Chapter 43
REED
With the bullet come the memories.
“Let’s get out of here. My place isn’t far.”
Those are Avery’s first words to me on our third date before our drinks arrive. Her eyes are the green of fresh leaves, the green of spring, and I can’t help but cough as I set my water down on the table. I open my mouth to say something, but she’s already standing and taking my hand.
I try to fill the silence as she drives, but any time I’m about to speak, she presses a single finger to her lips and shakes her head.
We arrive and she’s on me the second we spill through her door.
We’re hot skin and hungry lips. We are need and desire, lust and want.
We are two bodies clawing at each other for the first time, both of us hungry.
But there’s something else in her eyes, too, a flash of pain swimming right beneath the surface—there and gone in an instant.
It’s a glimpse to some deeper part of her—a part I’m suddenly desperate to know because I carry that kind of pain, too.
When we finish, she rolls off of me and threads her fingers through her scarlet hair. “Okay, now we can talk.”
“That’s all it took?” I say with a laugh.
“I had to see if you were worth it first.”
“And?”
“I’d say you passed.”
And then she’s kissing me again, and I’m already in love.
But not real love. Not yet. I’ve been here before.
I’ve made that mistake, and I swore I never would again.
Which is fine, because it’s easier this way.
The flirting. The games. The way we can’t seem to keep our clothes on when we’re around each other.
How, with one look, we wind up in bed. Or on the couch, or the floor, or the table.
But this, whatever this is, is more than sex.
I can feel her seeping in. Avery is supposed to be a quick break from my self-imposed seclusion.
My “simpler” life. Except, now that I’ve met her, I can’t imagine not seeing her again, can’t envision spending the rest of my days staring out at the horizon alone.
It’s ridiculous to think I deserve anything other than that, especially after the things I’ve done, but it’s nice to dream.
So, I decide to keep her around, if only for a little while.
We talk. She tells me about her life: a good life with a mostly idyllic childhood.
She grew up in Iowa and played soccer in high school until she shredded her knee in state semifinal her senior year.
Then came college in Lawrence, Avery a Jayhawk.
Two years spent majoring in finance before she plowed into a pregnant woman downtown after a night at the bars.
“There’s something you need to know,” she tells me a month in.
Her voice drips with pain as she tells me about the accident.
She wasn’t even drunk, just distracted by her friends who were when the woman wandered onto the crosswalk.
It happened in a split second. The baby died and Avery spent a year behind bars—but the regret she feels is a life sentence.
When I don’t reply, she mistakes my silence for agreement and stands to leave. But what she doesn’t understand is that I can’t speak. Her words are razors that have sliced me to the core. “Wait,” I say, taking her by the wrist and tugging her back to the couch. “Everyone deserves a second chance.”
“Do you really believe that?” she asks through the tears.
“Yes.” And I do—for her. Never for me. There’s no forgiving what I’ve done.
Still, a part of me wants to tell her about Evelyn. The prospect of sharing my pain with someone feels like a ray of sunshine after a lifetime of rain. But it’s dangerous to tell her the truth. Especially that truth. And there’s no point: I’ve already buried Reed Aldridge. He’s long dead and gone.
I look into Avery. Of course, I do. After all the sins I’ve committed, something about her feels too good to be true. I have to be certain there’s nothing I shouldn’t be aware of—not that I expect there is. She’s never given me any reason to doubt her. But I need to be sure.
I reach out to an old contact and provide him with the specifics: Her name—Avery Carter. Her driver’s license number. Her date of birth. And then I wait, terrified I might lose this small slice of good.
But when the file arrives, it all checks out.
Avery Carter was indeed a teenage soccer player in Des Moines with an impressive slew of stats.
There’s a slice-of-life piece in the local newspaper about her time with the team and her injury.
A picture. The doctors tell her she won’t be the same.
Avery tells them she won’t give up on her dream.
She’ll never give up. And she doesn’t. But it’s not enough. She’s no longer the same.
Off she goes to Kansas University as a finance major.
Two years at the dorms. Her grades are impressive.
She’s on her way. And then comes the incident with the woman and everything stops.
The court records confirm her story. There’s a mugshot, Avery staring at the camera with eyes cupped in dark circles.
A year in Topeka Correctional. Besides the death of her mother, it’s quiet from there.
There are no marriages. No divorces. Just a trail of addresses with the last one leading to Durango.
Avery is exactly who she says she is.
Unlike me.
