A police officer drives us home. I shower blood from my skin before the sun rises. Then sit in a holding cell for six hours.
My father posts bond without a word.
The charges stick tomyname.
And if I hadn’t met Emily the night I came back to Nashville—if she hadn’t looked at me like I was worth knowing,worthsaving—maybe my version ofWarned Youwould’ve been simple:
Don’t ever speak to me again.
But instead, he whispered:
“You know I’ve got a lot at stake. If I go down for something like this… you’ll lose out too.You’ll lose me.”
I looked him in the eye.
“What the hell are you saying?”
He smiled, confident. Delusional.
“Come on, son… You don’t really need me to spell it out for you, do you?”
39
COLE
Back Then
Cole Banks.
Istare at the name as the detention officer presses the label onto my prison badge. Black letters on laminated plastic. Like it belongs to someone else.
Technically, I’m supposed to be placed in adult general population, but they’re letting me serve my sentence in the transitional juvenile wing. A “compromise,” they called it. Because I’m eighteen—but barely.
I’ve never been more grateful for my mother’s laziness.
She never corrected the typo on my birth certificate. Never filed the change after she married him. All my records—from school to court to hospital paperwork—have always readCole Banks. It was a running family joke. Something they teased about at dinner tables and laughed over when official mail showed up addressed to the wrong last name.
I was supposed to fix it. Supposed to change everything toDawsonbefore heading off to art school. Tie the name to the family. To the brand. Tohim.
But now?
Now it’s the only thing protecting him.
The only thing separating his public legacy from my criminal record.
This name—the one I never meant to keep—saveshis. Keeps him clean. Lets him go on with his podcast, his book tour, his carefully curated public apologies.
No one will ever know.
Not unless I tell them.
And I won’t.
Because somewhere in the twisted part of me that still wants to believe he’s capable of love, I keep thinking:maybe he’ll use the chance I gave him to become better.
Even if I know he won’t.
40
