strong men do. Which is completely fucked up because now that I’m older I know for sure, big strong mendoindeed cry.
He used money as leverage with anyone—neighbors, his business associates… me. He dressed threats up like jokes. Fear with a smile. Violence can be the bruise you never see, the kind that makes a kid count every bill in a wallet twice before asking for lunch money. But more often than not, it left me with bruises.
He has never apologized. Not once, not without a “but.” His letters don’t show remorse, they ask for a favor. One of the many I apparentlyowehim. The last time the board convened, he minimized it like he tries to do every time. “Wrong place, wrong people.” He was always in the wrong place, and he always chose the wrong people.
My mother was beautiful and sad. She lived in fear. Men came to the house asking for my father. They talked in low voices and smiled without meaning it. I was a kid, and learned how to stay out of sight. Sometimes I’m angry she didn’t leave. Then I remember, he wouldn’t have let her. She did what she could within a bad situation.
When she got sick, the fear loosened its grip. She was tired. I sat by her bed and counted her breaths, torn between wanting her pain to end and not wanting to be left alone with him. One afternoon, she told me about my aunt Sofia, thrown out of the family for being a lesbian, living her own life anyway. “When the time comes, go to her,” my mother said. Her hand was light in mine. I said I would.
I went to the library and searched for Sofia on old computers that took forever to load. I found an email address and wrote to her:“I’m your brother’s son. I need help.”
She replied with a simple“come”and an address. Later, I learned she and my mother had been writing for years, trying to find a way to get me out.
Before I left, the house got worse. More men at the door. My father came home with a black eye and a split lip. His shirt had someone else’s blood on it. He told jokes like nothing was wrong. People like to call his crime “nonviolent.” It didn’t feel that way in our home. Because what he got sentenced for was far less than the crimes he’d committed.
When the FBI showed up, I hid in the yard until they were gone. I was sixteen, and afraid they’d send me somewhere I didn’t choose. I took a train with a backpack and the address in my pocket. Sofia opened her door, said my name, and made space for me. I slept. I went to school. I started over. I learned what a normal day feels like.
Now I have a life. Ink Me. Friends who show up and keep showing up. Finn and Spencer and Mazie. Jules and Mira. Olly and Jasper. Jaxon and Alex. A home that’s mine. And Beckett, who told me he loves me, and I said it back.
I want to protect this.
I breathe and feel the old panic try to rise—the reflex to make myself smaller, to bargain, to cave. It passes. I think of Sofia’s first hug. I think of my mother’s last instructions. I think of Beckett’s laugh and the way he looked at me when I said I love you, like I’d just come home and didn’t know it yet.
I sit with it until the anger settles into something firmer: a decision. I’m not going to get even. I’m going to keep the life I built intact. Loving Beckett doesn’t change how I see my father; it makes me clearer about what I will and won’t allow near us.
Sending one last wish out into the sea, I head back to my vehicle and home to put my thoughts on paper while it’s all sharp in my mind.
My stomach has beentight for days, a hard knot I can’t stretch out. And now that it’s standing on my doorstep, I begin to question if I’m making the right call. Not whether he should get parole, but whether I should even show up. Am I reopening a can of worms that I almost had sealed? Am I putting an even bigger target on my head for the day when he finally does get let out?
Arms come around me from behind, steady and warm. Beckett’s chin touches my shoulder. I look at our reflections in the bathroom mirror and smile. “Hey, baby.”
“Hey,” he says, planting a kiss where his chin rests. “Are you ready?”
I nod, because if I try to talk right now, it’ll show too much. I amnotready. I am tired, and I am angry, and underneath that, I am still a sixteen-year-old who learned to hide in the shadows so as not to be seen. I’mso notfucking ready.
“Remember, no matter what, you don’t have to do this. No one will think less of you. Don’t go because you think you should. Go because you choose to.”
I turn in his arms. He doesn’t look away. Everyone jokes about Beckett being chaos in an apron, but there’s something older in him too, like he sees the parts of you you’d rather keep in the junk drawer. I wish he’d trust his own instincts, believe in himself more.
“Thank you for coming today,” I say, leaning in for a gentle kiss.
“You call for me, and I will always be there, however you need me.”
“How about starting with this stupid tie?”
