I ordered some clothing online, then stared at the phone in my hand. Temptation. I’d lived on Instagram before everything went south. Did I dare go there? It would be like taking a drink; I’d start surfing and be unable to stop. I’d look up my old friends. I’d look up Trey. What was the point in that?

I slipped the phone in my pocket, proud of my self-control. It was nearly time to leave for the parole office, anyway. Grabbing an apple from the fruit bowl on the island, I headed out the door. It felt like a miracle, being able to walk out Lisa’s—Jesse Jameson Williams’s!—front door and take off down the street with no one watching my every move. My sense of freedom, though, took a hit when I pulled open the door to the parole office on Broad Street. I was not truly free. I wouldn’t be free for a long time.

At one forty-seven, I took a seat next to the desk of my newly assigned parole officer. “Supervision officer,” the woman called herself. Her name was Rebecca Sanders and she instantly reminded me of my mother, with her short, wavy blond hair and narrow black-framed glasses that kept sliding down her nose. I waited as she read through my file.

“So, let’s see what we’ve got here,” she said, studying the papers in front of her. “Class F felony. Driving while impaired. Aggravating factors: second DUI and serious injury by vehicle.”

I took in a very long, very tired breath. “I know that’s what it says,” I said, “but I wasn’t driving.”

Rebecca slipped off her glasses to frown at me. “What do you mean?”

“I mean that my boyfriend was the one who was driving and he took off after the accident.”

“So why did you end up being charged and going to prison?” She didn’t believe me. I could tell. No one believed me.

I shook my head. “At this point it doesn’t matter,” I said, not wanting to go through it all again. “Just … I just wanted you to know that I didn’t do it. I can’t sit here and pretend that I did.”

“You had an attorney, right?”