Lawless (King #3)(24)

Under the great weight of that tragedy I took responsibility, but under the weight of the new trudges was too much, too heavy, and it was crushing me before I could make any rational or responsible decisions.

Why did I even leave town? Why didn’t I just call the sheriff myself?

I know why. I panicked. Panic and fear clouded any sort of logic, but as logic started to once again take over so did the gravity of my loss. I loved my father. He taught me how to tell when the oranges were ripe for the picking from the way they smelled. He taught me how to fish. He’d let me sit in front of him on the tractor when he mowed the field behind the house, the only space not taken up by orange trees. I don’t think losing him was something I would ever be able to move on from. My brother had died when I was young and although it hurt like hell, what hurt worse was seeing my parents hurting.

I loved my mother, but I wouldn’t miss her. Not in the same way I’d miss my dad. She hadn’t been my mother in a long time. My father picking up her slack on days she refused to get out of bed, refused to take her medication, or after Jesse died, refused to acknowledge she still had a remaining living child.

The night she killed my father she’d been more manic than I’d ever seen her. The look of death swirled in her eyes.

I had no choice and my only true regret was not getting there sooner.

Not being able to save my dad.

Responsibility meant not running away. Isn’t that what I’d done? I’d run away.

What if I went back to Jessep? What if I told the sheriff what happened. They knew my mother and although she and my father went to great lengths to cover up her mental issues they had to understand that I didn’t have a choice. Isn’t that the way justice worked?

Guilty people don’t run away. But I panicked and instead of dialing the sheriff for help, the only person who popped into my mind was Bear. Getting to him was my only focus and through my tunnel vision he was all I could see at the end.

That was a mistake.

I didn’t want to be this weak girl. I was never weak before and I hated that I was being weak now. I’d go back and face whatever I had coming to me. Hopefully, I’d get back there in time to tell my story before someone stumbled upon the nightmare back at the house.

I also imagined the relief that Bear would feel when he came back and found me gone which made my decision an even easier one.

I didn’t have a shirt and it’s not like I could walk all the way back to Jessep wearing a towel, so I grabbed a plain black t-shirt from a small pile of Bear’s clothes on the floor. Before I could register what I was doing I lifted the shirt to my nose and inhaled deeply. Laundry detergent, sweat, and cigarettes shouldn’t have smelled so good. I pulled it on over my head. On Bear it was probably tight, on me it was a tarp.

The little apartment I was in was plain, but smelled like new paint. When we built a new shed in the orange grove and the doors were installed the trim company set the door keys on top of the molding. The door was a taller one and me being only five foot three there was a problem. I slid a chair over to the door ignoring the protesting burn of my muscles as I did so. I carefully climbed the chair and felt the top of the molding.

No such luck.

Although I should have known better since luck and I hadn’t seemed to be friends not just the last few years, but my entire life.

I looked around the apartment for something I could use as a key, like a small screwdriver or a nail file when I noticed a paint splattered sheet in the corner of the room covering what looked like a little alcove.

Crossing the room as quickly as my broken body would allow, I tugged on the bottom of the sheet, freeing it from where it had been tucked behind something at the top of the pile it had been concealing. As it fell to the floor it revealed the entire life it had been hiding underneath.

Bear’s life.

An older style TV, much thicker than the more modern flat screens, with fake wooden paneling on the sides sat in the center. On top of the TV was a stack of Harley Davidson coffee table books and behind that was a display case with three hooks holding long curved samurai swords with gold handles. A framed poster of Johnny Cash flipping the bird with the title “AT SAN QUENTIN” over his right shoulder sat on the floor against the wall where a huge BEACH BASTARDS black flag was held unrolled with the Beach Bastards logo peeking out from the folds like an uninvited guest.

I was about to search the kitchen drawers when something in the center of the pile caught my attention. A framed picture of three young men.

One I recognized instantly as Bear, his ridiculously blue eyes practically shone through the old faded picture and although I’d met him when he was twenty-one, he was even younger in the picture, I would guess around fifteen or sixteen. He was facial hair free and his cheeks still had that slight roundness to them that would eventually fade and give way to the sharp intensity that Bear was today. The leather cut he wore read PROSPECT across one side in a U shape at the bottom. I recognized another boy as King, but with slightly longer hair that was too short to give way to the budding half curls that surrounded his face. King was also smiling, but unlike Bear, King already looked hardened in the picture, maybe even a bit sad.

In the middle of the two teenagers, who would grow up to be larger than life men, was a boy who was a good head smaller than Bear or King, which by anyone’s standards still made him taller than most. He was dressed up, different than the t-shirt and jeans of his friends, although the setting didn’t look as if they were going somewhere that required that kind of formal dress. They were sitting on a bright blue picnic table, tall skinny trees and twinkling water in the background. The kid I didn’t know wore a short sleeved white dress shirt tucked into khaki pants with a lime green bow tie with checked suspenders and just like the Johnny Cash poster, he was flipping off the camera. The letters FU were tattooed down his middle finger.