Or is this about something else?
I honestly don’t know anymore. I’m too emotionally drained and exhausted to gather any logical thought.
My limbs shake as I recall the solicitor’s visit. Parole. He said fucking parole.
Surely he can’t get paroled after only eleven years.
The dark cloud hovers over me and my fingers quiver as I pull my knees to my chest, grip my trousers, and remain in place like a statue.
That’s what I did that day.
I wasn’t sitting, but I was a statue.
You see, my love for puzzles was my damnation. I shouldn’t have gone to the forest that day. I shouldn’t have tried to figure out Dad’s puzzle.
But I did.
I wore my hoodie, took my bike, and followed close behind, a bit like a detective. I felt so smug at the time, thinking I was Sherlock Holmes or something.
Thinking Dad wouldn’t win this time.
He always said I was an extension of him, and because of that, he could read me better than anyone else.
I was going to prove that I could read him, too.
Or so I thought.
Past
Dad’s truck slows to a halt behind a small cottage. Hmph. He thought he could come here without me right after the business trip he took this morning. Well, he has a surprise waiting for him.
It isn’t the first time I’ve come here. This is where he keeps his tools.
Dad’s a hunter and a mechanic. He likes tools.
Tomorrow, we’ll go hunt again. I don’t really like it when the rabbits and deer die, but I like the stalking, the chase, and the rush of adrenaline.
Daddy says I need to perfect my hunting methods so that I can hit the target like he does.
After all, Daddy is the best hunter alive.
The door of his truck opens and he gets out. I smile with mischief as I hide with my bike behind a tree.
Daddy is a big man with broad shoulders and long legs. He has blond hair and a beard and blue eyes so deep, they’re mesmerising. All the women in town gush after my daddy.
But he’s never wanted to bring me a mum. He decided early on it was only going to be the two of us.
We do everything together. We run and hunt and solve puzzles. We cook together and even go to the local festivals side by side.
I never knew my mother, and Alicia doesn’t visit often. Daddy is my world, and as he always says, I’ll grow up to make him proud.
Dad puts on his baseball cap and rounds the truck, then goes inside the cottage.
Maybe he’s having fun without me. How dare he? I don
’t have fun without him. Well, except when Alicia is in town. She doesn’t like to come home with me. I think she still hates Daddy from when he followed us to London on her wedding day and yanked me away. She never comes home with me and tells me not to mention I visited.
I hate keeping things from Daddy, but I’m cool if it’s for Alicia.