My sister, who’d been involved in the accident, had suffered a brain injury that’d caused her to forget everything for about a forty-eight-hour time period.
The only people there to witness was a homeless woman—who I was sure my mom had paid off—and a cop that I knew my mom had fucked in order to get him to help her.
My mom had it out for me since the day that I was born.
I spent my entire life barely surviving, and when my little sister had come along, I’d spent my every waking moment making sure that my mother’s filth didn’t affect her.
When I’d turned eighteen, I’d petitioned the courts for custody of Bernice.
It’d been pretty easy to get. My mom hadn’t shown up to court and had even said to multiple witnesses that “maybe it would be better for Bernice to live with Justin.”
And we’d lived happily ever after for a whole two and a half years before my mom had seen that I had a little bit of money to my name and gotten jealous.
When I’d refused to give her any money—I had a kid to raise and didn’t have the money to spare—she’d lost her shit.
Which led us to the day that I’d “killed” two officers.
“What do you remember?” I asked.
She swallowed hard. “Everything.”
“Tell me,” I begged.
“I was sick. I called you to come get me. Except, you never came. Mom showed up, and I went with her. I know it was stupid. But she said she’d take me to urgent care. I thought…what could it hurt? She could even pay. Except, we never made it to urgent care. She purposefully hit that building and those officers, Justin. I saw her do it. She smiled at me evilly, then slammed into the building. I heard a groan that didn’t come from me, and that’s when I looked back and saw you in the back seat. You were on the floor in between the seats, rolled up in a blanket, Justin. You didn’t hit anyone.”
The other question was, how had she gotten the jump on me?
That might be something I’d never know.
“But you were hurt really bad. How did that happen?” I asked. “If you were aware enough to see that happen?”
Her eyes were stricken. “Mom. She slammed my head into the dash when I was looking at you. I don’t remember anything after that.”
My stomach lurched. “She did?”
She nodded her head. “I’m sorry that I didn’t remember until now.”
I wished I wasn’t speaking to her through plexiglass. I wanted nothing more than to wrap her up into my arms and pretend like everything would be okay. At least for a little bit.
“I’m going to go to the cops with this,” she promised. “I’m going to get you out.”
Except she wouldn’t.
Mom would fuck and blackmail whoever she had to to make sure that I never got out.
I was exactly where she wanted me, rotting away in the place that was going to take pieces of my soul until there was nothing left.
“I love you, Bernie,” I said. “It’s okay.”
She stood up, a look of fierce determination on her face. “I’ll fix this. I promise.”
Ten years later
Every single avenue of appeal and mistrial had been exhausted.
There was nothing left to do but live the rest of my life in this six-by-six cell.
I stared up at the springs of my bunkmate’s bunk and said, “Looks like you get to keep me, man.”
