I had to accept that I couldn’t go back.I would never get the first five years of Stu’s life back.And maybe I didn’t deserve them in the first place.Maybe Bax was right from the start—Stu didn’t belong to me.Maybe he never had.Maybe Stuart Lee was a gift to the world that I had only been authorized to bring into it, but after that, I was shit out of luck.
As I came back to myself, my arm became heavier and heavier, and my grip on Cody’s shirt loosened.He begged me to stop hitting him while the small crowd that had formed around us, all the people who moments before had been peacefully enjoying their fancy pasta, began to back away from my anger, like it was a monster all its own, booming like thunder, deafening the world and justice and goodness.
The soft sound of AJ’s voice cut through the anger, like a hot knife and my heart had been made of butter.I fell back on my ass in the gravel as she knelt beside me, and Cody scrambled to his feet.
“Dixon.”Tentatively, AJ wiped my tears away with gentle fingers, looking in my eyes for any signs my monster would come back.But there were none.The monster had just performed his last show.All that remained where he’d lived my whole life was a tiredness I couldn’t quite describe and an emptiness now ready to be filled with other things.
“It’s okay now,” AJ whispered, holding my face, calming me with soft caresses of her thumbs over my cheekbones.
Cody wiped at the blood flowing out of his nose with the back of his hand and aimed his vitriol at me.“I’m gonna sue you so fuckin’ hard, your goddamn great grandkids will be poor.Andyou,” he spat at AJ, “say goodbye to that hole in the wall you call a store.It’s mine now.I’m gonna own it when this is all said and done, and then I’ll turn your fucking Main Street into my personal storage garage.”Embarrassed, he looked around at the wary faces in the crowd, his eyes jumping from one onlooker to the next.“You’re all just a bunch of ignorant hicks!”
“Kiss my ass, Cody,” AJ said.She stood, and he pointed his finger in her face again, but something told me I didn’t need to worry about her being afraid of him anymore.
“You don’t talk to me like that, Avery.After everything I’ve given you, this is how you speak to me?”
AJ laughed, reached up and wrapped her hand around his still pointing finger, and twisted it.He yelped and curved his body away from the pain.But AJ was quick.She used his momentum to spin him, and then she released his finger and pushed so hard with her dainty sandal in the middle of his back that he stumbled forward, right into my sister-in-law’s waiting arms.
Dressed in her uniform with her gun slung high on her thigh, Roxi towered over him as he cowed to the pain.I hadn’t noticed her before the fight, but maybe she’d been at the station down the street and heard the ruckus.She spun him, once again aiming Cody’s indignant sneer at AJ, and slapped cuffs on his wrists behind his back a little harder than was probably necessary.
“You’re goin’ to jail, Cody,” AJ shouted as she righted her pretty dress and swiped her hand over her beautiful, soft blond hair.The douchebag had messed it up, and it made me want to start up on him all over again.But AJ looked even more radiant as she stood her ground and found her fight.“Nobody believes your bluster and lies.And nobody in this town gives a shit who your mommy and daddy are.”
Quietly and without lights, an ambulance pulled into the parking lot.A man and a woman climbed out and moved Justin onto a stretcher, but he came to as they tried to load him into their rig.He wiggled and argued and finally slid off the stretcher, grabbing his phone from his back pocket.He was on that thing faster than a black hare in snow, and I could just imagine who he was calling.
Cody laughed maniacally.He probably had a good inkling about who his cousin was calling too.Blood spurted from his right nostril as he focused his icy stare back on AJ.“You’re gonna regret this.You mark my words, bitch.”
“Honey, the day I dumped your sorry ass was the happiest of my life, and the memory of you bein’ hauled off to jail will continue to bring me joy until the day I die.Now g’on.Git.Nobody wants you here.”
ChapterThirty-Four
Avery Jane
Gran and Mamashowed up at the station five minutes after Abey reluctantly led her brother into a cell in the back room.There were only two cells in there, so for a short time, until Cody’s lawyers or his parents showed up, he and Dixon had to face each other.Fortunately, another deputy, Frank Sims, was back there with them to stand guard.
As far as I could tell, Dixon hadn’t said a word, but Cody could be heard all the way to the street, still puffing his chest about retribution and making threats against Dixon’s family.
Mama ordered me to tell her what happened, but all I could think about was Dixon.
“Is Dixon okay, Abey?”I asked while she removed her tool belt and gun and locked them in a desk drawer in the main room of the station.The receptionist, Shelley, sat behind her computer screen, clearly listening, but she pretended to type.
“Physically,” Abey said, “yes.He’ll be fine.”
“And e-emotionally?”
She looked up at me, exhaustion playing at the edges of her eyes.“I don’t know.”
The weariness in her voice made me feel like screaming.This was a setback for her family.And how would Dixon handle it?Jail and possibly court?
Would this be the thing that led him back into his addiction?Would the fight with Cody derail his confidence, his happiness, his safety?Was it all my fault?
Had he just lost his chance to make things right with Stuart?
Maybe I should have left Dixon alone.I’d practically pushed him into loving me, and now, had I ruined the rest of his life?
Deputy Roxi had been trying to calm my mama down and get her to sit and at least attempt to relax, but she had probably already decided that wasn’t going to fly.
“He’ll be okay,” Roxi said as she stood next to me and patted my shoulder softly.
“I don’t know about that,” Abey mumbled.“Mr.Mahone hasn’t shut up about pressin’ charges.”
