“It can really shorten my sentence?” I ask.
He nods. “Maybe. It’s up to the judge. And depends on how things go at camp.” He sobers and looks directly into my eyes. “Pete, I think you could help with the boys I’ve invited to the camp. With all of them. You can help with the hearing-impaired boys, the ones who can’t talk, and the ones from the youth program. I think you can do brilliant things. I believe in you, Pete, and I want to give you an opportunity to prove you’re better than this.” He makes a sweeping gesture that encompasses the room.
Better than jail? Am I better than what I have become? I am not so sure.
“Do we have a deal?” he asks.
I nod and stick out my hand again for him to shake. “We have a deal.”
“Do you need for someone to pick you up in the morning?” he asks.
I shake my head. “I can get here.”
“I’ll see you at six a.m.” He claps a hand on my shoulder and points toward the door. “I believe your family is waiting outside.”
My heart trips a beat. It’s been so long. I can’t imagine what it’s going to be like to be with them again. To feel normal.
I nod and bite my lower lip. But I steel my spine and walk out the door. The guards lead me by the guard station and toward the door, where they give me a bag of my belongings and ask me to check it. I slide my wallet into the back pocket of my jeans. I put my watch back on my wrist. I drop my piercings into my pocket. I might be able to get at least some of them back in later.
“Ready?” Mr. Caster asks. I don’t realize he is right beside me until I look into his eyes. Very softly he says, “Stop worrying so much. They’re the same family you left two years ago.”
They might be, but I’m the one who’s different. I nod my head, though. I can’t speak past the lump in my throat.
I shove against the door, pressing hard on the lock bar, pushing, and then I find myself outside the walls of the prison for the first time in two years. I take a deep breath and look up at the sky. Then I see my brothers waiting at the end of the walk and the lump in my throat grows twice the size. I blink hard, trying to squeeze back the emotion.
Paul, my oldest brother, is standing beside Matt, who has the biggest grin on his face. His hair has grown back, and it’s gotten longer than I’ve ever seen it on him. He told me in a letter that he had decided to let it grow out now that he knows what it’s like to lose it all to cancer. He’s recovering. I missed it all because I was behind bars. But that’s one of the reasons why I was there. I thought I could help him and just ended up getting myself in trouble.
Logan is standing with his arm draped over his girlfriend Emily’s shoulder. She looks up at him like he hung the stars and the moon. He points and smiles toward me, and she looks up and yells. Then she wiggles out of Logan’s arms and runs toward me full force. She hits me hard in the chest, her arms wrapping around my neck. I lift her off the ground and spin her around as she squeezes me. She murmurs in my ear. “I’m so glad you’re coming home,” she says. “We missed you so much.”
I look around. Someone is missing. “Where’s Sam?” I ask. Her face falls, and she looks everywhere but at me. Sam’s my twin, but he’s not here. My gut clenches. I really hoped he would be.
“He’s stuck at school. You know how tight school schedules can be.” She won’t look me in the face, so I know she’s lying. I put my arm around her for a second and walk toward my brothers, but it’s only a few steps before Paul jerks me away from Emily and wraps me up in a big bear hug. He squeezes me so tightly that my breath jerks out of me.
“Let me go, you big ox,” I grunt out, but when he does, he grabs my head in his hands and runs his fingers through my prison cut. My hair’s so short it’s not much more than fuzz on the top of my head.
Logan punches me in the arm, and I turn to look at him. Logan’s deaf, and he uses sign language. But after eight years of silence, he started to talk right before I went to prison. He signs while he speaks.
“Somebody scalp you while you were sleeping?” he asks, pointing to his hair. It’s so strange hearing words come out of Logan’s mouth. He went so long without speaking. But Emily brings out the best in him, including his voice. “It looks like you went three rounds with a weed eater. And lost.”
Before I can answer, he’s pulling me in for a hug. Logan’s special. He’s wicked smart, and he’s ultra talented. Emily’s his and everyone knows it. They’re meant to be together forever, and no one doubted it from the first night he brought her home with her ass tossed over his shoulder and her Betty Boop panties showing.
Logan lets me go, and I look at Matt. He looks so healthy he’s glowing. “Speaking of haircuts,” I say, pulling on a lock of his hair. “When do you think you might get one?”
He cuffs me gently on the side of my head and pulls me into his shoulder. God, I have missed them.
“We’re going to start calling you Goldilocks,” I warn. We’re all blond, and some of us are more blond than others.
“Try it, asswipe,” he jokes as he punches my shoulder. “It’s been a long time since we’ve had a good match.”
Emily wraps her arm around my forearm and squeezes. “I think you’re bigger than when you went in,” she says.
“Not much else to do but work out and read.” I shrug.