WAKE (Wattpad edition)

58. Let him down.

Soundtrack: 'Saints out of sailors' - Flannelgraph

{Cary}

Tru was banging around in the kitchen as Cary packed his things and tidied the room. He remade the guest bed neat and tight, and when he turned in the door to look back, the room looked just as it had when he'd come. He ducked his head. He wasn't taking anything for granted—Tru didn't owe him anything. It wasn't free to put a roof over his head and food in front of him. If she changed her mind about him coming back...well, everything he'd experienced before warned him not to be surprised.

Tru's look was fierce when he came out with his backpack slung over his shoulder. "Coffee, sweetheart?" she asked gruffly.

He shook his head. His stomach was already knotted with anxiety, and adrenaline had him buzzing and alert. Twenty-five hours until he appeared in court and faced down his father.

She nodded, thumping the blackened pot off the burner. "Got something for you." She pulled a faded shoebox off the top of the fridge, tugging the elastic off to lift the lid. She rummaged inside it, carefully lifting layers of photos and yellowed letters while muttering to herself. "Here." She drew something from deep in the box and held it out to him.

Cary took the glossy paper in his fingers as carefully as if it might dissolve on contact. There was a dark-eyed baby with ringlets and chubby wrists, laughing at the person behind the camera. He caught his breath. "This is Renae." He had no pictures of his sister, no memory of her features. It had never occurred to him that photos of her might still exist.

She eyed him. "Th'other is you."

The boy in the photo was all knees and elbows, smiling anxiously while he held onto the baby trying to climb out of his lap.

"Your momma musta' took that before I come. I never met the child."

He raised his eyes to her, speechless.

"Keep that," she said, her bushy eyebrows lowering. "Means more to you than it does to me. I got my treasures." She handled the shoebox gently as she secured the elastic back around it and tucked it back up on the fridge.

He ducked his head, afraid his burning eyes might give him away, drawing out his wallet and folding Renae with the picture of Liam he kept there. He stroked his thumb over his brother's face. He could do this. Even if he never saw his brother again, speaking up in this trial was the best thing he could do for him. Liam was going to have the good life he deserved.

"I ain't coming," Tru said flatly. "I hope you know it's not 'cause I don't care for you. They're dead to me, is all. That's just how it is."

Cary nodded, avoiding her face, but taking in the spare kitchen with the sun coming through the south window. She'd made her safe place and her peace as best as she could. He hoped he could do the same.

She nodded shortly and stumped out of the house without a hug or a backward glance, but he thought her haste had as much to do with her unwillingness to shed a tear in front of him as anything. The feeling was mutual.

His phone rang just as he slammed the trunk of his car. He picked it up, expecting from the caller ID to hear Jon's voice. "'Lo."

It was Mel. "Cary, is that you? I thought you might be travelling today and I wanted to hear from you. Do you need a place to stay?"

Her warm interest scattered his thoughts, and he stood still, eyes on the trees, wrapping his arm against his chest. "No." It sounded short and he didn't mean to hurt her. He had no idea what Pete would have told her—maybe nothing. "I'm staying the night at the shelter. In court tomorrow, then back here when it's over." He wasn't explaining or making excuses to cover for Pete—that wasn't his job anymore.