CHAPTER 1
Ambrose—present day
You’d think people would talk quieter while sneering at the worthless murderer at the next table.
But here we are.
The rowdy breakfast bar is relatively full now, as opposed to ten minutes ago when I tested my luck by coming in and ordering.
Three other places had turned me away this week. No one wants me tainting their businesses, and they aren’t quiet about it.
But a night shift at work and the anticipation of empty cupboards at home had me choosing to risk further embarrassment today.
It’s the pancakes’ fault.
Their tantalizing smell called me in from the cold.
That and the suicidal thoughts I could rid myself of if I just had a little background noise that didn’t involve someone smashing windows and vandalizing my home. It’s happened twice this week alone. And I’m running out of money to pay any guys willing to fix them.
DIY for the win twice this week.
The house, being a relic, makes everything more expensive. So much so that prison life was easier than the release I’d been craving for years.
I slouch in the red chair, and the leather creaks as I let my gaze wander to a couple in the distance, laughing and giggling at something the other said.
Love is for the idiots of the world. And if I’m being truthful, I’d admit I’m one of them.
I don’t have a special person like the guy over there who tucks his partner’s brunette curls behind ears so big only he’d find them adorable.
But I crave it.
Someone to look at me and see through the scars on my face and just see a person.
Something I can’t even do myself.
I catch a glimpse of my reflection in the window, and it has me turning away faster as I avert my eyes from the lovey-dovey couple still on my mind, accompanied by a shitty feeling of profound loneliness.
Stupidly, I’d thought someone would be there waiting for me when I returned home.
But she wasn’t. And a month goes by without a single fucking word from her.
The fact that she’d never once written to me, despite the thousands of letters I’d sent to her, should have clearly indicated that we were no longer each other’s support person.
It’s a hard pill to swallow.
The pancakes will taste much better on my tongue. Forcing myself upright on the puffy red bench, I wait for them. Each passing order calls my attention, and my rumbling stomach begs for each of those orders to be mine.
The wooden table takes my weight as I lower my head down, avoiding those with eyes on me.
Four guys I remember from my distant memories of schoolyard games settle in at the table to my left.
They watch my every move, these boys who were once my friends, almost like they expect me to waltz over and start carving them up with the butter knife.
Maybe it’s because I keep looking at it.
But I have no urge to kill. The crooked napkin below the knife grates on my patience far more than they do.
But rather than give them something else to sneer at me for, I ignore the urge to set it perfectly straight.
