“You doing okay?” Haley asked softly.
“Just fine,” I lied, willing it to be true.
There was a shuffle of feet, the jingle of shackles, and then there he was, the man who had robbed my sister of her life, sitting across the table from me like this was some kind of social call or something.
Rob Shepard didn’t look like I imagined he would. When he’d been dating Chelsea, I remembered that he’d been all hard muscle, a point of pride and vanity, and hair cropped close to his skull. He’d been a pretty boy, but one with a mean streak. Chelsea had a thing for the bad boys, always certain she was the one who could help them reform their ways. It had been a terrible habit that I’d always tried to rid her of, but she had pulled away from me, telling me that she could choose whoever she wanted to date. In my darkest days, I wondered if she’d picked Rob just to spite me, meaning that I had been responsible for letting the man who ended up killing her into her life.
Rob Shepard, now, though, three years into his sentence, was a physically changed man. He was still handsome, even with the slight deformity to one side of his face thanks to me breaking his eye socket. But he didn’t carry that air of danger anymore. He’d let his hair get a little on the shaggy side or else barber skills inside the prison system were lacking. But other things had softened, too. The expression on his face was, Gold help me, humble. Open. He didn’t look angry anymore, like he was waiting for the world to throw a punch at him so he could lob one back. He also hadn’t kept up with his exercise regimen, evidently. I could detect the jiggle of a slight pudge of a belly beneath his jumpsuit. Were they just feeding him that well here, or had he really given up the bodybuilding?
“Rob Shepard,” I said, just to control the situation before he could say anything. I needed to be in control right now. If I didn’t have control of this, I had no idea what was going to happen.
“That’s me,” he said needlessly. His ID was clipped to the front of the jumpsuit, and his name was printed there for all the world to see. “You’re Chuck Rogers.”
“That’s right.”
He held out his hand and I stared at it for much longer than I should have. Was that the hand that had killed Chelsea? What would happen if I took it and shook it, like a normal human being greeting another human being? That was what people were supposed to do upon meeting, after all; polite people shook each other’s hands. It didn’t mean anything else other than smoothing over social situations, the awkwardness of meeting people for the first time. Only this wasn’t the first time I’d met Rob Shepard. Not by a long shot.
“I don’t think we’re quite ready for that,” Haley said, her voice gentle from my side. “I’m Haley Greer. Thank you, Mr. Shepard, for agreeing to meet with us.”
“It’s just Rob.” He dropped his hand to his side before holding it out again, angled at the table and chairs positioned around it. “We can sit anywhere in here. Wherever you like.”
“I think this one is just fine, but thank you,” Haley said again, and I knew I had to say something, had to regain both my control and control of this situation before everything spiraled out of hand.
“So, how’s prison treating you?” I asked, wincing inwardly at just how stupid those words were, how idiotic it was to try and make small talk with a murderer, how ridiculous this entire premise was. What, really, was I hoping to achieve by talking to this asshole? All he could do was hurt me even more. There wasn’t any point in seeing him. He’d killed my twin sister. There wasn’t any peace to be had by meeting like this.
But then, something strange happened something I hadn’t expected at all.
Rob simply held his hands out and gave me a small smile. “Prison has been an unexpected gift.”
Bile bubbled up in my throat, and I must have started forward, because I felt Haley grip my thigh, her fingers digging into the muscle through my jeans.
“What do you mean?” I asked, fighting a losing battle to keep my tone even.
“Please don’t misunderstand,” he said, eyebrows knitting together. “It’s been hard, especially at the beginning, to adjust. Prison is definitely a punishment. But I have to say that parts of it have been gifts to me that I didn’t expect.”
“Could you explain what you mean, exactly, by ‘gifts’?” Haley asked. Where was she pulling the strength from to keep her voice soft and casual? I wished she could share some of it with me.
“I guess I’m talking about being given the opportunity to make things right,” Rob said.
“I’m not sure what you mean by that, either,” I said. “You killed my sister.” I supposed there had been really no way of anticipating just what it would feel like to sit across from him and utter those words. I hadn’t been called to testify at the trial, and I couldn’t stomach sitting in the courtroom for the duration of the proceedings.
“I know that there isn’t anything I can say or do to make up for that,” he allowed. “I can’t turn back time, as much as I wish I could. And I can’t raise the dead.”
“How else are you going to make things right?” I asked him. “Just curious, here.”
“By atoning for what I did,” he said. “By taking the consequences of my actions seriously. By working to understand why I did it and working to revise those parts of myself. By accepting the punishment meted out to me.”
He talked so differently. He had, from what I remembered about our brief initial meeting, been street-hardened, had favored slang and curse words, which grated me the wrong way, especially around someone as sweet as Chelsea. My sister had a wild streak, sure, but that didn’t mean that some asshole could just blather on and on using the most vile language he knew.
“You sound a lot different now than you did before,” I said. “What has changed for you?”
