Page 24 of Jackson

I forced myself not to grin at him and instead, turned back to the demo just as one of my fellow inmates was called up as a volunteer to shoot off a fire extinguisher at one of the blazing fire pits.

For some reason, having Jackson at my back felt comfortable.

Safe even.

Such a difference in how it’d been with my ex. I’d lived in constant fear of that man and what he would do to me if I so much as sneezed wrong. For our entire almost ten year relationship, I’d walked on eggshells. I never knew what would make him flip and go nasty. I often felt like his moods were on a light switch and with one quick flick he’d go from loving and nice to mean and abusive. It was emotionally and mentally draining, that’s for sure, but that was no real excuse for what I’d done.

In a way, I was sad for what had transpired between us in the end. No one deserved to be left in the state the bullet had left him in after it’d lodged itself into the left side of his temporal lobe, effectively robbing him of everything but the shell of his former self.

But as fucked up and selfish as it was to think about, I wouldn’t take it back. Because in that moment, at the very end of it all, my survival instincts finally kicked in and it was either him or me.

And I chose me.

Probably for the first time in my life.

Jackson unfolded his arms and began to clap, pulling me out of my thoughts while the rest of our group erupted into a smattering of claps to mimic his. One of the volunteer firemen took back the extinguisher once more and thanked his participant before dismissing him back to his stump.

“You want to go up there next?” Jackson whispered at me, his face suddenly twisting into an amused smile.

“You’d have to drag me up there by my hair,” I quipped back, not thinking twice.

He only chuckled but didn’t push any further. “I’ll keep that in mind for next time.”

A shiver rolled up my spine.

His words almost sounded like a promise.

A promise I almost wanted him to follow through with.

CHAPTER 10

Ayen

The bagthat was strapped to my back was heavy, weighing me down as we trekked through the forest. The vegetation wasn’t particularly dense but with all of us in heavy protective gear and lugging the bags around, it made for a difficult walk.

After the demonstration of putting out a fire with hand-held intervention, gear had been distributed amongst all of us for a day-long hike into the woods where we’d be shown different burn sites and how to go about spotting the signs of what would constitute a controlled burn and what wouldn’t.

I had to say, I was actually pretty interested in learning all of this. Never in my life did I think I’d ever care about forest fires or helping to control or stop them, but with Jackson’s words still ringing in my ear from this morning, it had me feeling inspired.

Maybe that was the point of his speech to me—to get me thinking about doing something with my life after I got out, something important that would give back to my community in some way. Maybe he was just being nice and wanted to help a kid likeme out because that was kind of his job and there was nothing deeper to it.

Regardless of what his motives were for reassuring me this morning, I still wanted to make him proud.

I sucked the fresh mountain air into my lungs, breathing deeply; it felt nice to be out here in the open again.

Having been locked up for so long and only getting an hour of rec time every day was demoralizing and always had me feeling restless like I was in some kind of perpetual hamster cage.

I understood that going to prison was punishment and that punishment wasn’t supposed to be comfortable. Doing penance for my sins wasn’t supposed to be some walk in the park where I got to just hang around for five years in some cushy cell while my ex’s family had to take care of what was, essentially, a thirty-nine-year-old adult baby for the rest of their lives.

But damn did it feel nice to finally be free for a little while.

I felt something brush against my leg and turned to look down at it, spotting Roxy happily trotting along next to me. I smiled and looked toward the back of the group where Jackson was taking up the rear.

He was engaged in a deep conversation with Barlow, who was visibly sweating from our hike. My CO was nodding along to whatever Jackson was saying while he was fixing his eyes down at the ground with a strained frown.

Clearly this hike wasn’t on his list of things he wanted to be forced into doing—especially with his heavy uniform on.

I turned back ahead to face the rest of the group, ignoring the subtle feeling of eyes on the back of my head.

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