Ruined (14 page)

"Lucky girl you are, Willow Blake." Her words cut me a bit. I've never considered my life lucky, at least not the last four years of it. Wretched, maybe. Sad, derailed, ruined. But not lucky.

As she walks around the living room, Kellan comes through the front door and the world stops for a moment. I hear Emmy gasp upon her first look at him, and he stops in his tracks. I think I sense a little fear in his eyes, almost like he's uncomfortable.

"Hey, Kellan," I say trying to break the momentary tension.

"Hey."

"This is Emmy. We go to college together." He reaches out one of his very large hands and she puts her tiny one in his. He shakes her hand while looking at me instead, and I feel a little weak in the knees. "Kellan is my step brother. He just moved here."

A thankful look crosses his face, as if he's happy I didn't refer to him as my new ex-con step brother.

"Nice to meet you," Emmy purrs like she's having a private moment all by herself.

Kellan bounds up the stairs, and Emmy swings her head around to look at me. She grins and slaps her hand over her face.

"Oh. My. God. He is beautiful!" she squeals as quietly as she can.

"I guess he's okay," I lie.

"Oh, please. You could cut the tension in here with a freaking butter knife. Are you two... doing it?"

"What? Are you crazy? I just met the guy. And he's my step brother!"

"Your smoking hot step brother. No blood relation. And you just met him. It's not like you grew up with him or anything."

"You think it would be okay to date my own step brother? It wouldn't be gross?"

"If you don't date him, I will break in here and molest him myself!" she says laughing.

"Shhh...." I try to calm her down, but finally have to relocate our conversation outside.

"So, where did he move here from?"

"Atlanta."

"College?"

"No. Prison." Emmy drops her glass and it shatters on the sun porch floor.

"Sorry... I'll clean this up..." she says.

"It's okay..." I start picking up glass.

"Prison? He didn't kill someone did he?"

"Three people. When he was seventeen. It was accidental. He was drinking and driving."

"Oh, wow. How terrible. But he seems so nice..."

"Emmy, he is nice. People make mistakes. Sometimes big, life ending mistakes. He deserves a second chance." Suddenly, I'm all too aware that I don't hold myself to the same standard. I don't plan to give myself a second chance.

"Still, those three people didn't get a second chance," she says, and it pisses me off a bit.

"No, they didn't. And that's terrible. But they can't be brought back to life. He did the time he was required to do, but should he serve a life sentence even on the outside? Does he deserve to live a horrible life now? What purpose would that serve? Doesn't it do the victims a disservice if a fourth life is lost in all of this?"

"I guess so..." she says softly. "Sorry if I made you mad, Willow."

"I'm not mad," I lie. "But I think everyone deserves the benefit of the doubt. He's a good person, and I don't think you could ever punish him as much as he punishes himself every day in his own mind and heart."

"Can we talk about something else?" she asks with a slight smile.

"Of course."

"You and Reed Miller. You are a hottie magnet!" she said grinning.

"Nothing going on there."

"Liar, liar pants on fire!"

"Well, nothing is going to happen."

"And why is that?"

"Because we're friends, and that is all it ever needs to be."

We finish chatting and Emmy continues her run down the beach as I wave from the porch. When I walk back into the house, I go upstairs to change out of my swimsuit. I hear Kellan talking, and then I realize he's talking to himself. Or someone who isn't there.

I peek around the corner into his room. He has Facebook on the computer screen, and I see a young man's photo. Jake is the only part of it that I can see, and then I realize that it's the friend he injured in the crash.

He's mumbling so I cannot hear what he's saying, but it appears he is talking to Jake. Why not call him? Or message him on Facebook? And then my stomach growls.

Kellan swiftly turns around and has anger in his eyes. He looks like he's been crying.

"Were you eavesdropping?" he says standing up.

"No, of course not. I heard you talking and just peeked in..."

"Well, maybe you shouldn't just peek into people's rooms!" he says standing up and pointing at me.

"Kellan, the door was open..."

He takes a deep breath and sits on the edge of his bed. I stand there without talking or moving until he speaks.

"He almost died. I remember his scream right before we hit. His scream woke me up, but it was too late. I couldn't stop, Willow. There were lights and then this loud sound of metal crunching and crashing. And then the horn. I don't know why, but the horn wouldn't stop blaring, and my head hurt. I hit the windshield and cut my forehead, but Jake was gone. He wasn't wearing a seatbelt. We were both so drunk, Willow. I didn't see them. I swear..." He leans over and runs his fingers through his hair and a moan escapes his lips. "I can't get the image out of my mind. It just replays over and over. The prison psychiatrist calls it PTSD. I don't sleep well. I still see those babies. And their mother..."

