Chapter 25
Levi
I didn’t hear the knocking on the front door at first because I was too busy staring at the spot where my brother’s bed had once been.
After his death, I’d taken every one of my brother’s possessions, along with the twin bed, and carried them down to the dumpsters.
I’d done it on the day the garbage was being picked up and I’d waited until after my father had gone to work to do it.
He’d beaten the shit out of me for it when he’d gotten home that night, but I hadn’t cared.
It had been worth it.
Because nothing of my brother had remained after that.
I’d even gone through the family albums my mother had left behind and found every single picture of Ricky and removed them.
I hadn’t even once considered saving any of the pictures for Henry because I hadn’t wanted him to know anything about his father.
I hadn’t really planned how I’d handle it when he grew up, but now it didn’t matter.
Because Henry was gone.
I’d thought I’d been prepared to let him go, but it had nearly killed me.
Maybe because I hadn’t expected it to happen so quickly after getting him back.
I’d still been reeling from the fact that T had taken him in the first place.
Then Phoenix had carried him out of that apartment, unharmed, and I’d lost it.
Less than an hour later, a woman from Children’s Services had shown up at my apartment to take Henry away.
She’d said it was until things could be straightened out with custody since Dina was dead.
But I knew there’d been nothing to straighten out.
Henry was gone and it was for the best.
Phoenix was gone too, but only because I’d pushed him away.
As we’d gotten back to my apartment building after the cops had arrived at T’s place, I’d taken Henry into my apartment and answered the questions the police officer who seemed to be friends with Phoenix and Ronan had asked me.
Both men had stayed with me throughout it all, but when I’d told the cop that I had a confession to make about something, Ronan had stepped in and asked his friend to give us a minute alone.
When the cop had stepped out, Ronan had told me that neither he nor his husband wished to see me go to prison for something I hadn’t done.
I’d tried arguing with him, but the man was even more stubborn than Phoenix. He told me that if I confessed, Seth wouldn’t back up my story at all. He was fully prepared to say only two people had been involved in his parents’ deaths.
None of it had made sense to me, but I couldn’t deny that I was secretly relieved.
Because I really didn’t want to go back to prison. And if Seth didn’t benefit from me being punished, it almost made the whole thing moot. In effect, Ronan and Seth had taken the wind out of my sails.
And now I had no idea what to do with myself.
After the cops had left and Henry had been taken away, it had just been Phoenix and me since my father hadn’t been around. But I hadn’t been ready to talk to Phoenix and I’d told him as much. When he’d pressed the issue, I’d told him a half-truth…that I no longer trusted him.
I’d never forget the look of hurt in his eyes for as long as I lived. He’d left after that and I hadn’t heard from him again .
My words had been partially true. Because that was how I’d felt at the time.
Now, I wasn’t so sure. Yes, he’d lied to me.
But the more I’d thought about things from his side, I’d started to understand the position he’d been in.
And I hadn’t exactly been forthcoming about my relationship with T.
Through his eyes, my actions had looked suspicious.
And while it was too late to do anything about it now, I realized if I’d told him about T and what he’d been doing, Phoenix would have believed me.
I’d been tempted to call him a few times over the past week, but every time I dialed, I hung up again.
Because I had nothing to offer him.
And because I now understood what Seth, his husband and their children meant to Phoenix. They were his family.
I couldn’t take that from him. Because even if Seth and Ronan had forgiven me, I was still a reminder of what Seth had lost, what had been taken from him. That fact didn’t exactly make for comfortable family get-togethers.
And I couldn’t begrudge Phoenix his family.
Another round of knocking had me getting up off the bed and grabbing my single duffle bag.
It was surreal to finally be leaving the place I’d spent so many of my worst years in.
I hadn’t bothered telling my father I was moving out, because I didn’t care what happened to him.
I owed him nothing and with Dina dead and Henry gone, there was nothing tying me to this hellhole anymore.
I had no clue what I was going to do, but I knew it would start at the bus station.
I had a few hundred dollars in my pocket, my last paycheck from work, and I was going to use a good chunk of it to buy a ticket to anywhere but here.
I’d been tempted to move closer to Walla Walla which was where Washington State Penitentiary was, but being closer to Hank and not being able to interact with him beyond a phone and a sheet of plexiglass didn’t make sense.
