Page 61 of Keeping Her Under

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Thirty-Two

I don’t immediately kill myself.

I get my affairs in order first.

I put Summer Wintry in my will.

I make sure Asher is well taken care of too.

I write him a letter, telling him how much he means to me. How sorry I am for abandoning him. I tell him how much I love him.

Then I write a letter to her.

Only to immediately crumble it up and throw it in the backseat of my car.

An apology on paper sounds so fake. And it’s manipulative – a way for me to heal, not her.

So I start again, and this time, I use a judicial template I find online, framing the inheritance she’s about to receive as nothing more than monetary compensation for the crimes I committed. She is not getting my savings as a way to clear my conscience before I die. She’s getting it because she deserves it. A payment of justice without the courts.

I will burn in Hell for what I’ve done to her.

Now there’s only one more thing left for me to do.

I put the letters in the glovebox, then lean back in my seat. I keep my eyes on the building in front of me – a fucking crisis-help center less than three hours away from Summer’s.

Using the information Asher sent to my burner phone at lunch today, I check the face of everyone who comes out.

It fucking pains me that her mother isn’t even a monster like mine was. Not an addict who failed me at every turn. Autumn Wintry was never reported for hitting her children or leaving them clothesless and hungry. On paper, she seems perfect.

So why the fuck did she turn her back on her daughter? Did she not see the signs of Lance’s sick abuse? Or did she genuinely try to help her at the start, only to fail? Is her daughter nothing more than a reminder of her own uselessness?

Crisis centers only ever let you see the disease. They don’t show you the recovery. Their volunteers never get to see the fruit of their compassion. Never know when they save lives. The caller simply stops calling.

So did Autumn cut her out of her life in order to hold on to her hope about making a difference? Did she fucking choose them over her own daughter?

No. She chose herself.

There was no gallant doctor’s decision on saving the many rather than the few. Autumn is nothing more than a selfish bitch – only pretending to be good.

Hiding her ugliness under a pillar of horseshit.

She’s a hypocrite.

A terrible mother.

A self-righteous disease.

And she’s just walked out of the large, metal-and-glass building.

My hand tightens on the phone as I sit forward. I glance down at the picture on the screen again to confirm that it’s her. The same white, middle-aged blonde stares back at me.

Looking up, I keep my eyes on her. A predator in the dark.