Brooks Glen might not have changed, but I sure had. I looked different, I felt different, and I no longer belonged here. I was broken down by the world, and this damn town was going to finish me off. I used to have plenty of friends here, or at least people who stumbled over themselves to hang out with me. Only a couple still talked to me, and recently, I hadn’t been talking to anyone.
I pulled into a driveway and stared at the house I’d grown up in. I’d had it made my entire youth, and I knew it. There’d been plenty of people around me who hadn’t been so lucky, and some of them had been hurt by me too. I’d like to say I used to be that popular kid who was nice to everyone and made friends by helping the little guy, but that wasn’t me. I was the stereotype. I had a nice house, nice clothes, and a car when I turned sixteen. I started playing basketball in elementary school, and I got good at it. I earned my notoriety from having a pool and the ability to throw a ball into a hoop. I had most of the school wrapped around my finger, and those I deemed lesser than, even those who’d been my friends growing up, well... I wasn’t entirely proud of my high school years. Especially senior year.
I never redeemed myself either. I took off as soon as I could, like a fucking coward. I knew a lot of people who’d ended up stuck in this town, and here I was, down and out, coming back with my head hung low. Most of them would probably want to kick me where I was, and I deserved it. I’d tried to do better, but they wouldn’t forget. In the end, I didn’t do better. I ended up a lonely, disgraced detective who’d failed at everything.
I knew the people of Brooks Glen liked to gossip, and most of them would already know why I was here—Chicago was hoursaway, not states. I’d tried to do good but I’d done even worse. I’d gotten someone killed, someone I cared about. And so I was back home, in the town I’d always be stuck with, at the mercy of Mom and Dad.Fuck my life.
???
My parents came outside as I was getting out of my car. My mom took one look at my face and said, “Oh, sweetie.” I could hear the tears in her voice as they both reached me.
“Mom,” was all I said. But I needed her more than I ever had. They hugged me in the driveway. They weren’t bad parents, quite the opposite. My teenage dirtbag era couldn’t be attributed to them. In fact, they’d been actively opposed to the actions they’d found out about. Especially the gym fiasco, which was coincidentally also the biggest regret of my youth. The look of utter disappointment on my mother’s face when she got called to the school had been worse than the lecture from the principal and the detention. Of course, that time, my own conscience gave me the worst of it, and it had really never stopped beating me up. But I deserved that too.
My parents had always been there for me. They’d both worked but had still taken me out on weekends when I was a kid. They’d let my friends come over for days on end. They’d made it to nearly all of my basketball games and supported me when I told them I wanted to be a police officer. They’d even paid for me to go to the academy. I’d taken every bit of it for granted.
They’d visited me often in Chicago, and asked a few times when I was going to get married because I was a catch. I just told them I didn’t have time, that I was married to my job, and that was the truth. I was a detective. I worked all the time and spent more time with my partner than anyone else. I loved my job, and I was damn good at it... until I wasn’t.
My mom held on to me for an extra minute as she hugged me. She’d been the most concerned, because she knew. She had that maternal telepathy, that unexplainable knowledgethat something was wrong with her child. She knew when I was drinking, and somehow called me every time. There was no way she could have known at first what drinking did to me at that point in my life, but then I started lamenting every time she called. I wanted to be drunk, because I didn’t like facing reality, but it made things worse. When I admitted to my mom that it almost had me swallowing a bottle of pills, she was done.
“You can’t stay up there by yourself. This isn’t helping. We can’t lose you too. You need to come home, just for a little while. Being there, hurting and drinking is making it worse, and you know it.”
I did know it. But being sober and home hurt too.
Life would never be normal again and I knew it. The guilt and pain would weigh on me for the rest of my life. The new guilt was just pressing on the old guilt that had already been there. It would be impossible to sort through it, even with the therapy my parents wanted me to go to. Nothing would ever take any of it away.It was all my fault. Everything. All of it.
I didn’t have much to carry into my parents’ house. I had a suitcase full of clothes and a duffel bag full of items I couldn’t bear to get rid of. I’d left everything else in Chicago. The apartment had come furnished, and nothing else meant much to me. I’d either get it when I went back, or it’d get tossed if I switched apartments. I didn’t care either way.
I sat the suitcase down in my old bedroom and put the duffel bag on my bed, opening it and looking at the few things I’d brought with me. The plaque from the police station for doing such a great job.Yeah, they jumped the gun on that one. A few framed photos I’d brought from home when I moved. A heart figurine with legs holding a trophy, a joke gift but something I’d never part with because my partner gave it to me. And the folder. The folder that held the one thing I hadn’t been able to get rid of even though it simultaneously brought me joy and heartbreak. It brought guilt and hurt while also meaning everything to me. No one knew I had it, and no one ever could. I slid it between my mattress and box springs and moved to unpack my clothes.
