I didn’t take the most direct cut, Officer. I drove past the first exit, as if that would make my lawbreaking more acceptable. Into the gas station, around the McDonald’s. I shot my truck into the opening, waving a sloppy thanks over my shoulder as I zipped through three lanes of traffic. A hole in the next lane opened thanks to a distracted driver nose-down in their cell phone. We didn’t have much to work with after all the debt was paid off. He didn’t want to move across town, either, but we were lucky to find our cramped and aging little townhome at the edge of Last Waters within the school district’s limits. Honestly? He probably wished I’d died instead. Most of all, Emmet hadn’t wanted his mother to die. We had only incidental contact, the kind that happens when you share four walls and a roof and nothing else with another person. He definitely didn’t want to spend more than the barest minimum amount of time together. One right turn and I could escape this nightmare. All I needed was to hit the cross street. Only a handful were able to inch across the intersection with each cycle of the traffic lights. A line of stuck cars snaked from the red light and backed onto the highway. What did that say about someone, that their life might be better if they’d never been a part of it at all? Traffic in front of me stalled. Maybe it would have been better if I was nothing but a memory, a chewed-off curse and a no-good man who’d run out on his woman and his child.

Maybe my first mistake had been trying to live my life. But if I could cut my failure out, would there be anything left of me? I was a man born to be lonely. Was it wrapped around my heart or had it settled in my belly? Was it slipping down my leg? Spiraling up my arm? If I could find it, maybe I could cut this pulsing mass out of me that kept fucking everything up. I’d wake up clawing at my chest, desperate to find this thing that lived and writhed inside me. Late at night, this failure slithered, coiling around my lungs and squeezing everything tight. Keeping me alive, even when I didn’t want it to.

I could feel it pumping alongside my heart.

Tal bauer you and me