Bozo shows up around noon with food. "Tank said you haven't eaten."
"I'm not hungry."
"Eat anyway."
He shoves a sandwich at me and I take it, eat it without tasting it.
"You good?" he asks.
"Yeah."
"You're lying."
"Yeah."
He sits down on a crate and watches me work. "This about Diesel's daughter?"
"A bit."
"What's the other part?"
"Just shit from the past."
"The past has a way of showing up when we don't want it to."
I glance at him. "You ever hurt someone you cared about?"
"Yeah, plenty of times."
"And you're okay with it?"
"No, but I learned to live with it. You can't change the past, Rush. You can only decide what you do next."
"What if what you do next is the same as what you did before?"
"Then you deal with it, but you can't live your whole life afraid of what might happen."
He sounds like Tank and it makes me want to throw something.
"Everyone keeps telling me that," I say.
"Because it's true. You're so busy punishing yourself for the past that you're not letting yourself have a future."
"Maybe I don't deserve a future."
"Bullshit. Everyone deserves a future."
"Even people who hurt others?"
"Even them—especially if they're trying to be better."
I want to believe him but the doubt is still there, sitting heavy on my chest.
"Everly makes me want things," I say quietly.
"What kind of things?"
"Good things—a life that's not just survival, someone to come home to, something normal."