Prologue:
You always have a choice.
I remember Alice telling me that, I remember my parents telling me that, I remember Emmett telling me that. Alice, Emmett, Mom, Dad. . . They all cared about me, they cared about their brother and their son. They cared so much that they let me make the wrong decision in hopes that I would realize how terribly wrong I had been, in hopes that I would come back to them myself without their threats hanging over my head, in hopes that I would come back and change my life around for the better. They had hoped and that was the problem.
One thing about hope: it's always misplaced.
Their hope was terribly misplaced. More misplaced than any hope I've ever seen and I've seen a great deal of hope in my life.
I had a choice, but I picked the wrong choice. Time and time again, I kept picking the wrong choice. I could say it was in my genes, but the only relative I'd ever known about who went this far wrong was a great uncle who drank himself to death.
My wrong was different then being an alcoholic or a druggie. My wrong wasn't due to stress or a failing marriage or work problems, I committed consciously to my wrong with full knowledge of what it was. My wrong included more adrenaline, more precision, more intelligence. . .and more jail time in the event that I am caught. But I won't get caught, because I am so far wrong that I am protected by my wrongs.
It makes no sense. I don't ever attempt to explain it even to myself.
All I know is that today, in this very moment, my wrongs somehow made a right and that right rid me of my protection from my wrongs and now I was paying for every single one of my wrongs with her life.
There was nothing more unjust than that. I should be paying for my wrongs, and in a way, I was. But she was also paying for my wrongs much more than I was and that was worse.
That's the beauty, I suppose, of all my wrongs.
They only ever make a right in order to make you pay.