Chapter 7: Make a Choice

Aaron looked at his wife Theresa who in turn looked at Neal. It was a Sunday night and Aaron, by Theresa's urging, had his younger brother over for dinner. Time and time again Neal had declined the offer, being content in staying at a small trailer park. Aaron had even gone as far as offering him the spare bedroom but Neal refused.

No one on site knew that the two were brothers, legally but not by blood and Neal had wanted it that way as he had his entire life.

The name Neal Cassidy had happened by accident having read a book with that name. Neal liked it. It had always been the reason why he stuck with the name Cassidy over taking the Quip last name. He always saw himself as a Cassidy and not as someone else despite the loving family that took him in.

"You haven't touched your plate," she said in a light Mexican accent.

"Sorry," said Neal. "I'm sure it's great."

"Thinking about Emma again," she asked.

Neal looked up and looked accusingly at Aaron.

Aaron shrugged. "She's my wife what do you expect?"

"Nothing less I suppose."

"You should go see her," Aaron said. "They have visiting hours."

"It's not that easy," Neal replied.

"So you've been saying for the past two months since you arrived here. People go in all the time to visit their loved ones in jail. Why can't you?"

"I'm not going to get into this," Neal said starting to get frustrated.

Theresa began to pick up the plates from the table. She placed her free hand on her husband's shoulder. "I'll leave the two of you to talk," she said leaving the room to the kitchen.

Neal wasn't the only one getting frustrated.

Aaron stood up and walked over. "Are you ever? You've been moping around for months. You're a damn hell of a worker no doubt about that little brother but your mind is always clouded because of this girl. You say that things aren't easy, you say things are complicated but you won't say why."

"Hey I don't have to explain myself to you. I haven't kept in touch for five years and yeah that's partially my fault. I did go off the radar for a while but where do you get off trying to act like an older brother all of a sudden when I have been okay on my own?"

"Damn it Neal, you haven't been okay! If you were you wouldn't be pining for a chick who's incarcerated. If you were okay you'd fucking do something about it so you could stop this pain you're in, you'd go and visit her!"

"Don't you think I want to? Don't you think that every day since I've been here, knowing that she's tucked away in that corrections facility that I want walk in during those visiting hours and just see her, just once. I'd do anything to do that, to hold her hand or touch her face just once more but I can't."

"Why not, what's stopping you Neal?"

Neal took a deep breath and sighed, "I made a promise to someone to steer clear of her. Look it's crazy all right but her life is more important than the life I had planned for us and she can't move forward with me there. I'd be holding her back."

"And what about you little brother, doesn't your life matter? You have to make a choice. You either visit or you walk away. You can't just stay in the shadows waiting for her to do whatever the hell it is you think she had to do on her own and then wait for her to come back to you. Life doesn't work that way."

"Maybe not in your world," Neal said, "It's different in mine, in hers; she just doesn't know it yet."

"Okay I don't know what you're talking about but Neal, you're not really living if you continue your life this way."

"Does it really matter? I broke the day I broke her."