Bound by Memories

by Kaje Harper

  He grabbed my sleeve. Fast as a snake, I hit his grip off my arm, harder than I meant to, my other fist coming up. Adam flinched back, his empty palms held out. “Sorry! God, Donnie, I’m really sorry, just don’t go yet. Please!”

  I dropped my fist and whirled away to hide the water in my eyes. I almost hit Adam. First time I saw him in years, and I about punched him. “I’m the one that’s sorry. It was a reflex, that’s all. Just, um, don’t grab me.”

  “I won’t.” His voice went soft and slow. “I just want to talk to you. A few minutes, an hour. I want to know you’re okay. I’ve missed you so fucking much!”

  Adam was always braver than me. I muttered, “Yeah.” Me too.

  He paused, like he was deciding what was safe to ask a wild man like me. I stared at the tree. There was a big teddy underneath it with this round little mirror on its stomach. I could see a warped view of Adam, half his face, looking at me, his gaze steady but his lips pressed together uncertainly. After a moment he said, “When did you get out?”

  “Six months ago.”

  “You didn’t tell anyone?”

  I shrugged. I didn’t want anyone to see me walk out those prison gates an ex-con.

  “What did you do?”

  “Looked for a job. Found one after a while.” Crappy job, cleaning public bathrooms. Me, a couple of illegal aliens, and a guy who was usually stoned. Right at minimum wage. “Saved a little money.” Mostly by squatting rather than paying rent, eating at free kitchens. My pride went, somewhere in that long, hard first year. Now I was all about making it through by whatever worked.

  “I’d have come—” He stopped, cleared his throat. “No. It was your choice. I have to respect that.”

  I choked a laugh. “Sounds like something your mom would have said.”

  “You know she— she’s not with us anymore?” His voice had gone rough.

  “I went by the graveyard.”

  “Ah.” It was more a breath than a word.

  I still didn’t turn.

  “After I woke up in the hospital and got to where I could think about things besides the broken bones, I tried to get in touch with you. A bunch of times. I know Mom tried too, right from the beginning. They always said you didn’t want to see us, wouldn’t take our letters.”

  “No point.” I hadn’t wanted what happened after I was arrested to touch them. Adam and his mom, even his brother and dad— they were special. Clean. By then I was pretty damned dirty.

  “Of course there was a point!” In the little bear-tummy mirror, I saw Adam run a hand over his close-cut hair. “Well, anyway. At some point, Mom said we had to respect your choices. She said I could send a letter now and then, so you’d know I hadn’t forgotten. But it was up to you to decide if you wanted to write back or let us in.”

  “I’m so sorry. About your mom.” My throat tightened so much I had to force the last word out, like a grunt. How classy.

  But Adam stepped a little nearer. “She thought about you a lot, even at the end. She would say she hoped you were all right, or she wished she had enough time to wait for you to get out.”

  “Fuck. Don’t tell me that.” I blinked hard, because if I wiped my eyes, he’d know. “How old is the munchkin? Your brother’s brat?”

  “He’s two. She got to have some time with him.”

  Figured Adam would understand why I asked. I nodded a bunch of times. “Well. That’s good. I should go.”

  “Can’t we talk? I want to know what you’re doing next. Where you’ll be staying. I want to tell you about my life and the stupid shit I’m doing.”

  “I don’t need to know about your shit.”

  “You were all up in my shit once.”

  “Jesus, Adam!”

  “Donnie!” He mimicked my tone, then softened again. “We were best friends and boyfriends and more. That didn’t go away for me because you were driving drunk and got in an accident. Or even because you pled guilty to a bunch of charges and served time. I was drunk in the same damned car, remember?”

  “I pled guilty to fucking criminal vehicular homicide, Adam. Not just DUI or open bottle.” Well, those too, although the open can of beer under my seat had been his. I wondered how much he remembered. Probably not much, given that he was in hospital for months afterward. Him and Nate both got hurt. It was a wonder their mom didn’t curse my name.

  “You’re all healed up, right?” I asked. I had nightmares about what I’d done to Adam. Even after I finally opened one of his mom’s letters, just to know for sure, and she said they were both good now.

  “Yeah. Everything healed fine. It’s you I want to hear about.”

  “I did time. I’m a con. I did shit inside I’m not fucking proud of. You don’t know me anymore.”

  “I want to.”

  “You don’t.”

  “The hell I don’t. You get to speak your mind, but you’ve got to respect my opinion too. I’ve been waiting to see you again, Donnie.”

  “I call bullshit. You gonna tell no-one else has been in your pants in six years?” It was fucking stupid that I held my breath in some illogical brain-freeze of hope.

