Glass Wings: Criminally Yours, page 8
“No,” he says. “I think the hole is mine to crawl into and sit in for as long as it takes. But I can hand you a rope. Rick can decide if it’s strong enough to pull on.”
Hearing my lawyer’s name from his mouth makes my spine stiffen. “You don’t know Rick.”
“I don’t have to. I know you. You’d rather chew glass than take help from me. But if this gets you home before that baby is born, I don’t care if you never say my name again.”
He slides the paper into the slot. It rattles through and stops against my side of the metal lip. I don’t touch it.
“I don’t trust you,” I say. “Not with anything that matters.”
“I don’t trust me either,” he says simply. “Not with who I was then. I’m trying to be someone else now. I have a daughter that looks up to me.”
“People don’t get to remake themselves because they decide to be sorry.”
“True,” he says. “They get to remake themselves because they decide to act like they’re sorry.”
Silence sits down with us. Some other conversation in another booth ends in laughter that feels obscene.
I finally pick up the paper. Names are written in Gray’s blocky print.
“Why now?” I ask. “Why this? You could have mailed this. You could have given it to Rick.”
“I needed you to see my face,” he says. “So, if you ever want to look me in the eye and tell me to fuck off forever, you know what you’re turning down.”
A bitter grin slides up my cheek before I can stop it. “You still haven’t apologized for what you did, and you’re still fucking dramatic.”
“Says the guy writing poetry to a baby he hasn’t met yet in a jail cell.”
“Fuck you,” I say, but it doesn’t have teeth.
Gray’s mouth tilts. “There he is.”
I hate that he can make a joke and aim it right at the part of me that used to laugh with him. I hate that my body remembers his as the one that stood between me and those bigger boys when we were eight, and how he kept doing it until we were old enough to pretend, we didn’t need to.
“You don’t get to be my brother again,” I say.
“I know.” He holds my gaze. “But I was. And I still am in the way that matters when you’re drowning. I don’t care what you call me. I’ll show up when I hear the water.”
Anger and something like grief surges up the back of my throat. “Say the words,” I say. “If you came here to be a man, then say the words you should’ve said when I was eighteen and they locked the door behind me.”
He doesn’t blink. “I’m sorry,” he says. “For framing you. For letting you carry it alone. For not coming to see you because I couldn’t face the shit I’d done. For choosing myself over my brother. I’m sorry, Easton.”
Hearing the sound of my name like that breaks something I’ve been holding on to for too long. I look down at the paper so I won’t have to look at him and bleed.
“Why should I believe you?”
“You shouldn’t,” he says. “Believe the actions that come after. Give me a list. I’ll go get you the rest of the witnesses. I’ll sit in the back of the courtroom and keep my head down if you don’t want me seen. I’ll send money to Harley without my name on it when she needs a crib or a doctor’s bill covered. None of it fixes what I did, but it’s what I can do now.”
I don’t say anything. My hand has gone to my pocket without me telling it to, thumb rubbing the fold of Harley’s letter through the cloth.
Despite everything, despite the fear and the distance, I still believe in you. In us.
She wrote that about me.
“I’ll get this to Rick,” I say finally. “He’ll know whether it’s anything.”
Gray nods. “I figured.”
“If you’re lying to me—”
“I know,” he says, weariness settling onto his shoulders like the jacket he wears. “You’ll rip me to shreds and feed me to the dogs you don’t have.”
The corner of my mouth twitches despite myself. “You always were bad at metaphors.”
“I learned from the best.”
Something shifts between us, not forgiveness, but a glimmer of hope for a future as brothers again.
“What’s it like being a dad?” I finally ask. The question has been gnawing at me for weeks now. Gray smiles, lines forming on his forehead and at the corners of his eyes truly showing his age.
“The biggest blessing in the world.”
The speaker overhead crackles. “Time.”
Gray’s eyes flick up, then back to me. “Tell Harley … that I’m rooting for her. That if she needs anything—”
“She doesn’t need anything from you,” I say too fast, too sharp.
He flinches and nods. “Okay. The offer still stands.” He stands, the chair legs scraping. “Take care of yourself. Don’t swing unless you have to.”
“That advice comes a little late,” I say.
Gray hesitates, mouth open like there’s one more sentence but he can’t decide if it will help or hurt. He chooses to swallow it. “Bye, Easton.” He hangs up the phone. For half a second, he stands there like he might wait for me to say his name.
I don’t.
He turns and walks to the door. It clicks shut behind him.
I stay seated, the phone a heavy weight in my hand for a long time after the line goes dead. Harris finally taps the glass, and I hang up, standing on legs that feel like I’ve been running.
“Everything good?” Harris asks as he snaps the leash back to my chain.
“Define good,” I say. He grimaces sympathetically, unable to hide the emotion quick enough this time.
“Fair,” he mumbles.
We walk back the way we came. My mind running loops around the conversation Gray and I just had. I need to talk to Rick.
Back in the cell, the door shuts with its usual thunk; the sound never fails to remind me of a lid settling on a jar. I sit on the bunk, take out the paper Gray brought, and place it alongside Harley’s letter. Names for a daughter on one page. Names of men who might save her father on the other. My throat burns.
