I Let Her Ruin Herself Chapter 28
Neither of them would admit any fault. They eventually came to blows and had to be pulled apart by correctional officers.
When Taylor found out, she wrote to each of them.
She told Derek that she had given up college for him and that he owed her for the rest of his life.
She told the fan that if he had just succeeded in controlling me that day, she would have taken the money and been long gone from America.
Both men handed the letters to their lawyers, each wanting only to prove that he was the one who had been used.
Taylor had hoped to use their testimony for an appeal, but the letters only proved she was still dodging responsibility for the garage incident.
Her case never moved forward again.
When the lawyer told me all this, all I felt was a sense of absurdity.
I hadn’t made them turn on each other.
I had only stopped cleaning up their messes.
Years passed. First Light expanded from a single office in Pennsylvania to more than ten states.
Hannah was still busy, but no matter how late she worked, she always tried to be home for dinner with the kids.
After finishing their long stretch of travel, my parents bought a house near ours.
Dad spent every day researching new fishing spots. Mom brought over baked goods every few days and complained, at length, that I still couldn’t put together a proper lunch for the kids.
These ordinary things were the life I never would have dared to imagine, right up until the moment I died in my last one.
Eight years later, on a drizzly morning, Taylor served her minimum sentence and was released from prison.
No one was waiting for her at the gate.Â