Give him a chance.
Ocean gripped the banister, heart thudding.
Give him a chance.
Unexpectedly, a memory slammed into her, sharp and hard, like a bad dream that wakes you up shaking in the middle of the night.
Ocean sank onto the stairs, the note still clenched in her hand, as her mind shot back to that awful day.
She’d been fourteen.
All she wanted was eyeliner. Just one thing. But she didn’t have enough money, and her parents were always fighting about money, bills, everything. Asking wasn’t an option.
She’d walked into the makeup store and spotted the perfect one. The color. The tone. It felt like it was meant for her.
So she slipped it into her pocket.
And didn’t even make it to the door.
A store employee stepped in front of her. Said the security cameras caught everything. Said they were calling the police.
Ocean panicked. Begged. Cried. Swore she’d never done anything like this before.
Gave them her parents’ names and numbers. Promised they’d pay.
Kept saying, I’m not like this. I don’t do stuff like this. I’m really sorry.
They put her in a small office while they called the police.
Ocean had curled up in the corner of that windowless back room, buried her face in her hands, and sobbed until her whole body hurt. It felt like days.
Later, her mom told her it had barely been an hour.
She remembered the gut-punch swirl of shock and relief when the door finally opened. It wasn’t a cop.
It was her mom.
The store employee had decided to let her go. Said everyone deserves a second chance.
That moment still haunted her. How close she’d come to wrecking everything over something as stupid as eyeliner.
And now, downstairs, they were talking about a boy. Seventeen. A mistake.
Give him a chance.
A chair scraped across the floor. Heavy footsteps moved through the house as Ocean came down the stairs.
A thin, bald, older man with a weathered, deeply lined face came into view. He had a Band-Aid on his forehead and was shaking a cigarette out of a pack. He looked sad. Distracted. Like his mind was somewhere far away.
He didn’t even see her until she said, “Good morning.”
His head jerked up. Their eyes met.
He gave a small nod. “Morning.”
Then, without another word, he went out the front door.
Ocean stood there, watching him go. That was the voice she’d heard asking for a second chance for a seventeen-year-old. She wondered what his connection was to the boy.
