The Row(18)

I heard in one of our health classes at school that alcohol slows down your brain function. That’s kind of what I was after. I parked in front of the house, checked to make sure Mama wasn’t home, stole the first bottle I could reach for out of the liquor cabinet, and came straight to this park.

It turns out, that health class info was dead on.

My head hangs to one side against the chains and it feels heavier to hold up than I remember it being. My phone is on my lap for some reason and it slides off, landing in the sand beside me. I think about picking it up, but it feels like it would be a lot of work, so I don’t.

I watch the lights of cars passing by on the nearest street. It’s well over two hundred feet away, on the far side of the park. Traffic keeps up a steady hum that is only interrupted by the occasional blaring honk of a car horn. Everything around me feels so fuzzy it makes me laugh. I sing softly to myself in the darkness, choosing a heavy metal song to fit my dark mood. It doesn’t sound nearly as tough and angry when it’s just my voice and no pounding drums or wailing vocals … but it’s nice.

Tomorrow will be the first day, other than visitation days, that I won’t have a letter from Daddy to open in as long as I can remember. I feel empty, my heart aches, and I’m lonely. It’s only been a few hours, but I’m already regretting the way I left Polunsky. Daddy had still been trying to talk to me. Maybe I could’ve begged him to explain. Maybe I could’ve gotten some better understanding of whether he’d been telling the awful truth … or the worst kind of lie—one designed to push his family away.

And now it’s too late for any answers. Now I won’t even be able to open one of his letters or speak to him for a week, and I don’t know how to deal with that.

I’ve been alone for much of my life, but I’ve never felt this alone.

I wish again that I had someone to call, that I knew anyone who would come meet me in the park at night and talk to me. Friends should do that, but I don’t have that kind of friends—not anymore. The only way I can keep any friends is by lying to them, and I know from experience, the truth always comes out in the end. People keep you at a distance if they think killing runs in your blood.

And if I believe what Daddy confessed to me, then maybe they were right—right about me being wrong about him for so long.

Pulling the bottle out, I take another drink. The burning sensation from the first couple of swallows is long gone. It has been replaced by warmth that momentarily makes me feel not so alone.

But then it passes and I’m cold again … and lonelier than ever.

I slosh the bottle around in front of my face. Holding it up, I watch the amber liquid surge from one side to the other in the moonlight. My fingers are numb and I lose my grip, dropping the bottle into the sand.

“Aw, hell.” I lurch out of my swing and reach for it even though it’s mostly empty anyway. When I lift it up to the moonlight again, the liquid definitely has more grit to it than before. “Damn.”

I slump down in the sand and accidentally knock my phone aside when I’m reaching for the bottle. The phone flips over, landing with a soft thud in the sand. The screen lights up and I see a couple of missed calls from a number I don’t recognize. Probably a wrong number.

I roll over onto my back and stare up at the twinkling starlight. Each star seems to flicker and wink at me. Nothing in my life feels constant anymore, nothing steady or dependable.

How many times has Daddy declared his innocence over the years? One hundred? One thousand? Were those the lies? Or just this last one? How many times can you lie to someone you love before everything you share becomes the lie?

I grab the bottle of rum, sit up, pull back, and chuck it as hard as I can. I hear a crash of breaking glass on the rocks of the shallow pond. My sudden fury washes away as quickly as it came. My hand feels as empty as I do. What if Daddy didn’t mean it? What if someone made Daddy tell me that he was guilty? What if—

A soft whistle comes from the shadows behind me, and I whirl around to face the darkness. My motions are too fast for my current state, though, and I tip to one side, my head spinning. “Who—who is that? Who are you?” I ask once I find the words I’m looking for.

“Relax, Riley.” A tall, definitely male form steps out into the moonlight, but I can’t quite get my eyes to focus on him. He walks toward me with his hands up. I scoot backward across the ground a bit and he slows down.

Now he’s only a few feet away. My vision sharpens and when I recognize him I still can’t believe he’s real. “Jordan? Wh-what are you doing here?”

“You called and asked me to come. Don’t you remember?” His dark eyebrows lift and the corner of his mouth turns up.

The missed calls on my phone … could that have been him trying to call me back? I groan, embarrassed, and try to fold my arms across myself, but somehow I end up ramming them into each other and have to try twice to get it right. I look down and see a small white paper under the swing; I know before I pick it up that it’s his number. I honestly don’t remember calling him, but I do remember thinking again and again that I wished there was someone I could call.

Apparently, I found someone.

I place one hand on my forehead, not sure how to even begin apologizing for this. “I can’t believe you came. I’m so so s-sorry.”

Jordan sits down beside me in the sand, stretching his long legs out in front of him. “Don’t be sorry. I’m glad that you called.”