???
I headed downstairs when I was done. I wanted a drink. I didn’t want to be in my parents’ house, and I didn’t want to show my face in town. The guilt was even heavier there, where my past haunted me more strongly and all the guilt mixed and swirled in my chest. It was a lot to handle, and I needed to take the edge off, just a little. I went through the fridge, hoping to find one of my dad’s beers, my mom’s wine, anything. They both appeared while I was rummaging around, so I grabbed a bottle of water as they watched me and I avoided their eyes.
“Do you want a snack?” my mom offered, stepping up to the fridge as I moved away. Her remedy for anyone who was in pain was to feed them, but the thought of food turned my stomach nearly as bad as being back in Brooks Glen did. I must have been on autopilot all the way here, or I would have turned the car around.
I shook my head. “I’m not really hungry.”
“You need to eat something,” my dad put in. “But I guess you can wait until dinner. I think we should call Dr. Richardson on Monday. This is too much for you to handle alone.” I was glad it was Friday, because that gave me a few days to mentally prepare. I’d gone to Dr. Richardson my senior year, but even my friends hadn’t known about it. My therapist was the only one who knew I’d been in crisis, and he was the only one who fully knew the reasons I’d done the things I had, but I didn’t really want to talk to him again. I knew I needed help. I’d get there eventually, but I wasn’t ready.
I gave my dad a noncommittal nod and headed into the living room with the bottle of water I didn’t really want. My mom’s asshole cat was eying me from her cat tree. She’d always hated me, even before I left. She hated everyone besides my mom, who’d decided to name her Sweetie Pie as a kitten. That had been the first mistake, because evenIknew you didn’t name an animal something like that unless you wanted them tobecome the spawn of Satan. Sweetie Pie hissed at me then turned her back to the room as though my existence offended her. I plopped down on the couch to watch whatever my dad had on the TV.
I spent the rest of the afternoon there, staring at the television but only half paying attention, while my mom bustled around the kitchen making a big dinner that I absolutely did not want. I managed to eat about half the food on my plate. I didn’t deserve to eat a home-cooked meal or be back in my childhood home with parents who loved me. Not whenhecould no longer do any of those things. Not when his mother couldn’t prod him to eat and his dad couldn’t watch TV with him. Not when his childhood bedroom would remain forever empty and there’d be no more visits. Because of me.
I was exhausted, physically and emotionally, as I trudged back to my bedroom not long after dinner. I just reclined on my bed for a while, staring at nothing, but finally reached under the mattress to pull out the folder. I held it for a minute without opening it, not sure I wanted to feel everything that came with looking at it. There was so much guilt hovering over me, from so many places. Guilt I’d tried to bury by doing good and helping people. In the end, all I’d ever done was hurt people, and it was always the people who deserved it the least. I opened the folder.
“Oh my god, Mason, you have to see this! Look at it! Look what he did!” They were laughing as they held a piece of paper out to me. My closest friends, Chris and Derrick, were there, but they weren’t laughing. They were better people than me.
They were all waiting to see what I’d do. His eyes were pleading with me. He’d never done anything wrong, nothing to deserve my wrath. Did I know he watched me? Of course. I wasn’t sure why, though, because while there was no denying I was attractive on the outside, I wasn’t on the inside, especially to him. Did he know why? Did he know I watched him too? Did he know how fucking beautiful he was and what he did to me?
I slammed the folder shut and shoved it back under the mattress. That day had been the last day those beautiful crystaleyes had gazed my way. I deserved the life I hated. I deserved everything bad that came my way, and none of them had ever deserved to be standing in my wake.Fuck it all.
Chapter 3
Elijah
Iwas running late for work. I knew I was speeding but I’d never seen a police car on this stretch of road—until this morning, of course. The car was unmarked and I didn’t even realize it was a cop until the lights came on in the dash. The entire morning had gone terribly. I’d already spilled my whole cup of coffee, realized I was almost out of cat food, and ripped my second to last pair of scrub pants after having yet another of those dreams I knew weren’t just dreams. That was probably what had really thrown my day off, but it looked like I was about to add a speeding ticket to the list of things going wrong. Was it a full moon too? Was it Friday the thirteenth, even though it was Saturday? Did the universe just hate me?
I pulled over to the side of the road and grabbed my driver’s license out of my wallet. I was digging through the napkins and ketchup packets in my glove box when the police officer who’d pulled me over tapped on my window. I got a hold of the registration, and with a sigh, turned to roll down the window.
