Blindly I stumbled to an empty pew. Knelt, and hid my face in my hands. My lips moved numbly reciting the familiar prayers—Hail Mary full of grace. Our Father Who art in heaven. My heart beat rapidly yet with a kind of exaltation as if I’d narrowly escaped a terrible danger. I was deeply ashamed but I was also relieved. For I had tried. I had tried, and I had been told to shut up, and could go away now absolved of my sins.

This would be the final confession of my life.

“Dear Christ What Did Violet Do Now”

WAITING FOR YOU. YOU KNEW.

Saying Hey. Where’re you goin’, kid.

You were smiling. Grinning. Inane as a Hallowe’en pumpkin.

Yet cautious enough to hold back. Something in your brother’s eyes like cracked marbles warned you.

HIS FAVORITE VIDEO GAMES HAD NAMES LIKE PIT-FIGHTER, Cyberball, Primal Rage. His favorite movie franchise was Terminator and second favorite, Mad Max.

He’d grown tall, and he’d grown muscled in the shoulders and torso. A thick neck, thick jaws. Shrewd stone-colored eyes beneath heavy brows. In a few years he would be taller and stockier than his older brother he’d long admired. He would be his father’s size with his father’s way of clenching and unclenching his fists when he was feeling thwarted.

Unyielding as Jerome Sr. Unforgiving.

Many days after the beating of Hadrian Johnson still the cut on Lionel’s cheek had not healed. With his broken and dirt-edged nails he picked, picked at it. Unconsciously he picked at it. Each day it bled anew. Each day he wiped his fingers on his shirt, what the hell. What the fuck did he care, he did not care. Not much. Those days, weeks. Waiting. Waiting for the God-damned police to return. Waiting to be cuffed. He’d claimed not to know how the hell the cut had come to be on his face. Who’d hit him, a wild swing of a fist, wild swing of a baseball bat grazing his skin, or walloping him so that he’d almost gone down, who the fuck had it been Lionel did not know but whoever it was he’d like to murder the bastard with his own hands and maybe someday, Christ knew maybe someday he would.

Bruises on his chest, upper arms as well. Bruises of the color of oil spills. That night they kept asking him about he’d been totally wasted, couldn’t remember a fucking thing and that was a fucking fact.

HE’D WANTED TO. YOU KNOW. KNEW AT THE TIME. SURE.