Out of Nowhere(86)

Rafe nods. “I know. You needed to escape for a while—have space to deal with some things.” He runs his thumbs over my eyebrows and cheekbones. “I’ve liked escaping with you,” he says softly. “But it’s not real. You know that. The real test is whether this feeling can exist side by side with your life.” He rubs my shoulders, his voice serious. “You have to ask yourself what you want your life to look like.”

I snort out a laugh because he sounds like some kind of shitty self-actualization guru.

“I don’t even know what that means,” I say. It comes out mocking and short.

But Rafe seems dead serious.

“It means there’s nothing noble about handing the reins of your life over to someone else, Colin,” he says. He doesn’t raise his voice, but there’s an edge to it that he gets when he’s trying not to snap at me. “You have a chance now, you know? To do something different if that’s what you want. To have a different life.”

A nervous laugh escapes even though my lips are pressed tight together, and I shake my head. It’s kind of like he read my mind.

“Don’t laugh at me,” Rafe says, voice intense. “You think it’s stupid to reinvent yourself? You know what my life would’ve looked like if I’d taken the one that people were willing to hand me?”

Now he’s worked himself up. He starts pacing, long legs eating up the sand-colored carpet. It’s like he’s hardly even talking to me anymore. He speaks quickly, the words bitten off and full of anger and loathing I’ve rarely heard from him.

“I was a fucking convict. A criminal. I would’ve had a minimum-wage job at some shitty fast-food joint. I would’ve gotten bored, or thought I could make a little more than minimum wage, so I would’ve started bartending at some thug bar. Little by little I would’ve gotten so used to seeing people smashed or high, that my sobriety would’ve felt like too much work. I’d have gone back to using, and when the money I made at the bar wasn’t enough, I’d’ve fallen back in with the guys I used to run with. Doing favors. Enforcing debts. I would’ve been right back where I started, only worse, because there wouldn’t have been any second chances. If I’d gotten picked up, I would’ve gone to prison for ten years, or fifteen. When I got out, I’d have been a fucking middle-aged loser. Too old to be useful to the gangs or the bars or any-fucking-one. Too hard to be of any use to my family, even if they had wanted anything to do with me. My nieces and nephew would’ve grown up thinking I was a worthless loser. My sisters wouldn’t have even mentioned my name. My mother—”

He shakes his head, takes a deep breath, and sinks down onto the side of the bed, looking out at the ocean.

“But that’s not what happened,” he says like he’s trying to soothe himself with the truth of it. “That’s not what happened because I met Javi. Because I woke up that first morning after I got out and I thought, Hey, idiot: no one is going to give you anything good. If you want it, you’re going to have to make it happen. And yeah, because I was so scared of ending up like my fucking father that I wanted to do anything not to abandon my family and run away to something that felt easier.”

He takes a deep breath and looks at me. “That’s where you are, babe. It’s the morning after you got out. You have some decisions to make. And I know it’s hard and it’s scary as hell, but… the morning after you get out… well, not deciding to make a decision is the same as making the decision not to change your life. Not to take responsibility for what happens next.”

“I wasn’t in prison,” I mutter, looking away.

The anger is gone from Rafe’s voice; now he just sounds sad.

“You were as much in prison as anyone I knew there, Colin. Only you created it for yourself. Your father paced out the cell and your brothers fit the bars and you turned the key in the lock and buried it somewhere only you know. And you stared at Daniel through the bars and cursed him for being able to walk out the door. But he’s not the one who did something wrong. All he did was save himself. And you can too. But you have to find that key and unlock the door.”

I’m shaking my head compulsively. That’s the stupidest thing I’ve ever heard.

“I made my own choices,” I say. “No one forced me to do anything.”

“Things could be different now,” Rafe says urgently. “Maybe getting shit square with Daniel is the first step. Something has to be different when you go back to work with your brothers, or what’s to stop everything from being exactly the same?”