But I can change. I have changed. I’m not the man I once was—a selfish, misguided hypocrite who spent years blaming everyone else for his problems but himself. I won’t give Avery that man. I’ll give her the version I’m working to become. An honest man. A good man. The man she deserves.
And then it’s the little things …
We both prefer spending time at home together instead of going out.
Our mornings are lazy beautiful things spent having sex and drinking coffee.
We take hikes and spend hours exploring the trails around Durango.
Avery points out the flowers. There are so many—flowers everywhere, blooming in all kinds of shades and colors.
She sees beauty everywhere she looks, and I see the beauty in her.
She moves in. I’m nervous at first, but she’s easy to be around.
She leaves me notes. Post-it’s stuck to the mirror with sweet sayings like, You are my world!
And, I don’t know what I did to deserve you.
And, Your laugh is my favorite thing. I leave the same notes for her.
I hide them beneath her pillow and tape them to the inside of the refrigerator door.
I love your face.
I love your smile.
I love you.
On a bitter morning in February, I slip from bed early, trail into the living room, and head for the coat closet. The phone is on the top shelf, buried in the far corner, hidden beneath a pile of gloves and hats. I fish it out and power it on for the first time, and then I wait for it to ring.
Today is my birthday. I’m thirty-three years old.
Two months ago, I sent my dad a letter. In that letter I gave him this number spelled out in code.
At eight o’clock sharp, he will call like he does every year, and we will spend fifteen minutes talking about nothing.
He will complain about the prison food and ask how I’m doing.
I will say fine, just fine, and tell him a little about my life.
This year, I’ll tell him I met a girl. We’ll have a few laughs after that and then he’ll tell me he has to go.
It’s been twenty-one years since the Midland incident, and this June he will finally be freed.
It should have happened five years ago, but my old man’s a fighter who decided to beat up two prison guards.
One of them wound up with a broken arm. Jack Aldridge has never been one to do things the easy way.
I’ve only seen him a few times since he went to prison.
Once, at his sentencing and twice after, both around Christmas.
The last time I went was right before I moved back to Durango.
It was a foolish thing to do. A moment of weakness.
After losing Evelyn, I needed to lay eyes on someone who would look at me with something other than the disgust I felt for myself.
It had been so long since I’d last seen him.
He looked the same, only older, grayer. And softer somehow, a kindness in his eyes that was never there before.
We talked for an hour. He told me he was looking forward to getting out and starting fresh.
He wanted to do something right with what was left of his life.
And he wanted me to visit him again soon.
I made sure he understood why I couldn’t.
Why showing up in person in a place where I might be identified was dangerous for me.
He nodded but he made me promise him something.
“Be here when they let me out, Reed. You gotta help me get back on my feet.”
And I will. I’ll be there. I can’t wait—which is exactly what I’ll tell him when he calls.
But he doesn’t. Eight o’clock comes and goes without the phone ringing.
He’s never missed this call, not once. Still, I convince myself he’s fine, that there must be some reason for the delay.
But when the clock hits nine, I know there’s a problem.
“Clements Unit,” a woman answers when I call the prison.
“Hi, I wanted to check on an inmate. Make sure they’re okay.”
“Name?”
“Jack Aldridge.”
“One moment.” Through the phone, I hear the clacking of a keyboard, and then a pause followed by, “Oh … I’m sorry, but I can’t provide any information on his status. We have privacy regulations.”
The room around me turns to mist. She doesn’t need to say what I already know. I heard it in her hesitation, and the way her tone went flat when she spoke. My father is dead. I can feel it in my bones.
“Sir?” she says. “Sir, are you there?”
I end the call and Google his name, but nothing comes up.
There is no obituary, no death notice. There’s no news anywhere.
But there are other ways to find what I’m looking for.
I search for funeral homes and start making calls.
It only takes three—my father was buried a month ago, a man with a weak voice tells me.
The phone clicks, and I stare through the window.
The lawn is bristling with ice, everything covered in white.
I don’t know how long I remain there, staring outside, but when I turn around, Avery is standing behind me, stretching with a yawn.
“What’s the matter?” she says when she sees my face.
“My dad … he’s …” The tears come before I can finish.
She glides across the floor and pulls me into her arms. I cry for an hour.
I don’t move the rest of the day.
I don’t leave the house for a week.
And I mourn. Avery doesn’t leave me once, even when I tell her to, even when I say I know this is too much. She stays right there with me the entire time and that’s when I know I truly love her.