Read Online Send by Patty Blount - Free Book Online Page B

along with. He and Dad fought. A lot. But when I was little, we were tight. When Dad sent me to my room, Pop was the one who talked me out of all the “You’ll be sorry” fantasies I plotted while I was mopping my tears. After I…after my arrest, Pop was the one who hired a second lawyer because the first one only wanted me to plead guilty.
    Pop had gone nuclear. Fired the guy on the spot, said we’d take our chances in court. I was terrified. “Trust me.” He’d winked and grinned, and I had trusted him. We went to court with a second lawyer. After my sentencing, Pop held my hand as the bailiffs handed me off to juvenile detention and visited as often as it was allowed. I wasn’t just scared; I was fucking terrified. He warned me, said I had to lose that “Wake me up ’cause I’m having a nightmare” look or they’d pass me around like an appetizer.
    He was right.
    It was nearly Halloween by the time I was released. They’d had a welcome home party for me. Mom, Dad, and Pop. None of my friends came. Probably because they were no longer my friends. Kenny was there, though, sitting right next to Pop and freaking me way the hell out. It was all okay though. Nothing mattered. I was out. I was home. My family hadn’t left me there to rot like I’d so often worried. We ate all my favorite foods and talked about school. I’d missed a lot. Half of the previous term plus two months of the current one. I was anxious to get back to my friends, my teammates, even though none of them had ever called or visited.
    â€œBuddy—” My father’s face tightened, and his voice held the same tone it always did when he had bad news to deliver. I’d braced for it. I knew after what I’d done, I wouldn’t be allowed to play hockey or return to school, but before he could say the words, glass exploded all over us. Something hit me hard from my right, and suddenly, I was on the floor. I’d fought against the heavy weight pinning me there. My mother’s screams echoed in my ears. My dad had run to the front door, wrenched it open, and from my vantage point on the floor under my grandfather’s arm, I’d seen a small crowd of kids in front of our house.
    They were shouting that they didn’t want a deviant in their classrooms, a pervert on their team. They weren’t all kids though. Jack Murphy, Liam’s dad, was there with a bat. My best friend—the same kid who laughed when I snapped Liam’s picture—held a brick. Kenny’s voice in my head stated the obvious. Dude, he ain’t your friend anymore.
    The rest of that night passed in a blur. I remember the police arrived, broke up the crowd. Dad and Pop nailed boards over the broken window. My mother cleaned up the glass. The brick that broke through the window skidded over the dining room table, gouging a deep scar through the surface. I stared at the gouge. Me. The table. Both scarred. I’d stood there with my thumb up my ass, unable to think, let alone help. Then there was a suitcase in my hand, and my mother was tugging me toward her car.
    We’d fled. It was ten o’clock at night. We’d driven to the next county and holed up in a Holiday Inn for the night. Pop and Dad were there when I woke up the next morning, comforting me while I screamed myself awake. My parents sold the house with the help of lawyer number three, and we moved an hour or so west of my Jersey Shore hometown. The new house was bigger than our old one was, and it even had a pool. All my old stuff somehow managed to get shipped to us.
    Except for the scarred dining room table.
    I hated it, hated every minute we spent away from the shore. I enrolled in ninth grade, but by April, it began all over again when the kids at my new school discovered I was the same kid on the news. And then we had to move. We tried Maryland. Then Delaware. Finally, New York, under a new name. It was