“Kinda. It’s hard. I want him to come home, but all they see is a convict.”
“You did your time Branson, they shouldn’t hold that against you,” he said knowing full well that when it came to the courts and the police, that your history was like a weight around your neck.
“Yeah well, a while back I had a run in with a guy in town. He was bad mouthing my mom and shit and I let him get the better of me. Sherriff talked around it in the courts, tried to help me out. But it was on the camera or some shit. Now I’m walking around with them tracking my every move, and the courts can’t see past it.” Branson finished, lifting his pant leg showing the tracking bracelet on his ankle.
“What the fuck? You’re on probation?” Mark asked in shock. “Why didn’t you say something man!”
“I didn’t want to tell anyone.”
“I knew that your brother wasn’t living with you, but hell Branson, I would have been there!”
“There wasn’t anything to do. Besides, I only got another few weeks, and the sheriff and I have a deal.”
“Deal with the sheriff, like what? You helping him with something?”
“It’s all good.” Branson shrugged it off, but he knew there was something more going on there.
“It makes it hard with the system. I just want my brother home.”
“I’m sorry,” he said.
Sometimes politics were more important to the courts.
“Anyways, I get to see him a couple times a month, and they let me call him, so at least he knows I’m trying,” Branson muttered, clearly trying to shrug the situation off.
He looked over to the main house, the house that Branson’s mother had lived in.
The one that Branson was still in.
Stuck.
Was he really in any better situation?
“You think I should let her make the decision?” he asked.
“Honestly I don’t know. But I wouldn’t want to stand in her way either.” Branson turned and gave him a meaningful look.
“I’ve never wanted to stop her. I knew going into it that she was more. She was one of the ones meant for great things. It still eats at me that she settled for me.”
“From what I can tell she doesn’t think she’s settled.”
“Hmm … Maybe. But maybe she just doesn’t know how to let me go. Giving her this. A family. It may be what she needs to do that.”
Branson chuckled, and he frowned looking at him.
“What the fuck is funny about that?”
“Y’all both are so blind.” Branson chuckled again.
“I don’t want anything to do with them.” He jolted and turned at Winter’s voice.
She was standing there wrapped in the comforter from the bed, the frown on her face telling him that she had been standing there for a bit and had overheard them.
He turned and gave Branson a glare that sent him on another round of laughter.
“What are you doing up little bird?”
“Couldn’t sleep without you,” she murmured and sat down next to him, burrowing into him. He wrapped his arm around her and leaned down. Kissing her head.
