Released (Caged 3)

“He only wanted to

protect you,” I heard her whisper.

“Well, he didn’t!” I snapped. “He didn’t fucking protect me at all!”

“I know!” she sobbed. “It didn’t work! Nothing worked! And then you were…you were just gone!”

I didn’t move from the window as I tried to tune out her crying. It didn’t work, which wasn’t surprising. My chest clenched, and though I wasn’t hyperventilating any longer, I was still dizzy.

“We looked for weeks, Liam,” she said. “After…after the funeral. There was no sign of you—none! The police kept looking for you, but every time they thought they found you, it was someone else. When the report came in…when they finally did really find you…”

Another choking sob.

“You…the way you were living…and you wouldn’t leave! You wouldn’t talk to us! You said you’d rather go to jail than come home with us! You had been strung out for…for days, they said! You almost overdosed! Liam, you used to lecture our friends about smoking when you were in kindergarten, and you were using heroin!”

A shiver went thought my body.

The warehouse.

I knew the place she meant. There were vague, heroin-clouded memories of police cars, an ambulance, a coroner…but nothing concrete.

Been dead for days…

Should be condemned…

Goofy, drugged-up kids…

“Liam?” Erin’s voice floated over to the window and bounced back into my face. “Can you speak to me?”

“I…I don’t remember…” I admitted. “I don’t remember any of that.”

“Would you sit back down?”

I let her lead me back to the chair—the one opposite Mom on the couch. A blood vessel in my temple throbbed, and I stared at the area rug on the floor. In order to push the memories from my head, I tried to make some sense out of the patterns on the rug. I couldn’t. It was random and pointless.

“Liam?” Erin asked again. I eventually looked up at her after she repeated my name a few times. “Do you remember what we talked about before? Your concern about Tria when she first told you she was pregnant?”

“Um…” I cleared my throat again. “Yeah.”

“There were things you were thinking then…things you said to Tria.”

“That shit…” I wanted to say it didn’t matter—that it wasn’t the same. I wanted to deny it all, but I couldn’t. Instead, I looked up into my mother’s eyes for the first time.

Pants creased, hair beginning to fall out of its pins, makeup smeared.

When had she ever done anything but try to make it right? When had I done anything but try to push her away?

“I…I…I can’t…” I stuttered, and then I remembered what Erin said earlier and started tapping my finger on my knee.

“I think that’s enough for now,” Erin said immediately. I could see my mother’s surprise, but it didn’t matter to my counselor. Twenty seconds later, she had ushered Mom out the door. She was gone less than a minute before she came back in and knelt beside me.

“You okay?”

“I don’t know,” I said. “I think…maybe.”

“Pretty intense?”

“Yeah.”