EPILOGUE
Six months later...
Luke
Sandgrove Park was home whatever the time of year, but winter was always magical for me, especially now, when it seemed as though I was experiencing it all for the very first time—the snow on the ground, the frost on the trees, the ground crunching beneath my boots. Mia’s laugh rang out as she pelted Gus with snowballs. Leaning on the railing, watchingthem across the iced-up lake, I was perhaps as content as I’d ever been.
It did seem a little creepy to be watching them without their knowledge, though, particularly considering the phone call I was waiting on.
I tore my gaze from them and walked back towards my house. My phone rang at the edge of the park. I checked the screen. Billy’s name flashed up and tension rippled through me.I answered without speaking and he gave me the answer I needed without preamble.
“Four years,” he said. “In the secure hospital the defence lawyer kept harping on about. How do you like them apples?”
“Seems fair to me.”
“Seriously?” Billy sounded as disbelieving as I had when he’d volunteered to attend Morgan Benson’s trial. “You body-check a speeding car and you think four years ina cushy hospital is fair?”
“Mate, we’ve been over this. No one gets locked up forever anymore, and don’t you think four years with treatment is better than ten years without? In regular prison there’s every chance he’d come out as fucked-up as he went in.”
Silence, then Billy made a low sound I couldn’t quite decipher. “When did you become so reasonable?”
I crossed the road, ignoringthe urge to look both ways a dozen times. “I’m not reasonable, just realistic.”
“Yeah, but you don’t know the half of it. I sat through that trial, man. I know what he—” Billy stopped and sighed. “Never mind. I just don’t think four years is enough.”
“It’s enough for me.”
“What about Mia?”
Now that was a question I couldn’t answer. We’d both given evidence at the trial, but ithad been behind a screen, and a non-event as all we’d had to do was recite the facts as we saw them. In my victim impact statement, I’d told the court my only worry was that Morgan Benson wouldn’t get the treatment he clearly needed, that I wasn’t interested in punishment, so the defence had left me alone. And so had Mia. Only Billy had questioned my sanity.
I reached my front door and letmyself inside. “I honestly don’t know. I reckon she’ll just be happy when it’s all over.”
“It is over, bro. Is she happy?”
I pictured Mia as I’d last seen her, playing in the snow with the brother I loved almost as much as my own. “Yeah, I think she is.”
Mia
“Four years?”
Luke nodded. “Yup. In the hospital, not the prison.”
“So he really was ill?”
“Yes, but we knew that.”
“No...” I said carefully. “You did. I was still considering the possibility that he was just an evil bastard.”
Luke chuckled and shut the oven door. “I don’t believe that.”
“I don’t care if you believe it or not, it’s true. You’re a better person than me.”
“Doubt it.” Luke came to me, wrapping his warm arms around me. “But I want to be done with this so we can move on with our lives.Can we do that? Please?”
There was nothing I wouldn’t do for him, so I nodded and kissed him, but my mind continued to replay the last six months anyway. Luke’s recovery from his injuries as the real depths of Morgan Benson’s obsession with me had come to light. We’d chosen to focus on us, on Billy, and on our own healing. I was right about Luke being a better person than me, though. It hadtaken him a split second to humanise Morgan Benson, and I’d spent every day since torn between wanting to shake him and being in awe of the compassionate man I’d missed him becoming.
“Hey.” Luke knocked his head gently against mine. “If there’s something you need to talk about, we can. Don’t lock shit away because I want to.”
