“This isn’t about turning you into someone you aren’t. This is about giving yourself a chance to be who you are without the world you lived in dragging you down. Once I got used to having . . . just simply having whatever I needed, it was easier to concentrate on what I wanted to do, who I wanted to be.”
“Looks like you did good,” she whispered as she looked back to the water.
“I did well,” I corrected, unable to help myself. She turned to me again with twisted features. “When you came back, you know, to get me, I couldn’t
believe it was you at first. You were so well dressed, so put together, so damned pretty, and I was so shocked that you came. I was afraid to go to you, afraid that somehow me being around you would ruin this new version of you. I didn’t want to screw it up for you.”
I tried to understand her selfless reasoning because deep down I knew my selfishness was the reason I stayed away for so long.
If there were ever a time to open up to someone, that was the moment. For years, I’d kept a side of myself hidden from my every business associate, every acquaintance, from every lover, every friend. Aside from the small piece of myself I’d revealed to Daniello, I had maintained my silence regarding that part. But Amber was here now, just as broken as I was when I left Tennessee. I moved to stand closer to her as I freed myself for the first time in years to finally tell her all that I felt.
“Some days I am paralyzed with guilt over having left you. I try to wrap myself up in justification for leaving, but it didn’t matter how I escaped or how well I did with my freedom after or how successful I became. I couldn’t stop the horrible guilt attached to leaving you there. I—” My voice cracked as a flood of emotions took hold of me. “She was a terrible mother, a monster, and they were horrible parents. What she did to you, to us . . .” I paused again as I choked on a sob. I saw twin tears slide down Amber’s face as she listened to me finally come clean.
“I did everything I could to protect you and in the end, I just . . .” I let a sob escape me. “I just left you there. To fend for yourself. God, you were so small, so helpless. You needed me, and I ran. I’m so sorry, Amber.” She lifted her hands to her face as her whole body began to shake. “I don’t feel like I deserve your forgiveness, but I want it. I so selfishly want it.”
“There’s nothing to forgive.”
“That’s not true,” I said, taken aback.
“I’m a mother, and so I see it a bit more clearly than you.” She pulled her hands away from her face, scrubbing her tears before she looked at me. Her red-rimmed eyes kept me still as she spoke. “It’s the mother’s job to protect her child. You did the right thing by leaving. You would have just been another version of me, or maybe worse. It wasn’t your job to protect me. It was our mother’s. And she can burn in hell for what she did to both of us.”
We stayed silent as I stewed on her words, knowing even if that were the truth, I’d never really see it that way. I could have done more. But my selfish reasons for staying away would always haunt me. So, I gave her more truth.
“I still get scared, Amber, afraid that this life I built will all disappear one day and I’ll again be that penniless kid surrounded by a world of shit. That’s why I work so damned hard, to make sure it doesn’t happen, to make sure I never have to go back to that. Even if my thoughts are irrational, even if with every dollar I make and with every mile I keep between me and that fucking place, I still have that fear.” I felt the heavy weight of my next words but pressed on, knowing she deserved the truth.
“It will never go away. At least it hasn’t for me. I can go for days, and if I’m lucky, months without thinking of her, of the past. But when I do, it can hit hard. That sick feeling creeps in, and I can’t do anything about it.”
Amber looked over to me. “You put on a brave front.”
“It got easier. The more time I spent away, the longer I was able to maintain. I got stronger. That’s what I’m hoping for, for you.”
“Are you happy?” It was the same question I’d asked Daniello and just as hard to answer. Knowing I had already bared the deepest part of myself, I told the truth.
“I’m busy. That’s all I’ve ever been since I left. Lately, I’ve been restless, so much so to the point I’ve been reckless. Content . . . maybe. God knows I’ve worked hard enough for it.”
She nodded as she watched me. We stood quietly for several minutes.
“About Laz,” she started.
“Please, Amber, don’t try to plead his case. Your history with him is very different from mine. I am curious how you even became involved with him.”
She swallowed and took a step toward me. “It was right after you left. A few days after you went missing, he came to the house.” I waited, a dead part of me threatening to come to life as she continued. “He was out of his mind high and threatened Momma, telling her it was all her fault. She was scared. I could tell. Daddy wasn’t home.” Amber bent down and picked up a light orange seashell, brushed the sand off, and then put it in her pocket. “Before he left, he looked over at me and promised he would bring you home.”
I fought my budding emotion, pressing in hard to keep it down. Laz was dead to me. He’d almost killed me. I could still feel his hands on my neck, squeezing the breath out of me.
“He would come by every few months when Momma and Daddy weren’t home. He would give me a little money, check on me, and make promises he never kept.”
“He’s good at that,” I countered.
“I never expected to see you again, and I knew he didn’t either. He disappeared for a few years without a word. I knew he was still around because I heard stories about his run-ins with the law at school. He had made one hell of a reputation and was feared by a lot of people.”
I bit my lip, remembering the days and nights I’d run alongside him, causing just as much chaos. Sometimes it was hard to believe it was the same lifetime I was currently in.
“When I turned sixteen, I started working at the gas station. I did whatever the hell I could to make money and get out of that house, but Momma always took my paychecks.” She looked at me and rolled her eyes. “That’s when I saw Laz again. When he spotted me the first time, it was as if he saw a ghost. I knew he had mistaken me for you until he got a good look at me. After that day, he just kept coming by. He would talk to me a little and be on his way. I didn’t think much of it, but . . .”
I turned to her, patient, silent.
“I kind of developed a crush on him. It was stupid, really. He was so much older, but I found myself looking for him every day.”