“I’ve been working with a therapist, reading a lot,” he said. “I discovered that I had undiagnosed emotional issues, and those are being treated with medicine. I wish I could tell you that I had some kind of dream or vision or revelation when I first got in here, and that was what inspired me to change my life, but it all happened so gradually. You have nothing but time in here, and I came to the realization that I wanted to do something worthwhile with mine so it wouldn’t be wasted.”
Haley was so quiet beside me that it was easy to forget she was here. Her presence was so important, though. I doubted I would’ve been able to get through this without her.
“May I ask you a question?” Rob asked politely enough, but it was something that threw me for a loop. What could he possibly want from me?
Haley looked to me, and I could do nothing except nod.
“Why are you here?”
It was a fair enough question, and one I hadn’t thought I’d had a good enough answer for until now.
“I’m here because I wanted to look you in the face and let you know that your actions have had lasting repercussions,” I said. “I wanted you to know that Chelsea deserved better than the end you gave her. And most of all, that she is in a better place than you, and so am I.”
Rob nodded at this. “I don’t know if it will mean much of anything to you, but I want to tell you that I am deeply sorry. I was a different person back then, and I didn’t process emotions in a healthy way. I am so sorry that Chelsea bore the brunt of this. I am so sorry I hurt your family.”
And maybe that was what I’d been waiting for an apology. Rob had been right. It didn’t make things better, and saying he was sorry for killing someone I loved was pretty useless. Sorry didn’t make things right. Sorry didn’t bring my sister back to me. But it did mean that he felt something for what he’d done.
As a creeping disquiet made me restless in my seat, sweat creeping down my back, Rob detailed the books he’d been reading, the counseling techniques he’d been practicing, his desire to make the most of his time and resources while paying for what he did to my sister. It was interesting to hear, but I didn’t know how much more I could take before doing or saying something I would regret.<
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Haley seemed to sense that, glancing over at me as I squirmed. “Rob, I think we should really be going. Thank you for giving us some of your time today.”
“All I have is time,” he said. “Please don’t hesitate to visit again if you want to talk about anything else, or have any questions.”
I left mutely, unable to shake the hand that he offered me again, to say goodbye, to even act like a regular human being. I just needed to get out of there as soon as possible.
“Are you okay?” I was walking so quickly that Haley was forced to trot to keep up. “Chuck? Talk to me.”
“I just want to go home,” I said. I wanted to get away from here. Because maybe the worst revelation of all was that even though Rob had done a really bad thing, he was turning out to be not such a bad guy. It would’ve been easier if I had come out of that prison with someone tangible to hate a real villain. It would’ve focused my energies and feelings onto one fixed point, but I realized I was conflicted. Of course I hated that Rob had killed my sister. And it wouldn’t have logically made sense for me to want him to continue being the person who had made that terrible error in judgment. Rob’s sentence wasn’t going to be for life. It was for years, but it meant that he would, one day, be released again. I wouldn’t have wanted him to be back in public again if he was at risk of losing his shit so thoroughly that he’d kill someone else. That would’ve meant that Chelsea’s death meant nothing. It was a good thing that Rob was getting the help he needed in prison. It was a good thing that, when he was eventually released, years down the road, he would have the skills and abilities required to avoid losing his temper like that on someone again. So it didn’t make sense, the conflict that was raging inside of me. I should’ve been happy. If not happy, then at least relieved that prison wasn’t going to make Rob into a bigger monster than what he already was. That he would be ready to reenter society when the opportunity came to him. That he wouldn’t kill again.
Maybe I just wished that all this personal growth and development for him would’ve happened sooner. Like three years sooner. Before he met Chelsea.
“Everything’s okay,” Haley promised me. “Everything’s okay. You did really well.”
I didn’t feel like I’d been good in there, or that anything was going to be okay, but I just let her voice wash over me, fastened my helmet, dimly registered her arms around my middle, and let my throttle scream at the sky like I wished I could let go and do. Because this was insane. It had been ridiculous to expect closure from meeting with my sister’s killer. It had been stupid to assume that anything positive would come of it. If possible, I was even more confused and torn up now than I had been before all of this. It felt like the wound I’d gained when I’d lost my sister was reopened again, fresh blood leaking out, even after three years of dubious healing.
When we finally got home, I hardly remembered getting inside Haley’s house. I was afraid she might have been forced to half carry me, and I hated that for her, hated to be that kind of burden. But we somehow made it into her room, into her bed, and we sank into each other. Her body was a comfort to me, and we rocked back and forth, slowly, leisurely, making sure we felt good together.
“I’m sorry,” Haley murmured, and I realized she’d been saying it over and over again, like a litany. “I’m sorry.”
It made me pause in my movements, our sweat mingling. Droplets ran down my cheeks and I didn’t know if it was exertion or tears.
“You don’t have anything to be sorry about,” I said.
“Today hurt you,” she said, looking up at me, her eyes shimmering with tears of her own. “That means I hurt you.”
“You didn’t force me to go, sweetheart. I went because I wanted to.”
“I can’t stand to see you hurt, Chuck. I just can’t do it. Especially because it was my idea.”