Especially since Hank had made me promise when I’d left that place, that I’d never set foot back in it, even to visit him.
Hank had been returned to prison, but I wasn’t sure if the guards would heed the warning Ronan and Phoenix’s cop friend had sent their way about Gun being a threat to Hank. My hope was that Jasper was able to watch out for Hank. With T dead, I was worried Hank would become even more of a target.
I dropped my bag next to the couch and opened the door. I froze at the sight of Seth standing on the other side.
“Hi, Levi.”
“Hi,” I managed to get out, though even the single word seemed to be a challenge for my addled brain.
“Can I come in?”
I opened the door wider for him and then looked around the room. I needed to offer him a place to sit, but the place was a mess. Beer bottles were all over the place and our couch was so old that it was ripped and stained everywhere. Humiliation flooded through me.
“Um, do you mind sitting at the kitchen table?” I finally asked.
“Sure, sounds good.”
“Do you want something to drink?” I asked, though I couldn’t offer him anything besides beer and tap water. And since it was just after eleven in the morning, I doubted a beer was on the menu.
“No, thanks.”
I sat down across from him and prayed the wobbly vinyl chair he was sitting in wouldn’t break. “What…what are you doing here?” I asked.
“I wanted to come talk to you about something.”
“Okay.” I knew I probably sounded like a suspicious jerk, but he was the last person I ever expected to see again.
“Are you going somewhere?” he asked when he saw my duffle bag.
I nodded. “I’m leaving.”
“Seattle?” he asked.
“Yeah. Too many memories,” I murmured, then realized how insensitive I sounded. “Sorry.”
He waved his hand and shook his head. “No, I hear you.”
He fell silent and an ugly thought suddenly occurred to me. “Did you and your husband change your minds?” I asked. “About pressing charges?” I hated the fear that swirled in my belly at the prospect of losing the freedom I’d just found, but I wouldn’t protest if he’d had a change of heart.
“What? No,” Seth said quickly. “I just wanted to make sure you were okay. Phoenix told me about everything you did for Henry…I know it must have been hard to lose him like that.”
I felt tears start to fall at the mention of Henry’s name. I wiped at them with my sleeve. “He was innocent, you know? I just wanted him to have the best life possible.”
“Better than the one you had?”
I briefly wondered exactly how much Phoenix had told him, but I realized it didn’t matter, so I just nodded.
“Then why are you leaving?”
“What?” I asked as I looked up at him.
“Why don’t you stay and fight for him?”
“Fight for him?” I asked. “Didn’t you hear what I said? I want him to have the best life he can.”
“And you don’t think you can give him that?” Seth asked.
Anger went through me. I wondered if he was deliberately being cruel just to get back at me.
“I never graduated high school. I’m a convicted felon.
I bag groceries and stock shelves for a living and that’s the best I’ll ever do when it comes to a career.
I’m a single, gay man with no house, no car, no money and absolutely no prospects. ”
“That’s interesting, but you didn’t actually answer my question.”
I sighed in frustration. “I could have given him all the love he ever wanted, but sometimes that’s not enough, you know?”
“No, I don’t know,” Seth returned. “After I lost my parents, I had everything you just listed. Great career, more money than I’ll ever need…
I would have traded every bit of it for five more minutes with my parents.
Not because of how much money they had or any of that shit,” he said.
“Yeah, my parents were rich and successful, but that isn’t what I miss every day.
That isn’t what made me into who I am. They loved me.
Even if they’d been the poorest people on earth, they would have loved me just the same.
That’s what sticks with me. That’s what I want to give my own children. ”
“Okay, yes, I thought about it for like five minutes and I thought I could give him the important stuff. ”
“But?”
“But I knew no one else would see it that way. They’d look at my history, my family, my future and they’d know I wasn’t good enough to be his father.”
“So that’s all that’s stopping you?” he asked.
I laughed. “Yeah, that’s all,” I said sarcastically.
Seth studied me for a moment and then he reached for his phone. When whoever on the other end answered, he said, “You can come on up.”
I tensed as I wondered if this was all some elaborate joke to mess with me. Maybe the cops were on their way upstairs to arrest me.