Page 137 of Ghosts Don't Cry

The thorns that wrap around my ribs mark the months inside, growing denser with each passing season. Beneath them, words about a girl with golden hair, and a ghost who wouldn’t let her see him cry. Lines of poetry I wrote in the factory given permanence on my skin.

Riley works on them during recreation time, and he’s sharp enough to see the pattern emerge.

“You really loved her, didn’t you?” he says one afternoon, adding more details to the thorns.

“Doesn’t matter now.”

“Always matters. That kind of love doesn’t disappear because you want it to.”

I can’t argue with that. Instead, I ask him to add a line under my heart.

Memory bleeds in darkness.

“Cheerful,” he mutters, but does it anyway.

Ghosts Don’t Cryis visible on my forearm every time I look down. It’s a reminder, a warning to myself of what I became.

The last time Edwards visits, it’s two weeks before my release. He doesn’t bring books with him, but a stack of papers.

“Job applications.” He spreads them out. “Construction companies. Contractors. People who need someone who understands how buildings work, and are known for employing people who have spent time in prison.”

I stare at them. At the future they represent.

“Why are you doing this?”

I’ve asked him the same question during every visit. Before he’d always just smile and deflect. This time he looks at me, then nods. “Because five years ago, I watched a kid with too much potential slip through the cracks. I did nothing then. I’m doing something now.”

“I made my own choices.”

“You made the only choices you had.” He pushes the papers toward me. “Now I’m giving you different ones.”

On the day I’m freed, I’m not the same person who went in. Five years changed me in ways I’m still learning. My body is stronger. My mind is sharper. But the biggest change is harder to define.

I know how to do more than just exist now. I still don’t have a home, or a place to stay, but I have way more confidence in my ability to survive.

Edwards is waiting outside for me. He drives me to a motel, supplies me with a cell phone, and some clothes, and refuses to leave until he’s certain I have a job, money, and a place to stay.

“You have my number and my address,” he says the day he drops me off for my first day at work. “Use them. I want to hear from you. Regularly, Ronan. Don’t make me have to track you down.”

I move between jobs. Between cities. The skills I learned inside make it easy to find work, but something inside me won’t let me settle. I can’t stay in one place, and constantly move around. Each new city, each new job site becomes temporary, another place I pass through.

True to his word, Edwards keeps in touch. If he hasn’t heard from me in a couple of days, he’ll text. Sometimes sends letters and books if I’m staying in one place for more than a week. He never mentions Lily, but he always ends our conversations the same way.

“There’s a place waiting for you here when you’re ready to come home.”

I’m not ready. Not for staying or for belonging somewhere. And I’m not sure I’ll ever be ready to go back there. It wasn’t ever my home.

But I keep his letters, and his books, and I carry them between cities because they’re proof that someone gives a damn if I survive.

Two years pass like that.

Moving. Working. Surviving.

Then his lawyer calls … and everything changes again.

Chapter Fifty-Seven

LILY