“Everything is going to be okay,” I said, echoing Haley’s worried assurances from earlier today, outside the prison. Only this time, saying it aloud, I realized that I truly believed it. “Everything is going to be okay.”
I tried to prove it to her by moving, angling my thrusts into her body in the way I knew she liked it, each pump a promise that I was going to be okay, that we were okay. That I loved Haley for suggesting this, as hard as it must have been. Because she’d known, somehow, that this would help me. That it would hurt, like ripping off a bandage, but that it was necessary. Healthy. Cathartic.
It was an affirmation of life, this love-making. I had done a hard thing and emerged on the other side of it. If I wasn’t victorious, then I was at least stronger for having done it. I realized that I might’ve been leaking fresh blood from the wound of my sister’s murder, but the scabbing and scarring that had covered it previously had been infected, poisoned. I’d never properly dealt with the feelings I had at her death. I’d shut them away, had been pushed out by my grieving parents, and had run from everything I’d known. That was the funny thing about the past, though. You could try to run from it, but it would always catch up to you, once the veneer of your new life lost its luster. Because you could run from people and places and things, but you could never fully get away from yourself. As long as I bore those wounds from not having my twin sister in my life anymore, I was going to have to find some way to cope. Adapt or die. Figure out how to reconcile myself to this reality, or wither within it.
And because of Haley, I was finally beginning to suspect that, despite my very best efforts not to, I was going to get through this.
Weeks later, when life was finally getting back to normal, I had a strange idea in the middle of the work day. It was indeed strange, but it was also so compelling that I left the shop, just walked away from the tires I was changing, and went to the post office. I bought a pad of paper and a small box of envelopes and used the pen they kept on a chain to write.
“Dear Mom and Dad,” I scratched, painfully aware that my handwriting was atrocious. “I just wanted to let you know that I was thinking about you both. I’ve recently been to Chelsea’s grave, and the entire cemetery has been well maintained. I love you and wish you the best.”
I paused, wondering if I should add in something about Rob Shepard, but decided against it. They probably wouldn’t take that little tidbit very well. Instead, I signed the letter, sealed it in the envelope, and bought a stamp to affix to the corner before dropping it in a slot. This would be the first contact with my parents since I left my hometown, and I had just experienced an irresistible urge to reach out to them. I didn’t know if it would make anything better, or if I was looking to solve anything at all. It had just felt like the right thing to do. I wanted my parents to know I was still here, that their son was still alive and kicking in spite of everything.
And in just a few days, I had an envelope waiting for me in my mailbox, addressed in my mother’s spindly cursive. Piece of paper by piece of paper, stamp by stamp, my parents and I rebuilt our relationship slowly, cautiously.
I was getting my life back, bit by bit, and none of it would’ve been possible without Haley.
Chapter 9
The weekend before Easter was one of Horizon MC’s favorite fundraisers. We shut down the entire townwell, the main street, which included the bar and the park and several of the historic buildings that were in the process of being revitalized and threw a massive egg hunt for kids throughout the county. I’d even heard that parents were planning on busing kids in from farther away than just the next town over, but that would just make it more exciting. There were eggs and prizes for everyone, and food and raffle ticket sales would benefit the school district, going directly into a fund that helped teachers purchase supplies for their classrooms. The idea for this event had originally belonged to Sloan, whose mother was a teacher. He’d seen her struggle throughout his childhood to afford to do right by her family but also devote enough time and resources to make school a wonderful experience for her students. Sloan remembered many a time that his mother had given up her own lunch, packed from home, fo
r a student who wasn’t able to bring one that day, or the spare change she scrounged to buy supplies for a class project, or new books to ignite her students’ interests.
It was good work, giving back to teachers like this fundraiser did. Teachers handled the most precious cargo of the communitychildren and they should’ve had more resources at their disposal to make the educational experience the best one possible. I tended to think of Chelsea a lot during this springtime fundraiser, of how she would’ve been in a classroom. I imagined that her students would return to her year after year just to say hello and tell her how they were doing because they loved her so much.
What was even more special this spring was that the renovations on the park had been completed. Our winter fundraiser, which had taken place in the dusty and dilapidated space, had raised enough money forthe town to completely revitalize the park. It now boasted new playground equipment so different from the rusty death-traps that had previously chased children away a large pavilion and picnic area, and a wealth of native plants in the landscaping. Rio Seco was still firmly located in the desert, but the new park was like a breath of fresh air, an oasis for families in the town. It was the nicest park in the county, and it had been nominated for a design award, which would be announced later this year.
The morning of the egg hunt was always the most exciting to me, but it was even more fun this year. I’d convinced Jack to put both Haley and me on egg-hiding duty, and we roamed the main street and the park with garbage bags full of eggs that everyone had worked on filling the night before, after the bar had closed. It was nice to spend this kind of time with Haley, relaxed, not consumed with angst over my sister or worried about how Haley perceived me. Doing this simple but fun task was something of a relief from all things painful.
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