Free 122 Rules by Deek Rhew Page B

wanted something to talk about, she’d give it to them.
    “I killed a man,” she said.
    “Ummm, what? Really?” Peter appeared startled. “What happened?”
    “That’s what the dream is about.” The sadness still haunted her. After all these years, it still gnawed on her bones as if it had happened the day before. “After my dad died, mom decided to drink the county dry and screw every lowlife on the western seaboard. One night, she passed out, and the bastard she’d brought home decided to pay me a little visit.”
    “Oh shit.”
    “Yeah. I was only twelve, but the perv wanted some more action. I disagreed and sent him to the big bar in the sky.”
    “How’d you do that?” Peter asked.
    “He was drunk, and I had gotten a Louisville Slugger for my eleventh birthday. He came at me, and I nailed him instead of the other way around.” Did Crew Cut already know all of this? He had access to her files, so probably. Still, it might sound a little different coming from her instead of the pages of a police report.
    “So the dream isn’t a dream at all, but memories of that night.”
    “Yes. I spent a bit of time in Juvie. I was found innocent of any wrongdoing, and they released me after my mom kinda got her shit together, but I never forgave her. After that, she did her thing, I did mine. You know how it is when you can be together but not really.”
    Peter nodded. Something in his eyes—a sadness—told her he might understand.
    “She didn’t show up when I graduated high school, top of my class, I might add.” She spat the words as if that could remove their bitter tang.
    “Congrats. That’s not easy in the best of circumstances. Sorry about your mom, though.”
    “Yeah, I wasn’t surprised or really disappointed. My best friend, Angel, her mom more or less adopted me. They were the only ones that I cared were there.”
    “Still, it had to sting.”
    “Well, that’s life, isn’t it? Things don’t always work out the way you want.” Monica traced the deep pattern of scars on Peter’s leg with her fingertip. “What about you? Why are you here?”
    “Since my wife left me, I’ve been a bit lost. I’d planned out my life with her: kids, a house, a dog, the whole American dream. But plans are just that, and it turned out she had something different in mind...with someone different. So after she left, I finished my stint in the military with a small vacation over in sand land. I dedicated my future to the Marines, but my career got cut short when I got that parting gift from the grateful people of the Afghanistan nation.”
    She frowned. “That’s not really an answer.”
    “Fair enough, counselor. After I recovered, I got lost. I don’t have any family. My folks are gone, and most of the people I knew that were my friends before the divorce, sort of drifted away. When you split up, it gets a bit awkward for them. They have to choose sides, and I guess I was the less popular option. I’ve only had a few people in my life I truly cared about; the first was my wife.”
    “And the second?” she prompted.
    “My brother. He was my absolute best friend.”
    “Was? What happened? Can you go stay with him?”
    “He’s dead.”
    She knew loss and longing better than anyone, so she didn’t say anything, letting him gather his thoughts.
    “So anyway, after I finished physical therapy, I tried to figure out where I was going and what I wanted to do with my life. I got a little money because of my injury, not a lot, just enough to get by for a while. Started traveling the country—Chicago, D.C., New York, California, all the big exciting places everyone always says they want to see—but so far, no place has struck me as home. So, here I am, trying the opposite of everything else.”
    “The opposite being small, remote, and decrepit, with no hope of a job or future?”
    He laughed. “Suppose so. I actually didn’t know anything about the town before I got here. I was driving and found this wide