Page 48 of Fall With Me (Sugarland Creek)

I cried more that first year than I had my entire life. It felt like I was mourning a person who wasn’t dead, but she was gone from my life in a way I wasn’t used to. We spent months writing to each other before I was allowed to visit. Not being able to hug her was a form of torture I hadn’t anticipated.

But Angela distracted me the best way she could. She encouraged me to talk about 4-H and riding horses, and if I thought there were any cute boys at school. When we’d talk on the phone, she’d have me laughing within minutes because that’s the type of person she is. She didn’t want me to be sad.

“Do you think Landen knows you’re eligible for parole?” I ask, wondering for myself too. He hasn’t acted any different than usual, still his annoying, pesky self.

“Oh, I’m sure their nosy lawyer told everyone. My attorney already told me her family will try to persuade the parole board and write their own letters, but he said not to worry about it. They have no grounds on why I shouldn’t get it.”

“How’s that even fair when you’re innocent to begin with?” My molars grind as my frustration grows, but I try to remember to breathe so I don’t get an anxiety attack.

Angela leans against the table, folding her arms. “Because they will forever believe I pushed her. But I know what I saw when none of them were looking, and she jumped, just like her boyfriend did a couple years later. They’ll never accept that they made a suicide pact because then they’d have to admit they didn’t get Talia help for her depression. They needed a villain and a fallback person to justify her death, and, well, here I am.”

The bitterness in her voice makes me sad and angry. She’s told me this story repeatedly, but it still hurts to hear each time. The local reporters painted her as this selfish, self-absorbed teenager who acted in a jealous rage. They called her vicious. Evil. Amurderer.

But I knew they were wrong because that wasn’t the person I considered a sister.

Angela was kind, sweet, and thoughtful. Always knew how to make me laugh.

She’d never harm anyone.

The year before she was sentenced, she skipped school just to come pick me up early and we spent the day together at the mall. We shopped, ate junk food, and snuck into an R-rated movie.

The person they described on TV wasn’t the same one who’d held me as I cried myself to sleep after my gerbil died.

“I’ll do whatever it takes to make sure they approve your parole,” I promise.

“I know you will, Ellie. That’s why you’re my hero.”

Tears well in my eyes, and I quickly brush them off my cheeks. “Anyway, have you seen or heard about Lexi lately? How’s she doin’?”

“As far as I know, she’s stayin’ outta trouble since she got into that last fight. But it pushed her visitation rights back several months.”

“That’s too bad. Antonio would do well to see his sister.”

“Did you get him into that roping program?”

“Yeah, I got to watch his first competition at the fair last weekend.” I smile proudly.

“And Landen still thinks it was Noah’s idea for him to volunteer?”

I sigh. “Yep.”

I’ve stayed in contact with the local 4-H leaders and would stop in when I was in town, which is how I first met Antonio. When they mentioned needing more roping trainers, I brought it up to Noah so she’d recruit Landen. Even though I hate him, I did it for Antonio. He needed a role model after his only sister went to prison for stabbing her assaulter to death.

Again, the justice system failed another family.

It was her word against a dead man’s.

“Have you considered what will happen if I get parole?” she asks. “Whether I live with you or not, there’s no way the Hollises won’t hear we’re related now that they know you. Especially if my release is mentioned in the local papers.”

I shake my head because there hasn’t been time to think about anything beyond my next race and the next step in getting Angela out of here.

Shrugging, I say, “I’ll figure it out as it happens. If they ask me and Ranger to leave, then we’ll go back to Grandma’s farm. I’ll continue racin’ and makin’ money as usual.”

“Maybe I could go with ya, then?” She smiles, hopeful.

“I’d love that. It’d be just like old times. You and me against the world.”

“You got that right, kid.” She winks.

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