Chapter Forty-Eight Him

Chapter Forty-Eight Him

Twenty-Seven Years Earlier

Twelve hours.

I tugged on my shorts, trying to pull the bottom edge closer to my knees. Every time bare skin touched the cool steel of the

gun safe next to me second thoughts and stray memories of better times ran through my head. Mom laughing at breakfast this

morning. The yearly vacation at the beach house. The holiday parties at the club where Dad would make us get dressed up and

show us all off.

Those were things and replaceable. I would be able to buy whatever I wanted. Gain access. I’d meet women at college and enjoy

the sound of their laughter. It would be enough.

The doubts would end tomorrow. I’d mentally walked through the plan so many times. I could speed it up or slow it down. Rewind

and start over. Skip the part where the image got blurry and cut to the ending.

Mom and Dad. Dad and Mom.

The relentless lectures about wasting my potential. Their looks of disappointment. No more partying. You need to get your priorities straight. What you do now impacts your future. One bad grade can destroy everything you’ve worked for. We won’t always be here.

You won’t. I decided.

We’ve talked about it, and we need to make some changes.

They could never be happy and enjoy what they had. They put me in this position when they started going to “parenting classes”

at that place in the strip mall. It sounded like a fucking cult. An adult playgroup where they earned praise for how miserable

they could make their kids. Take the car away. Impose strict rules. Stop giving in. Stop saying yes. Be the boss.

These so-called friends took their money while preaching about the danger of giving kids too much. Mom said the theory was

about living a simpler life. Complete bullshit but these new beliefs didn’t show any sign of fading.

They’d run through the money eventually. Sell off all the cool stuff, maybe even the house itself. Let the club memberships

lapse. Stop all vacations. No swimming. No tennis. Hell, they’d probably walk away from the business they’d built if their

new overlords suggested it.

Where would that leave me? No money. No inheritance. Begging for the things I used to get without trouble. But this wasn’t

about me. Eight months of this garbage and still no relief in sight. They weren’t them anymore. I didn’t know these people. I didn’t care about them. I wouldn’t miss them.

My plan. Months of thinking and trying not to think. This was one of those times where I had to just act. Let my body walk

through the scheme in my head. Take the gun and fire. Reload and fire. Run after them. Drag them back. Let them see my face

so they would understand that their choices brought this on.

The safe combination was my mother’s birth date. Easy to remember. Dad taught us to shoot, which was ironic. He loved guns, collected them, and would talk about the good life growing up on a farm in Virginia. Now those same guns would be the last things he saw. The guns and my face.

After it was over life could go back to normal. Not at first. There would be questions and interviews. That’s why Cooper couldn’t

stay. He’d never be able to keep the secret. His commitment waffled. He wasn’t strong enough. He couldn’t hold on to his anger.

He had to be reminded in exhausting detail how much life would suck if this went on.

I didn’t need a reminder. I knew what I would lose if I didn’t act.

Tomorrow morning would be the start of the life I deserved.