How is it that for some people the day isn't something to fight through? There's joy not far from here, right? All my life all I ever wanted to do was just run away, and find some semblance of normalcy.
I can't believe how easy it is for Hodge not to be sorry when he took three lives in his hands and attempted to crush them. I stare at him through the glass, holding the phone to my ear. The cord is tangled beyond my ability to unknot it, but I try anyway, to keep my hands busy. His orange jumpsuit clashes with his skin tone, making him look old and sickly—or maybe he just is old and sickly. The man sitting before me looks a lot feebler than the man I've spent my life fearing, but he still smiles when our eyes meet.
"Clarissa," he says as his face lights up in recognition. "I never thought I would see you here."
I glare at him, reminding myself that I am no longer a victim. I was a child when everything happened, and now, at 23 years old, I hold all of the power—the freedom—and he has nothing but a gap-toothed grin and a cellmate. I will go home and sleep next to my husband, Jace, and Hodge will still be locked up. I win.
"Why did you do it, Hodge?" I ask, sounding much calmer than I feel. I was eight years old when Hodge decided that my mother, my brother, and I would be his new little ready-made family. We got into his truck at gunpoint. I remember feeling stuck in the darkness as we left my daddy laying on the ground with blood leaking from his head wound in the middle of the afternoon.
The feeling of helplessness comes back so vividly that I nearly crumble. He shrugs his shoulders and says: "It's all fun and games until someone gets arrested."
I am left with the same question I've been asking myself for the last 15 years:
Why?
Why?
Why?