  Stupider that the breath left my chest when he said, “Of course there has. I’ve dated a couple of guys, messed around with a few more.”

  “Me too,” I grunted. “Without the dating part. So—”

  “Donnie. None of those guys were you. Not one of them stopped me from wondering what you were doing, how you felt, what was happening to you, pretty nearly every day.”

  That what-was-happening shit was stuff I was never gonna tell him. But his words were a little flame in my cold body. “Oh.”

  He moved closer. “I want to get to know you again. So we’ve both changed? That doesn’t mean we can’t be friends.”

  And more? I hadn’t wanted to fuck anyone in a long time, but my whole body came alert at the thought of naked Adam. The buzz was great for a moment, but then it got swamped by nausea. I gritted my teeth. As right as Adam had been for me once, he was dead wrong now. But the idea of having him back as a friend was more damned seductive than sex. “I could maybe hang around for an hour.”

  “Good! God, that’s great. Just wait right there, okay? Don’t move. Promise?”

  “Um. All right.”

  “That’s a promise?”

  “Yeah.”

  He hurried off and I stood there like a dummy. It was my chance to get lost for good, but I didn’t, because I’d never once broken my word to Adam.

  I heard him return after a moment. “Here.” He moved up close behind me, slowly, but not stopping until I could feel his heat through the worn denim of my jeans.

  “Here, what?” I stared down at the mirror on the bear, even though Adam was hidden behind my warped reflection.

  “Here. A Christmas present.”

  I didn’t move, deliberately speaking rough. “I ain’t got nothin’ for you.”

  “Don’t be dumb. I don’t need anything. Put out your hand.” He stood close enough for me to feel his breath on my neck, his chest against my shoulder as he sneaked an arm around me, holding something in his closed hand.

  I didn’t want to take anything from him. It was too much, too hard. But it’d been six years since I’d got a gift. Unwillingly, I raised my arm, opened my hand. He dropped something into it, a cool metal shape with a tangle of bits. I looked more closely.

  The basic part was a Swiss Army knife, a good one with all the attachments. I knew the very one. The week before everything went to hell we’d been looking at online catalogs, picking out good shit. I’d seen this, with everything from a saw blade to a pair of tweezers, and wanted it, even though there was no way I could’ve afforded it.

  I turned it in my hands. It had a little loop at one end, to hang it by. Attached to the loop were a bunch of random things, like a lumpy tassel of charms.

  Adam murmured, “You said the knife was perfect. That a guy could get out of just about any tight spot with that. I bought it for you, the
first year, when I thought I could still visit you for Christmas.”

  I snorted loudly to cover the ache of that. “Dumbass. They’d never let you give a guy in prison a knife.”

  “I know that, Dumberass. I thought I’d show you a picture, like a promise. And give you that.” He reached into my palm, and ticked one of the little charm-things with his finger tip.

  “What the hell is that?”

  “A four-leafed clover. A real one, inside liquid plastic. An Irish one. They promised on the website. For luck.”

  “You believed a website? It’s probably from China. Probably a mutant Chernobyl clover.”

  “Chernobyl’s in northern Ukraine, not China.” He flipped another of the charms, a silver shape. “That was for your nineteenth birthday. It’s Navajo, with a sun and an arrow for luck.”

  It was a little tarnished, like real silver. I swallowed.

  “Now, this one is Chinese.” I heard a smile in his voice. “A jade coin.” He tapped the others. “A rudrakesh nut, a new penny, the nail from a horseshoe, a sprig of rosemary.” He leaned in closer, his head alongside mine. “I made the little cover for the rosemary from a stamp case. Then here— an actual ancient scarab. A freaking mini rainbow unicorn, because I saw it when we were ordering ornaments for the store last year. I wouldn’t have brought that to a prison, though.”

  I closed both hands over the whole thing, hiding it, holding it. “No rabbit’s foot?”

  “Not very lucky for the rabbit, is it? Nope, no dead feet.”

  “Oh.” I could feel all the little edges and corners pressing into my palms. “Thanks.”

  “Merry Christmas, Donnie. I’m glad I finally was able to give it to you. Whatever comes next, that’s how much good luck you deserve.”

  “I don’t fucking deserve anything.”

  “How much luck I want you to have, then.”

  Wouldn’t that be something different? I slid the knife with the charms into my pocket.

  Adam’s voice was like smoke in my ear. Soft, almost unnoticeable. “Will you stay? At least for a while? Let me get to know you again and make sure you’re going to be okay? You’re welcome at the house—” He must’ve felt me shiver because he went on smoothly, “—or you could use the room behind the office here. The heating still sucks, but at least the floor has a carpet now. The couch is still the same one.”

