Everly: You just said your place.
Me: I know.
Everly: Then what’s happening?
Me: I’m not running.
Everly: Then what is this?
Me: This is me not wanting the first time we do this to be in four walls that make me feel like I’m cornered.
There’s another pause.
Everly: You’re complicated.
Me: Yeah. Meet me at the coast instead. I’ll text you the location.
Everly: Why?
Me: Because I need air if I’m going to keep my word.
The dots appear, disappear, then appear again.
Everly: You’d better not be backing out.
Me: I’m not.
Everly: Then fine. Send me the location.
Me: Okay. I’m leaving now.
I get on my bike and ride. The wind is cold but I barely feel it.
My mind is still half in juvie, still seeing the blood and concrete.
Still feeling the promise I made to never lose control again.
And Everly makes that promise harder to keep every time I'm near her.
The last fight I had in juvie was a week before I got out.
I was seventeen, almost done with my sentence, almost free.
A new kid arrived, cocky and stupid. He decided to test me.
I was in the yard when he came at me, threw a punch that I saw coming from a mile away.
I could have walked away, should have walked away.
But I didn't.
I blocked the punch and hit him back, once, hard enough to drop him.
He went down and I walked away before anyone could stop me.
That night in my cell, I made the promise again. Never again, never lose control, never let the violence win.
I repeated it until I believed it, until it became the foundation I built everything else on.