I swallowed.
“But I was lying to myself.”
The words hung there, raw and exposed.
“I could have handled that night a million different ways. I could have called the police. Could have restrained him until they arrived. Could have done anything other than what I chose to do.” My voice cracked. I didn’t bother trying to hide it. “Andmy choice that night didn’t just end one man’s life. It destroyed my family’s lives as well.”
I looked directly at Gwen.
“My daughter grew up without a father. Her mother had to raise her alone. My little girl spent her entire childhood wondering why her dad chose violence over her. Wondering if she wasn’t worth staying for.” I had to stop. Had to breathe through the tightness in my chest. “That man should have been turned over to the police. The justice system isn’t perfect, but it wasn’t my place to become judge, jury, and executioner. And I’m not the one who paid the biggest price for that choice.”
The thin man studied me. “Do you understand the harm you caused beyond your own family? The harm to the victim’s family?”
I nodded. “His family isn’t to blame for his actions. They’re victims too. And for what I took from them, I am deeply sorry.”
Silence hung in the air for a solid minute.
“Mr. Blackwood”—the sausage-fingered man folded his hands on the table—“in your previous hearings, you refused to accept any responsibility for the crime you committed. Why should we believe you’re different now?”
It was a fair question.
And it deserved an honest answer.
“Because I am different.” I scrubbed a hand over my face, feeling the rough drag of stubble against my palm. “For years, I’ve been existing like a ghost in this place. Going through the motions. Convincing myself that what happened was unavoidable, so why bother feeling anything about it?”
I thought about Harper. About the way she’d looked at me that first day in the infirmary, so full of suspicion and judgment. About how she’d slowly, impossibly, started to see the man underneath the monster.
“Then I started letting people in,” I said quietly. “People who cared about me. People I grew to care about.” I glanced at Harper, then away. “And somewhere in that process, I stopped being numb. I started feeling again. And once I could feel again, I could finally see the truth of what I’d done.”
The room was silent.
“I’ve replayed that night a thousand times in my head. I see all the different choices I could have made. All the different outcomes that were possible. And each one haunts me.” I met the thin man’s eyes. “You asked what changed. I changed. I finally stopped using my justifications as armor and let myself face the consequences of my actions. Not the legal consequences. The human ones.”
The woman with the pointed glasses set down her pen and allowed a long silence to envelop the room before asking, “Is there anything else you’d like the board to know?”
I turned and looked at my daughter.
She was crying. Silently, tears streamed down her cheeks, but she held my gaze. Didn’t look away. Didn’t flinch.
“I’ve missed fourteen years of my daughter’s life,” I said, my voice thick. “Fourteen years of birthdays and graduations and ordinary Tuesday nights. Fourteen years I can never get back.” I turned back to the panel. “If you give me this chance, I won’t waste it. I won’t end up back here. I will spend every day of my life trying to be the father she deserves. The man she can be proud of.”
The thin man made a note.
“Thank you, Mr. Blackwood. This panel will now adjourn to deliberate.”
The three of them stood, gathered their papers, and disappeared through a side door. The click of the latch echoed through the room like a gunshot.
Ryker’s hand landed on my shoulder. “You did good. I’m proud of you, man. That was real. They felt it.”
I wanted to believe him. But my eyes kept drifting to the stack of papers they’d left behind. Harper’s medical report sat right on top, the wordsviolent confrontationvisible, even from here.
“I also have two violent incidents on my record from the past year,” I said flatly.
“Knox.”
“They’ve already made up their minds, Ryker. You saw their faces.”
He opened his mouth to respond, but the side door swung open again.
