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Back Always Crew Save as PDF
Chapters (69)
  1. Prologue
  2. Chapter One
  3. Chapter Two
  4. Chapter Three
  5. Chapter Four
  6. Chapter Five
  7. Chapter Six
  8. Chapter Seven
  9. Chapter Eight
  10. Chapter Nine
  11. Chapter Ten
  12. Chapter Eleven
  13. Chapter Twelve
  14. Chapter Thirteen
  15. Chapter Fourteen
  16. Chapter Fifteen
  17. Chapter Sixteen
  18. Chapter Seventeen
  19. Chapter Eighteen
  20. Chapter Nineteen
  21. Chapter Twenty
  22. Chapter Twenty-One
  23. Chapter Twenty-Two
  24. Chapter Twenty-Three
  25. Chapter Twenty-Four
  26. Chapter Twenty-Five
  27. Chapter Twenty-Six
  28. Chapter Twenty-Seven
  29. Chapter Twenty-Eight
  30. Chapter Twenty-Nine
  31. Chapter Thirty
  32. Chapter Thirty-One
  33. Chapter Thirty-Two
  34. Chapter Thirty-Three
  35. Chapter Thirty-Four
  36. Chapter Thirty-Five
  37. Chapter Thirty-Six
  38. Chapter Thirty-Seven
  39. Chapter Thirty-Eight
  40. Chapter Thirty-Nine
  41. Chapter Forty
  42. Chapter Forty-One
  43. Chapter Forty-Two
  44. Chapter Forty-Three
  45. Chapter Forty-Four
  46. Chapter Forty-Five
  47. Chapter Forty-Six
  48. Chapter Forty-Seven
  49. Chapter Forty-Eight
  50. Chapter Forty-Nine
  51. Chapter Fifty
  52. Chapter Fifty-One
  53. Chapter Fifty-Two
  54. Chapter Fifty-Three
  55. Chapter Fifty-Four
  56. Chapter Fifty-Five
  57. Chapter Fifty-Six
  58. Chapter Fifty-Seven
  59. Chapter Fifty-Eight
  60. Chapter Fifty-Nine
  61. Chapter Sixty
  62. Chapter Sixty-One
  63. Epilogue
  64. Another Epilogue
  65. Acknowledgements
  66. For More Reading
  67. Don't miss out!
  68. Further Reading: The Boy I Grew Up With
  69. Also By Tijan

I shook my head, just barely. “You got out of prison for killing someone, and you came right to my door. You want to know what Channing did, right? He shooed you away. He got between us, and he kept you away because of this.” I skimmed him up and down, my lip curling up in disdain. “You don’t have a right to tell me to ‘excuse myself.’ You don’t have a right to judge Channing on taking care of me. He was there. You weren’t. You want to know what you left behind? A goddamn mess. That was me. I went to jail, Pops.”

He winced, jerking backwards.

“I got dark.”

“…I thought we were going to lose you one day.”

I winced, swallowing that memory. “I got seriously dark, Dad.”

The firefly.

I felt her rising.

“I wanted to die.”

He was paling. I kept on.

“I stabbed my principal. He didn’t take to it. I got jail, counseling, parole, community service. All of it. And it could’ve been worse. Wanna know why it wasn’t? Because of Channing. Want to know the type of parenting you would’ve done? Wait. That’s right, you can’t. You weren’t there.”

I was getting worked up now, on a roll.

My voice rose.

“Always fucking fighting with Channing. I lost my brother for years because of you. He left because of you. You did that. You. Your fucking drinking. And she died! Mom died, and where were you?! Gone! Drunk! I had no parent. None. My only one died, and I still go and look for her. Same fucking house, Dad. But she ain’t there. She’s not even a ghost. She’s just gone, and you get out because of something I helped set in motion. That crooked cop, people found him out because of me, because of my crew. We were a part of that, so where’s your gratitude? You ungrateful dick.” I backed up.

The entire bar was silent behind me.

I so didn’t care.

I was still going, and I raised my hand in the air. “The fact is that I didn’t kill that guy. You did. I thought it was my fault. I thought you did what I couldn’t do, and you did it for me. That wasn’t the truth. All this guilt, all this debt that I didn’t even know was in me, buried deep—that’s yours. Not mine. Don’t you fucking dare tell me to ‘excuse myself’. You don’t want me in this life?” I threw both my arms out. “When the fuck did I ASK TO BE?!”

Panting.

Breathless.

My lungs were shrinking.