The Bad Boy with a Heart of Gold

✖ Chapter 37 ✖

May arrived with a shower of flowers. Although we didn't have the best news that I'd been expecting, something important did happen.

The police caught Jack Logan.

He'd made it as far as Tallahassee, where he must have thought no one would possibly recognize him. And for months no one did, until the authorities were tipped off to the fact that a man that fit the suspect's description was seen around driving the victim's motorcycle. I was filled with rage anew when I heard about that, as if the man hadn't already done unspeakable things to his son, this added insult to injury.

I skipped Prom, because the legal proceedings against the man started around that time. Manny, his mom, my family and I testified about years of abuse. We told the authorities about every little thing we'd seen. I told them about the time I hid in Sawyer's closet and saw it with my own eyes. Afterwards I could tell that mama was bursting with disapproval, but she didn't say anything and neither did I.

What mattered was that Sawyer was now safe and that his father would never get to hurt anybody else.

What mattered the most was that Sawyer wasn't waking up.

The doctors said they'd done everything they could to repair his body, but brain injuries were still a mystery and that only time would tell. I prayed harder than I ever did in my entire life leading up to that point for the miracle that would get this boy through. I visited him almost everyday after school and talked to him about every and anything, because people said that it was a good stimulus for patients like him. I held his left hand, the good one, and one afternoon I told him the good news that I'd been made valedictorian.

I could imagine him saying something like, "Was there any doubt, princess?"

The relief at knowing that Jack Logan was going to spend the rest of his miserable life behind bars helped me see life different. There was more color. The trees were the greenest I'd ever noticed and there were flowers of all colors everywhere. When we made it to the school for the graduation ceremony, I couldn't help but think that it almost looked like a wedding. And then there was the fact that I was wearing a cream lace dress that made me look like a bride. I giggled as my sister helped me put on the robes.

"What's so funny?" she asked.

"I think we went overboard with the flower theme," I said, motioning all around us.

Then Toni looked down at herself. There was no other way to put it, but she was huge. We were about a month away from the expected date of birth and life had become exponentially more difficult for her. She had to put her classes on indefinite hold a while back, between the nausea and the fact that she got winded just walking on flat surfaces. Her legs and feet swelled and hurt on the regular, and no matter how much I massaged her it didn't seem to bring her much relief. This morning she'd woken up feeling quite under the weather, and although I told her it was fine if she stayed home to rest, she'd said no way was she missing this and put on the new flowery dress she'd bought that made her feel like a fairy.

Then we both started giggling, because she blended in with the decorations perfectly.

I helped her join mama and papa among the audience before I made my way over to my friends. Courtney, Lina and I hugged each other tight and we snapped some pre-ceremony selfies while we still had our caps. Courtney was going to go to UF to prepare for law school and Lina had chosen UCF for a finance degree. When I thought about how next year we weren't going to be together like this, my eyes started welling up.

"Oh hell no, you won't," Courtney announced, fanning my face. "You have to look flawless for your speech."

I laughed. "I'm sure I'll start crying in mid speech anyway."