I flatten both sheets with my palms and stare until the letters swim. One is soft and crooked, smelling faintly like her. The other is a block of hard edges, with a smudge where Gray’s hand must have dragged through the ink. Brother to brother, I think … but the words don’t fit yet.
The kid in the next cell coughs. A tray rattles down the tier. Somewhere, someone laughs too loud, the sound cracking and rolling like a dropped glass on tile.
I pick up the pen Harris let linger on the slot longer than he should have, and pull a fresh sheet from the stack he “forgot” was extra. I write Harley’s name and pause. The line between what I want to say and what I should say stretches taut like wire.
Little Bird, I write. The letters look steadier than I feel.
Gray came, I write, and the ink looks like a bruise on the white paper. I didn’t expect to write that sentence ever again. I sketch the facts and not the ache that burns in my chest. He has a list of names, a bar, a quote.
Rick might be able to use it, I write. If it means I get to you sooner, I’ll take help from the devil and make him fill out a witness list.
I close with the same words I always do, the only promise I know how to pour truth into now, without cracking it.
Always yours,
Easton
I fold the letter slow and careful, slide it into the envelope, and lick the seal. The paper tastes like dust and soap and the inside of a place that wants to scrub the whole world off of you and never let you be clean.
For a long time after that, I sit with Harley’s letter under my palm and Gray’s list under my other, trying to decide which hand feels heavier. When Harris comes by for mail, I pass him the envelope through the slot. He doesn’t meet my eyes, but his fingers close around the paper gently.
“Everything good?” he asks again, like it’s a habit.
“Not yet, but maybe soon it will be.” I say.
He nods once and moves on.
Sixteen
HARLEY
Easton’s handwriting blurs before I even finish the second sentence. I blink hard, thinking I read it wrong. I read it again.
Little Bird,
I don’t know where to start, so I’ll keep this short. I have new information that Rick thinks might help me. It came from Gray. Yes, that Gray. He showed up out of nowhere, and I’m still sorting through how I feel about it. But what he gave me could change things.
I’ll explain more soon. Just hold on for me. I’m fighting my way back to you.
Always yours,
Easton
I re-read the name until it stopped looking like English and starts looking like some foreign mark carved into the page. Gray. His foster brother. The same Gray who framed him years ago. The same Gray who hasn’t shown his face since.
If Easton is even willing to put his name on paper, it has to mean something. Still, confusion knots in my chest. Why now? Why come back when everything is already broken, sitting wide open?
I shove the letter into the shoebox with the others, but this one doesn’t slide in as neatly. It sticks up, the corner jutting like a reminder that nothing is as simple as I want it to be.
Kennedy honks from outside. I grab my bag, shove my hair into a messy bun, and try to breathe through the nausea that hasn’t quite left since morning. We’re supposed to go shopping for baby clothes today. Her idea, not mine, because I’m not sure I’m ready. But Kennedy has been relentless.
“Just a few outfits,” she’d say. “Nothing crazy. You need to get excited about this, Harley.”
The truth is … excitement scares me. But I agreed to go anyway. I can’t keep living only in letters and therapy sessions.
The little boutique in the mall smells like baby powder and lavender detergent, the kind of smell that feels soft enough to crawl into. Tiny dresses in pale pinks and creams line the walls while racks of onesies in every imaginable print stretch in neat rows. A wall display with of shoes no bigger than the palm of my hand makes my throat tighten.
Kennedy heads straight for the racks, her nails tapping against the hangers as she flips through the onesies. “Oh my god, look at this one.” She holds up a soft yellow onesie with little white ducks on it. “Tell me this doesn’t make your ovaries explode.”
I try to smile, but my hands stay shoved in my pockets. “It’s cute.”
“Cute? Harley, this is life-altering levels of adorable.” Kennedy holds it to my chest like she’s measuring it against the life growing inside me. “The baby’s going to look like a literal sunbeam in this.”
I pull the onesie from her hands and hang it back up, my fingers trembling. “I’m not ready to buy things yet.”
Her expression softens. She sets her hand on my arm. “I know. But you don’t have to buy. Just … look. Dream a little. You’ve been so stuck in survival mode you don’t let yourself think about the good stuff.”
I stare at the rack, at the tiny pieces of fabric stitched into futures. Dreaming feels like balancing on the edge of a knife. But Kennedy is right. I can’t keep treating this baby like a possibility that might disappear.
I reach out and pick up a small knit hat in pale green. The yarn is soft against my skin. “This one’s … nice.”
Kennedy grins like I just announced I won the lottery. “Progress!”
We move through the store slowly, her filling the silence with chatter about patterns and colors, while I let myself imagine for just a few minutes what it might be like to dress a little girl in one of these outfits. To fold them into drawers. To see Easton’s hands struggle with the tiny buttons and laugh when he gets them wrong.
I put the hat back carefully. “One day.”
Kennedy loops her arm through mine. “One day soon.”
We carry a few small bags out of the shop, she convinced me to buy a few things. We sit on a bench outside, the late afternoon sun slanting low and casting the sidewalk in gold. Kennedy sips her drink, her lips pressing tightly together.
