Page 146 of Collateral Love
He’d always been tall; that was the same. His shoulders were broad, but prison carved its own weight into a person. It settled in the corners of their eyes, in the way they scanned perimeters, in the way their shoulders held like they were still expecting impact.
His hair was more salt than pepper now, cut low. His beard was full, streaked with gray. There was a scar on his jaw that hadn’t been there before. But his eyes were the same.
Warm brown.
Tired.
Sharp underneath.
He squinted against the light, hand lifting to shade his face.
For a heartbeat, nobody moved.
Then my legs did, on their own.
“Jare-Bear,” I whispered.
His gaze locked on me.
“YaYa?” he croaked.
That was all it took.
I ran.
The distance between us felt both longer and shorter than it was. My sneakers slapped asphalt. My ribs protested. My shoulder pulled. I didn’t care.
He opened his arms.
I crashed into him.
The impact rattled both of us. For a second, we just held on. His arms wrapped around me so tight it almost hurt. My face smashed into his chest, the rough fabric of the prison-issue shirt scratching my cheek. I felt his whole body tremble.
He smelled like institutional soap and recycled air and something that still, somehow, was my brother.
“I got you,” he whispered, voice breaking. “I got you, YaYa.”
I hadn’t cried when they dragged me out of my own dance studio. I hadn’t cried in that fucking storage unit when the pain was too much, and nobody was there to see. But this was different. I cried like a baby.
This was grief and joy and rage and relief, all fighting for the front seat.
I sobbed into his chest.
“I’m sorry,” I choked. “I’m so fucking sorry, Jared.”
He pulled back enough to grip my shoulders, forcing me to look at him.
“Don’t start that,” he said hoarsely. “You hear me? Don’t steal my moment blaming yourself.”
“I should’ve known Sharon was an evil Cunt”
“You were a kid,” he cut in. “A brilliant, stubborn, too-grown kid. Sharon and the DA did this. The state did this. Alan fucking Price did this. Cameron finished it. You didn’t put me in there.”
His eyes were wet.
“Your hands brought me out,” he added softly. “That’s the only math I care about.”
Behind me, I heard footsteps.
