Page 45 of The Wrong Man

The first taste of the liquor was like meeting an old friend. It burned my esophagus all the way to my stomach, filling it with heat, caressing my insides with a tight hug after I swallowed. The cigarette immediately took me to another plane, and I inhaled deeper, coughing as I exhaled the smoke. Dixson meandered back toward me, wiping the bar with a white cloth as he did.

Raising his light gray eyes to mine, he scrunched his brow as he asked, “I’m assuming this is all about Essa?” Staring intensely into my eyes, he wiped the surface with a white cloth in idle circles.

After another sip from my friend, I let out a long sigh, able to finally breathe for the first time in a week. “No, it’s all me. Me being a complete fucking idiot.”

His blond hair shone in the dim light as he nodded slowly with a grimace on his lips. “You fuck someone else?”

“What?! No, no. Nothing like that.” Taking another sip, my tongue loosened completely. Too busy with wallowing or trying to distract myself from my pain had stopped me from the thing I should have spent all my time doing. “Dixson, what time do you get done here?”

Glancing at the clock on the wall, he said with some trepidation, “Davis is coming in an hour. You want to go back to my place together?”

“Yeah. I need to talk things over. I need some answers.” And I did. If I wanted to bring Essa some peace, and some for myself, I had to delve into that night. Even if I didn’t like the answer.

Reaching across the bar, Dix’s wide palm gripped my shoulder with a warm squeeze. “Sure, man. I’ll do anything for you. You know that.”

While he finished his shift, I nursed one full drink before he refilled it. My new biker buddy gave me another cigarette and paid for my second drink, saying he’d “been there.” I stared into the amber liquid like it held the key to making me not such a fuck-up.

Before Davis showed up, Dixson told me to wait out by his car, then he’d take me to his place. That was fine by me; I didn’t want Davis to see me drinking again. He’d probably call my P.O. and tattle on me.

“You ready?” Dixson loped out of the back exit, shoving a hand in his jeans to fish out his car keys, while I leaned against his Jeep door. My body relaxed with all the liquor it held, my tolerance having dulled to nothing.

He had a new place I’d not seen before: a townhouse downtown off the main street that was converted from a retail store on the first floor to a two-story house. It was modern, sleek, and sharp. My friends had done so well while I was locked up, and the throbbing ache that had abated with the whiskey threatened to surge back.

Looking around the white walls and metal beams on the ceiling, I said, “Nice place.”

“Thanks, man. The rent’s a bitch, but I hate having roommates, especially in a college town. So, it’s just me.”

We entered his living room, which held a full bar along the back wall. He grabbed a beer from the fridge and held one up, shaking it slightly, asking if I wanted one. Grabbing it from him, I pulled the top off with my teeth and spit it toward his trash can. It didn’t make it, but Dix was a good man and bent down to toss it in for me.

Lounging on his large leather sofa, it squeaked as he took the seat next to me. Propping his heels up on the coffee table, he snatched the remote and flipped channels on his massive TV to find a hockey game. We watched in relaxed silence until the tension built up inside my veins so much that I busted out my secret.

“Essa is Pete’s daughter.”

Dix’s head whipped to look at me. “Pete?” He seemed confused, shaking his head slightly as a long blond strand fell out from behind his ear. “Slingin’ P? Pete Monti?Thatguy?”

Swigging the beer, I licked my lips as I replied, “Yeah.”

Dixson’s mouth formed a solid line. He blew out a big breath and said, “Holy shit. You did fuck up. How—how did something like that happen, Griff?” Sitting up, he placed his elbows on his knees.

“Warden, please don’t judge me.” The guilt and shame washed through me as his light eyes roamed up and down my face, searching for an explanation.

“I won’t, especially if you use my first name.” A corner of his lip lifted into a sarcastic grin. “I’m scared now.”

“I wrote to her while I was in prison. The guilt from that night was eating away at me slowly, and I had todosomething about it.Thatnight, the night before I got put away. Any library hours we had on the inside, I kept scouring the internet, looking for anything about Pete. One of those people search websites listed her as a known contact, and when I looked into her more, I realized she was his daughter. A few months later, I-I wrote to her, told her I was his co-worker. Told her we were friends. I did it because I wanted to take care of her, Dix. I felt I owed Pete for what happened. Tried to make up for what I’d done.”

Dixson listened in silence, waiting for me to finish my story. I couldn’t get a read on his stoic expression.

I continued, “She’d never met him. Ever. She didn’t know a thing about him. She was just a little girl struggling to take care of her sick mom. She didn’t have anyone, and I was alone, too. We bonded over that, our sick moms, feeling isolated, lonely. And then somehow… Well, I fell in love with her as she grew up.”

Dixson squirmed in his seat, scrunching his mouth to one side with his upper lip curled. I quickly added, “Of course, I didn’t see her that way until she was older.” A chuckle escaped as I remembered our early letters. “She had a schoolgirl crush on me at one point, but I told her I’d stop writing. Sometimes I felt so guilty about Pete, about lying to her, that I would stop writing for weeks. But I couldn’t stop for long. I felt like I had to help her, for Pete. Like I could make up for whatever I had done wrong. When I got out, I planned to send her money.”

“She’s been taking your money?” Dix looked disgusted with shock.

“No, no. I offered it to her, but she never took it. She—she worked it out. She’s in school now, you know.” There was no way I would tell anyone about our video or what she had to do to get the money.

“So, what happened?”

“She found out that I had lied to her. She found out that I was there the night her father was murdered.” Despite struggling to hold it back, my voice broke when I spoke. “I tried to stay away from her, Dix, I did. I should have. It was killing me to stay away, and it was killing me to be with her.”

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