Page 329 of The Sinner: James

He always taught me to aim high, but this would surpass even his expectations.

He’d be proud. I think he would. In awe, perhaps.

Power had always been his drug of choice, and he knew how to hook me on it early on. But even he couldn’t predict this.

If my mother were here today, she wouldn’t find the boy I once was in me. And she’d probably feel less for me since I’m no longer that little boy.

A part of me felt hurt and bled because she’d left without a word that day. So she wouldn’t mean to me as much as she had once meant.

Looking at it with mature eyes, I realize it must’ve not been easy for her, either. Maybe she had no choice, and that was the only way she could do it.

Perhaps I was the reason she had stayed with my father for as long as she had stayed.

I wish I knew for sure what made her pull away, although it’s not so hard to guess. It was my father.

I didn’t know back then what the women in his circle were, but I figured it out later. He’d used those women to put some distance between himself and my mother because he’d failed to love her the way she needed to be loved.

His cheating wore her out eventually, and the loneliness that came with it destroyed her soul.

She had stayedfor as long as she could because she wanted me to be old enough to get distracted by things and not miss her.

I was a few short years away from becoming a teenager and, not so far down the road, a wild man.

She must’ve known I’d get swept away by life too.

For the most part, she was right.

What she didn’t know was that the little boy harbored his wounded love for her for much longer than she had thought. And that he couldn’t forget her.

Perhaps that’s why she never came back.

I’m sure she knew I wouldn’t look for her. I didn’t want to find a missing person. I wanted her heart back, but that was simply impossible.

Today, we’d probably talk again.

I no longer hold a grudge against her, although I have a feeling she’s still grappling with guilt.

I shift my gaze and look in the distance.

Rain comes to mind.

Three years ago, I found this girl who is now the woman living in my heart.

Three years ago, the land in front of me was nothing but a piece of dirt, the lights and glamor a dream in my head.

I took the piece of dirt and morphed it into a patch of vibrant life. And then I took the girl and smashed her heart.

That’s how I learned.

Sometimes you crush the very things you love.

That’s why I stopped resenting my mother. I was no better than her in the end.

A door opens behind me, and I pull away from the window and swagger to her.

“Hey,” she says softly.

I drink her in, a smile tickling my lips.

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