  I had some damn fond memories of that room, both the couch and the old concrete floor. I’d sometimes slept in there when my mom was boozed up and I didn’t want to go home. It was a cold little space, meant as an employee break room, musty, sparsely furnished, not a place people usually want to linger. But there was a bathroom next to it, and a little window onto the open space of the tree nursery, and the couch was long.

  I didn’t want to admit how good it sounded. “Yeah, maybe.”

  About the Author

  I get asked about my name a lot. It’s not something exotic, though. “Kaje” is pronounced just like “cage” – it’s an old nickname, and my pronouns are she/her/hers. I was born in Montreal but I’ve lived for 30 years in Minnesota, where the two seasons are Snow-removal and Road-repair, where the mosquito is the state bird, and where winter can be breathtakingly beautiful. Minnesota’s a kind, quiet (if sometimes chilly) place and it’s home.

  I’ve been writing far longer than I care to admit (*whispers – forty-five years*), mostly for my own entertainment, usually M/M romance (with added mystery, fantasy, historical, sci-fi…) I also have a few Young Adult stories (under the pen name Kira Harp).

  My first professionally published book, Life Lessons, came out from MLR Press in May 2011. I have a weakness for closeted cops with honest hearts and teachers who speak their minds, and I was delighted and encouraged by the reception Mac and Tony received.

  I now have a good-sized backlist in ebooks and print, including Amazon bestseller The Rebuilding Year and Rainbow Award winner for “Best Mystery-Thriller” Tracefinder: Contact. Readers can find a complete list of my books with links on my website at https://kajeharper.com/books/

  I’m always pleased to have readers find me online:

  Website: https://kajeharper.com/

  Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/KajeHarper

  Facebook group: Kaje’s Conversation Corner: https://www.facebook.com/groups/208207893795147/

  Goodreads Author page: https://www.goodreads.com/author/show/4769304.Kaje_Harper

  Other Books by Kaje Harper

  Self-Published/Indie:

  Changes Coming Down (Changes #1)

  Changes Going On (Changes #2)

  Tracefinder: Contact (Tracefinder #1)

  Tracefinder: Changes (Tracefinder #2)

  Tracefinder: Choices (Tracefinder #3)

  The Family We’re Born With (Finding Family #1) – free novella

  The Family We Make (Finding Family #2)

  Rejoice, Dammit

  Unfair in Love and War

  (in the charity anthology Another Place in Time)

  Not Your Grandfather’s Magic

  (in the charity anthology Wish Come True)

  Don’t Plan to Stay

  Love and Lint Rollers

  Second Act

  Marked by Death (Necromancer #1)

  Powered by Ghosts (Necromancer #2)

  A Midnight Clear

  Audiobooks:

  Into Deep Waters – Narrated by Kaleo Griffith

  The Rebuilding Year – Narrated by Gomez Pugh

  Life, Some Assembly Required – Narrated by Gomez Pugh

  Building Forever – Narrated by Gomez Pugh

  Re-releases:

  The Rebuilding Year (Rebuilding Year #1)

  Life, Some Assembly Required (Rebuilding Year #2)

  Building Forever (Rebuilding Year #2.5)

  Sole Support

  Gift of the Goddess

  Fair Isn’t Life

  Re-releasing in 2021:

  Life Lessons (Life Lessons #1)

  Breaking Cover (Life Lessons #2)

  Home Work (Life Lessons #3)

  Learning Curve (Life Lessons #4)

  Unacceptable Risk (Hidden Wolves #1)

  Unexpected Demands (Hidden Wolves #2)

  Unjustified Claims (Hidden Wolves #3)

  Unsafe Exposure (Hidden Wolves #4)

  Storming Love: Nelson & Caleb

  Full Circle

  Where the Heart Is

  Ghosts and Flames

  Possibilities

  Tumbling Dreams (currently out of print)

  Free series stories:

  And To All a Good Night (Life Lessons #1.5)

  Getting It Right (Life Lessons #1.8)

  Compensations (Life Lessons #3.5)

  Unsettled Interlude (Hidden Wolves #1.15)

  Unwanted Appeal (Hidden Wolves #2.5)

  Can’t Hurt to Believe (Into Deep Waters #1.005)

  Stand-alone free novels:

  Into Deep Waters

  Nor Iron Bars a Cage

  Chasing Death Metal Dreams

  Lies and Consequences

  Laser Visions

  Stand-alone free short stories:

  Like the Taste of Summer

  Show Me Yours

  Within Reach

  Shooting Star

  A full list with blurbs, and download and buy links can be found at:

  http://www.kajeharper.com/books/