“She’s better off without me. She’s going to college. She has a future ahead of her I will never comprehend and shouldn’t even be a part of. She should be with someone like her.”
“And who’s that exactly?” Mac contends.
“Someone rich and smart. Someone who deserves her. Who can give her everything she’s used to. Not some guy who’s never going to amount to anything and stuck behind bars.” This is the last place I would ever want her to find me. I’d rather she think I was dead.
Mac shakes his head at me. “You are dumber than I thought if you believe anything you just said.”
“Just let it go. She’ll get over me eventually.”
“The question is, will you get over her?”
No. Probably, never.
* * *
I’m standingin front of the judge. I’m wearing a dark blue jumpsuit, and my hands are shackled in front of me. I am a pathetic excuse for a human being. But what makes this whole situation worse is that I’m staring straight into a pair of reddish-brown eyes that painfully remind me of what I’ve lost. Of what I will never get back.
He’s everything she described. A well-groomed, stocky man with salt and pepper hair and an ice-cold demeanor.
Nothing like the smart, warmhearted goddess I fell in love with. I understand everything now. Why Alana was so closed off, why she fought to let me in. I understand why she said she never wanted me to be like her. Because commanding the gavel in front of me is one soulless motherfucker.
“How do you plead, Mr. Pierce?”
“Guilty.”