“What is it?” I ask.
She places the cup on the bench and rubs her hands together. “I broke up with Ethan.”
My head snaps toward her. “What? When?”
“Last night.” Her voice is flat, like she’s trying not to give it too much weight. “He got angry with me over something stupid. I don’t even remember what started it. But the way he looked at me, Harley … I didn’t like it. And then he shoved a chair so hard it splintered. I realized if I stayed, it was only going to get worse.”
Ice runs through me. “Kennedy.”
“I left,” she says quickly, cutting me off before the panic in my voice can grow. “I packed a bag, walked out, and I’m not going back. I’m done making excuses for him.”
I reach for her hand, squeezing it tightly. “Good. You did the right thing.”
Her shoulders shake, the bravado slipping. “I don’t have anywhere to go though. My mom will just say I should’ve stuck it out, and I can’t stomach hearing that. Do you think … Can I stay with you? Just until I find somewhe—”
“Yes.” The word is out before she can even finish her sentence. “Of course. As long as you need. You don’t even have to ask.”
Tears rim her eyes, but she blinks them back. “You already have so much on your plate.”
“You’re my best friend,” I say firmly. “You’ve been holding me together since the day Easton was arrested. You’ll always have a place with me.”
For a moment, she leans her head on my shoulder, both of us silent, listening to the sounds of the bustling mall.
I think about Easton’s letter, about Gray’s name scrawled across the page. About the past crashing into our present. About Kennedy sitting beside me now, raw and vulnerable, asking for safety.
Maybe that’s what this whole season of life is about, all of us clawing for a place to feel safe. Me, Kennedy, Easton. And maybe the baby too, waiting quietly for a world that hasn’t figured itself out yet.
I lay my hand over my stomach, feeling the faintest flutter that is probably just nerves … but maybe, maybe, it’s something more.
“I’ll take care of you,” I whisper. I’m not sure if I mean Kennedy or the baby or both.
Maybe both.
Later that evening, while Kennedy is packing her things into boxes at Ethan’s apartment, I find the courage to make the call I’ve been avoiding. My fingers hover over the phone for what feels like forever until I finally press Call.
“Harley, honey, hi,” my mom answers, her voice clipped but polite, like I was one more meeting she happened to squeeze into her planner. Of course she had to wait until the last ring to pick up.
“Hi, Mom. How are you?” I twist the hem of my shirt between my fingers, praying she’s been too busy with work to notice the local news. Wishful thinking, of course.
“I’ve been wondering when you would call,” she says, and I can already hear the edge beneath her words. “I saw Easton on the news. He’s been arrested again?”
The bluntness hits me like a slap. “It’s not what it looks like.”
“Sweetheart, I’ve tried to be patient. Harley, I really have. But I don’t understand why you tie yourself to this man who seems to drag you down at every turn.”
My throat burns, but I force my voice to stay steady. “Because you don’t know him like I do. He’s not what the news says. He was protecting Kennedy that night. He got shoved first—”
“Protecting?” she interrupts, a disbelieving laugh catching in her throat. “Harley, that’s what men like him always say. They had to protect someone; they had no choice. And yet here you are, holding the pieces again while he’s behind bars.”
My stomach twists with a mix of anger and shame. I think about hanging up, retreating, but instead I press my hand to my belly and remind myself that this call isn’t just about me anymore.
“Mom,” I say, my voice breaking through softer than I intended, “I’m pregnant.”
The silence on the other end stretches so long I think the call has dropped. Then, a sharp inhale.
“Pregnant?” Her tone swings from disbelief to something I can’t quite place.
“Yes.” My grip on the phone tightens. “Three months. I was going to tell you sooner, but with everything that’s happened—”
“You’re having his baby.” It’s not a question, more a verdict.
“Yes,” I whisper.
For the first time in my life, my mother sounds shaken. Her work voice, her perfect-event-planner composure, falters. “Harley … this is … this is a lot. A baby changes everything.”
“I know,” I say quickly, before she can spiral into another lecture. “That’s why I’m calling. I don’t need your approval. I just thought maybe … maybe this time you could try to be here for me. For us.”
Another pause. I hear the faint shuffle of papers on her end, like she’s still working, even during this conversation. “If you want me to come to your next appointment, I will.”
Tears sting my eyes unexpectedly. Not a promise, not warmth, but something. A crack in the wall. “Okay,” I whisper. “That would mean a lot.”
“I’ll check my schedule,” she says, her tone already drifting back toward business. “But … I’ll try, Harley. I really will.”
It’s not perfect. It isn’t the mother I’ve always wanted. But it’s more than the nothing from before.
When I hung up, my hands are still shaking. Kennedy stands in the doorway, a half-filled box in her arms, her face soft with concern.
“You, okay?” she asks.
I wipe at my eyes and give her a shaky smile. “I will be. Just have one more call to make and then we can watch a movie or something.”
She nods and heads toward the guest room, leaving me alone with my phone.
I stare at the screen for what feels like forever, Easton’s last letter still echoing in my head.
You can tell my parents. They need some good news.
Good news. I’m sure if that’s what they’d call it. But I know he’s right, they deserve to know.
