THORPE
Being locked-up taught me one thing—to let go. It was the hardest thing I've done in my life. Did I have a choice? Yes, but I chose the wrong option that thrown me to the jail.
Hacking the NYPD database was not an excellent choice to show you what you were capable of. But what done was done. I served my sentence. I let go the people I cared from the outside world; my brother, my best friend, and my future.
Since an hour ago, I am a free man, but the word ex-con would be forever attached to my name and to my life, and people would judge me.
The rain continuously cried with a strong gust of wind. Lighting slashed from the dark sky. I was the only sane person who stood outside like a lost puppy, undecided where to go, either to be sheltered under the tree or my very own house.
The cab left as soon as I paid my fare. I've spent three years in prison for a felony, but this place hadn't changed a bit since I last seen it. Sad. The overgrowth grass on the lawn, the leaky porch roof and loose beam, and the fade and cracked paint of the house, my brother gave me the full ownership already looked abandon.
To my right, the same structured house as mine, but by the look of it—it was newly painted, the lawn had been trimmed, and a light illuminated from the window indicated that there was someone living inside the house. It supposed to be a happy couple or a happy family, but the chances had been taken an away from them when my brother killed in the Middle East leaving my best friend a widow at a very young age.
I was given a chance to attend my brother's funeral, and that was the last time I saw my best friend as well.
Acacia stopped visiting me. And I thought my world crumbled down.
After what she'd been through I couldn't blame her. She didn't want to befriend with an ex-con like myself or she could have moved on...to someone else.
Instead of going left, my feet stepped towards my brother's house. The water from my wet clothes ran down to my feet, soaking the porch floor. I took a deep breath before I pressed the doorbell. The same porch swing I used to sit on swung to the whirl of the wind.
I could hear a dog scratching the door, then footsteps clumping over the hardwood floor.
Before I could breathe again, the door swung open, revealing the woman that I've known in my entire life. Our neighborhood thought we ended up together because we were of the same age and like peas in a pod, instead she ended up marrying my brother. She was wiser, I guessed. My brother had a stable job and dreaming of a white picket fence one day.
My heart did a wild thumping the moment our eyes met. Acacia cut her long blonde hair to a pixie style. Her heart-shaped face didn't get old other than her losing some weight. Those brown eyes showed an instant recognition—they widened and gleamed with happiness, at least that what I saw, but the sadness was still there. Her cupid bow lips that I tasted once when she asked me how to kiss someone slightly spread into a small smile.
"God, Thorpe," she muttered before she threw herself into me.
"Acacia." I wrapped my arms around her and closed my eyes in relief.
She smelled the same—a sweet floral scent, and she felt the same as two years ago.
When we pulled away, she looked at me in the eyes again. "When did? I thought—never mind."
"An hour or so."
Tears welled her eyes. She had not changed a thing—the same sweet, emotional, and innocent girl I knew.