I don't know what to say, so I just walk across the room and sit down next to him. He's a big beast of a man, but right now he seems so small. How alone he must feel. I know the feeling.

"Have you talked to Jake since then?" I ask him quietly.

"How could I? What could I say? I destroyed his life too. Five lives ended that night."

"No, Kel. You're still here. Jake is still here. Your life is different, but it doesn't have to be over." I put my hand on his knee, and he takes it in both of his.

"You know, you're the first human contact I've had in five years. My father didn't even hug me when he picked me up. He looks at me with anger in his eyes. We were so close before this happened."

"He'll come around. Bruce is a decent man. He just doesn't know how to reconcile all of this. Before you came home, he even asked me to give you chance so I know he will too."

"Will you come with me?" he asks looking over at me.

"Where?"

"To see Jake. I think I have to start healing this, or I'll never be able to move on." I realize that he's right. I never took the time to heal from my own past, and that's why I can't move on either. The only difference between Kellan and me is that his sin is out there for all the world to see. He can't hide from what he did, but I was allowed to. For a long time, I thought that was a good thing. I thought I could start over, leave it behind. But that idea has backfired on me. Instead of leaving it behind, my past clings to me like quicksand. The harder I try to climb out and away from it, the tighter it grasps me and pulls me back down. Maybe it's like a bandaid. Maybe I should have just pulled it off a long time ago and dealt with the repercussions.

"I would be honored," I finally say. He puts his arm around me and I lay my head on his big shoulder. It amazes me how close I feel to a person I barely know. We share a past in a strange way, and yet he knows nothing about me.

"No time like the present, I guess," he says. My eyes widen.

"You mean right now?"

"Before I chicken out. Yes. Right now."

"But doesn't he live in Georgia?"

"No. His parents split up while I was in prison, and he moved with his father about an hour from here. My father told me that much."

"Okay. Let's go then. You drive?" he asks. I look like a deer caught in the headlights. "What?"

"I don't have a license." He looks shocked.

"Why not?"

"Just never got around to it, I guess," I lie, but he isn't buying it.

"Willow, let me help you crawl out from under your own demons," he says softly.

"I'm too far gone, Kellan. This is your second chance, not mine."

"You're not too far gone," he says. "If you'd just grab onto me, I would help you swim to shore." I smile gratefully and bump his shoulder.

"Not ready for that, Kel. Don't know if I ever will be. But thanks."

Knowing that he doesn't have a license yet either, and that he can't get one for a few months due to his probation, we opt to take another mode of transportation.

A few minutes later we're in the cab on the way to see Jake, and I don't know why I agreed to this. Kellan seems to make me want to do things I wouldn't normally do. I feel like I've grown years in the last few days, and the feeling is starting to come back into my soul.

"What was prison like?" I ask out of the blue and Kellan laughs. I'm thankful that he laughs because I thought it might piss him off.

"Like a five start hotel," he says with a smile.

"Very funny."

"Prison is a lot of things. The food sucks. The people suck, except for a couple of them that became friends."

"You had friends there?"

"You either make friends or you die, Willow. Someone has to have your back at all times."

"But you're a big guy..."

"Big doesn't always matter in prison."

"What did you do all day?"

"Not much. Later in my sentence, I was able to do some classes so I would be better prepared for my release. I obviously worked out a lot. But mostly I sat and thought about my life. I had a lot of time to think about my mistakes and what I wanted to do differently once I got out. It was hard because I was nothing like a lot of the guys there.  I didn't grow up without a father or do drugs or murder someone on purpose. I never fit in there, but I had to pretend I did to survive."

"And Bruce didn't come see you?"

"Very seldom, and when he did he was distant and angry. The relationship we used to have drifted away over time. I'm just a responsibility to him now, but not a son." He says it in a matter of fact tone, but I know it bothers him a lot. "Prison was lonely, boring and a very dark part of my life. I'd love to wipe my mind clean of the memories I have from it, but that's not going to happen."

"You saw... bad things... there?" I don't know why I'm prying like this.

"All the time. My first cell mate was stabbed to death while we were in the yard one day. Apparently, he was from a rival gang of this one guy named Hawk. One minute he was talking to me lifting weights, the next he was dead on the ground."

"Oh my God, Kellan. I'm so sorry."

"Don't be. It's a different world in there, Willow. It's like a movie in my mind. It feels unreal, ya know? My cell mate, Mikey, was in prison for killing a woman during a robbery. Some would say he deserved what he got." He shrugs his shoulders, but I know it has to bother him.