Page 33 of Loving Trent
I’m not even sure if my parents will know how to get this letter to you or if they will even try once I’m gone, but maybe writing everything down will help me get through my last moments.
You probably won’t remember me, but I remember you. We were sent to the same place… Hell, or as we know it, Camp Arrow. The day you showed up, I had already been there two months. I watched you from the window that first morning, and my heart broke for you, knowing what was about to happen. I wanted to warn you, but was too afraid to speak up.
So, like I said, you won’t remember me, but we all remember you. You’re a legend. No, that’s not right. You’re a hero to all of us. The night that started the road to our freedom has never faded over time. I’m not sure what woke me, but something did. I sat in my bed, next to the window, listening to Tom and Sandy whisper outside the bunkhouse. I heard them say your name, and for some reason, the darkness that had settled over me lifted.
After Tom and Sandy left, I fell back asleep with this voice inside my head telling me that change was coming, and it did. We all felt it. We whispered about it. We whispered about you. The boy that got away.
Then two days later, when we all woke up, everything was over. The adults were gone, and it was like the whole place breathed for the very first time. Then, slowly, our parents started to show up. One by one. I thought we were all finally free… but I was wrong.
Even though I was taken away from that place, what happened never left me. The moment my parents saw the evidence that scared my body, they demanded answers. Answers that to this day I have never given them. They sent me away to that place. They gave Sandy permission to do whatever she needed to save my soul. So why should I tell them the truth?
My parents didn’t get to Camp Arrow until late at night, so we stayed at a small hotel in a nearby town. It’s how I found out what happened to you. When I saw the news report, I begged my parents to take me to the hospital, but they forced me into the car and drove away.
I wanted to thank you in person.
I wanted to tell you how proud I was of you.
I wanted to tell you how strong I thought you were.
I wanted to tell you that in your desperate act to die, you saved thirty-four lives.
I guess I should have told someone the truth, but I didn’t believe that they would care or that the justice system would get justice for us. Tom and everyone were long gone, and I had no hope that they would be found. I thought I could push everything to the back of my mind, lock all the pain and hurt up, and forget about it.
Man, was I wrong.
They live in my nightmares. I see them everywhere and know now that I will never escape what happened. How do I know this?
Well, two weeks after getting home, I found out I was pregnant. My parents demanded I tell them who the father was, and I freaked out. I’m sorry I lied and said that it was you. I spent all day and all night—multiple times—thinking about what to do. I decided to keep the baby. I put all my hopes into the idea that the baby would be my saving grace. That somehow, when it was born, I would be healed. I wouldn’t be so sad or broken anymore. I even named her Grace.
Don’t worry, I didn’t put you down as her father. I left it blank.
She is a month old now, and everything has worsened. I don’t know what's wrong with me. What they did at the camp broke something essential inside me. I’m nothing but a failure. It’s like there is a darkness that has a hold of me and refuses to let me go. I look at Grace and know she is better off without a mother like me.
Everyone’s better off without me.
I know this is a goodbye letter, but it’s also a plea. A plea from someone weak to someone stronger than me. You did something to get out. You can do something aboutwhat those evil people did to us. What they took from us… took from my daughter. Please do something because they deserve to pay for what they did. I know you’re only a teenager as well, but if anyone can bring them down, it’s you. Please don’t let them get away with it.
Please,
Nina Feely
Maria started to shake halfway through the letter. Her tears started soon after that. She folds the letter and brings it to her chest. “That poor girl. The pain… She…”
With my own throat tight, my eyes stinging, I wrap an arm around Maria and bring her into my chest. The day I received Nina’s letter, I broke down. I missed work, locked myself in my room, and sobbed like I had never cried before.
“I know, Maria. I know. After reading the letter, I looked up Nina. I found her obituary and then found the town where her parents lived. I decided to drive there and see them with my own eyes. I wasn’t expecting to find her father passed out in his front yard. After helping him into the house, I waited for him to sober up. The next morning, he told me that after Nina’s death, his wife died in a car accident and that Grace was being cared for by Nina’s maternal grandmother. That was all her father would tell me because he thought I was Grace’s father. I drove to Nina’s grandma’s house, where I showed her the letter and held her while she cried. That was the first time I told someone else what happened to us besides you.
“Debra, let me meet Grace—who is now nine—and she showed me pictures of Nina. I don’t remember Nina from my time at Camp Arrow, and I feel bad about that. She sharedstories about Nina, and I felt like I got to know her through her grandma. When I asked how the letter got sent to me, Debra confessed that she found the letter in Grace’s stuff when she took custody of her. She never read it, but when Grace started to ask about her father, Debra thought it best to look me up and send me the letter. She hired a private investigator to find me. When I tried to pay her back the money she spent because I’m not Grace’s father, Debra told me to shut my mouth and that she was fine. She couldn’t tell me much about the camp because she didn’t even know Nina’s parents had sent her away. Turns out they lived in Springfield when Nina was sent to camp. They had moved back to Texas when Nina found out she was pregnant. The doctors said they believed Nina killed herself due to postpartum depression. Maria, she was only fifteen.”
“Why didn’t you tell me?” Maria asks, wrapping her arms around me and squeezing me tightly.
“Because I felt like such a failure. If I had spoken up and told Uncle Joey or the cops what happened, maybe she would still be alive.” Guilt digs its nasty fangs into my soul as if a snake striking its prey. Nina said I saved the other kids, but I didn’t save a damn person because I’ve kept my mouth shut.
“You know that’s not how that works. You don’t need to carry the guilt of Nina’s death on your shoulders. You were just a child yourself, and might I remind you that you're not the only one who could have spoken up,” Maria says, smacking me on the back. “How does Harley fit in?”
“I’ve been tracking down leads about camps just like the one I was in over the last five months. The first two were nothing but dead ends, but this last one wasn’t. We had a solid lead in Ohio, so Sonny’s MC group and I went out there. We went in the dead of the night, hoping to catch the people running it. The only person left was Harley. Basically, the same thing that happened at Camp Arrow had happened there. The kids woke upthat morning to find all the adults gone, and then their parents showed up. Unlike the other kids, Harley’s parents didn’t want her back. So, we gave her a choice of what comes next.”
“And?”
