Page 12 of Reckless Abandon
It reminds me that while I was in Italy, Sage was nominated for and won Best New Artist of the Year through the Country Music Association, as well as Billboard Music. He even graced the cover of Rolling Stone two years ago.
I’d seen a copy of the magazine in the base commissary one day and had to do a double-take when I saw the headline and the picture. It read, “From Felon to Fame: Sage Hendricks Rises from the Ashes.”
It hadn’t looked like Sage at all, and I’d honestly not even recognized him when I first saw it – therefore, the reason for the double-take. His cheeks had appeared sunken and concaved, eyes lacked their usual brown effervesce, his dark olive skin a dull, paler hue. His entire facial structure and body looked emaciated.
And even now, as we emerge further into the room toward a group of people, my gaze skips completely over Sage, who sits on the couch, strumming a guitar, sandwiched in between two scantily-clad women who hang on him like he’s their savior. The only reason I know it’s him is because when he lifts his gaze first to London, a smile of recognition alights his face and eyes, and a sense of nostalgia swirls through me. He places the guitar down and stands on wobbly legs, opening his arms to give London a hug.
I stand a few feet behind her and observe – as if I’m not even in the room and just watching it through a TV screen – as he encloses her in his arms and then whispers something in her ear to make her laugh. It’s not a “ha-ha, that’s funny” kind of laugh, but a sad, humorless laugh.
Just as he begins to pull away, he lifts his gaze and his eyes land on me.
Everything I deserve and have avoided in the last ten years can be easily read in that wounded expression as Sage’s eyes flitter with recognition.
And then the words I absolutely deserve to hear are muttered from his intoxicated mouth.
“What the fuck is he doing here?”
My sentiments exactly.
Chapter 8
Ten Years Earlier
Sage’s bail bond was set at one-hundred-fifty-thousand dollars.
It could’ve been a lot higher, Geoff had said. As if that was going to make that type of money appear so Sage could be set free.
My parents and London’s parents each contributed a combined hundred thousand and through various donations through the local church community (who had never done anything to help him in the past, even though they knew he was living with a monster) ponied up the remainder.
It took over a week to collect all the donations and pay the bond company, so during that time, Sage remained in the county jail, right alongside drug dealers, child abusers, meth addicts and various other life-long criminals. London was sick and broken-hearted, and I was just numb to it all, barely eating or sleeping while I knew Sage was living through a hellish nightmare.
Thankfully, with a little coaxing, Sage agreed to allow me and London to visit during the visiting hours every day. It broke our hearts to see him trying to act strong and unscathed when deep inside we knew the truth behind the steely mask he wore.
He was broken. And not just his body.
The system was in place to supposedly protect children from the hands of monsters, not throw a young man, whose scar tissue was still raw from years of abuse, behind bars. Alone and without the people that loved him there to watch out for him.
The only decent aspect of being raised and living in a small community and county was that our jail wasn’t high tech like the state penitentiary, which enabled us to visit regularly with Sage in the small, but relatively open environment. The cinder-block walled room housed four different tables, with an armed prison guard at the only door in and out.
Sage wasn’t even cuffed when he was led into the visitor room the first day we showed up to see him.
But he was wearing the god-awful red jumpsuit with his arm in a cast, a bright blue and purple bruise on his cheek and jaw nearly reaching his eye.
London was the first to speak, her voice a shaky quiver when he walked toward us.
“Oh my God, Sage. Are you okay? Are you in pain?”
Sage waved her concerned inquiry away with his arm that wasn’t in a cast, lifting it with a slight wince of pain that only I seemed to notice. We couldn’t hug or touch him, so we all sat down at the table, an uncomfortable moment passing by and between us.
“It’s fine. It’ll heal.”
“Hey.”
I had rehearsed what I was going to say to him the minute we sat down, but instead, all I could get out was the lame, generic greeting.
He nodded to us, pulling a loose cigarette from behind his ear, and placing it between his too-dry lips that looked cracked and a little swollen from the beating.
“Got a light?”
