Mia Crimson
Memories laced with happiness and pain confused me for over a decade. Beckett was only a boy just having turned seventeen when he went to prison. My brother Clay and I lived with our grandparents. Our mother was sixteen when she got pregnant with my brother then twenty with me.
We never met our father, and my mother never told us or, to the best of my knowledge, her parents his name. He came in and out of her life, responsible for both pregnancies. It seems he was another one of her addictions.
When I was ten, my mother died of a drug overdose, and my grandparents became our sole guardians.
In some ways, nothing changed. We already were living with them, and my mother wasn’t the maternal type. She partied so much, days, sometimes turning into weeks, would pass without her coming home.
But it was still painful. As absent a mother she was, she still was Clay’s and my only parent. I thought I had cried all my tears after she died. And then Beckett murdered Clay. At least that is what my grandparents told me before they sent me away to a boarding school run by nuns on the Upper Peninsula of Michigan.
When I turned eighteen, my grandparents sent me to a private college attached to the boarding school. I only moved buildings. Anytime I asked to come home, the answer was always the same. “It’s not safe.”
They wouldn’t tell me why it wasn’t safe. Clay’s killer was in prison. How was it not safe? But no matter how many times I asked the question, I never received an answer.
My grandfather died of a heart attack when I was in the middle of earning my bachelor’s degree on an accelerated course. My life consisted of classes and limited acquaintances. I threw myself into studying from the time I arrived at the boarding school through my master’s, putting up a wall and making sure I didn’t get too close to anyone.
No one knew my story, and I wasn’t about to tell them. I could only imagine the conversation with the gossipy girls in my classes.
Drug-addicted mom who overdosed, no-name father, and a brother murdered by his best friend would have been the talk of the school. So I kept to myself and didn’t get close to anyone.
My grandparents couldn’t travel much, and when my grandmother called to tell me about his death, I wanted to come home. She wouldn’t let me, and I didn’t have any funds to disobey her.
Last year, she died as well. I inherited all of their assets—the small house in the seaside town of Anna Maria Island, a smaller stock account, and bank accounts. I wasn’t rich, but it gave me enough to move back to Florida after finishing my master’s degree.
They never told me why I needed to stay away.
And I am tired of hiding.
Ten years have passed. I still have nightmares and hear sounds of bullets and my brother’s voice. A man always yells, “Get down, Mia.” I always think it’s Beckett, but they told me he shot and killed Clay.
When my grandparents told me that, I swore it wasn’t possible. I remember Beckett and Clay being tight throughout all their childhood. They played sports together and went on double dates and did all the other things boys their age do.
I had a crush on Beckett. But besides being his best friend’s quiet little sister, he didn’t know I existed. And why would he have? Teenage acne covered my face and, the metal braces on my teeth didn’t scream “Pay attention to me.” Sure, he was kind to me and would tease me with Clay at times, but his mind was on all the girls who chased after him.
And Beckett had his pick of the town. He ran his hand through his thick, sandy-colored hair often. When he laughed, displaying his perfectly straight white teeth, his deep-brown eyes lit up. Unlike most boys his age, he wasn’t just cute—he was beautiful.
Being captain of the football and basketball teams didn’t hurt his popularity status, either. Girls constantly threw themselves at him. Clay and Beckett took advantage of the nearby beaches, and I’d hear them after each trip, rating which girls they thought were hottest in their little bikinis.
They were like brothers.
But Beckett has never denied it. Over ten years have passed, and not once has he claimed his innocence. So the confusion that plagues me is constant.
It’s May, and I just graduated. I’m planning on moving back to Florida, but I move my timeline up when two days after school is out, I’m opening my mail and receive the notice of the parole hearing.
I stay up all night, packing my few belongings into my small SUV and drive through the night and the next day until I reach the house I grew up in and inherited.
Throughout the drive on I-75, I can only think of one thing. I have to know why he did it.
I arrive three days before the hearing. The island town of Anna Maria has grown considerably since I left. Houses have been torn down, and new, exquisite ones replace them. But the little cottage home I grew up in until I was almost fourteen is still standing, and when I step through the doors, memories flood me.
I see my grandparents and Clay. But mostly, I see Beckett.
He’s giving me a nuggie while Clay tickles me.
He’s eating dinner with all of us.
He’s playing video games on the brown leather couch.
Emotion overcomes me, and I blink back tears. Why did he do it? How could he have done it? The questions plague me, ripping my heart to shreds as raw as the day I learned Beckett pulled the trigger.
I wake up the day of the hearing and take a shower. No one ever showed me how to put on makeup, so I wear very little. I dry my hair, plug my curling iron in, and decide to fight the humidity.
Looking at the few items of clothing I own, I debate but decide I should look nice going to court. The nicest thing I own is a sundress I bought the previous day at one of the stores on the island. I only went in to buy a hat to shield my face from the sun but decided to buy it because my clothes are warmer from living in the Upper Peninsula.
I put the dress on and look at the time. There’s one hour until the hearing. My stomach is in flutters, knowing that I’m going to face Beckett today.
Deciding that traffic is unpredictable, I leave for the courthouse and get there thirty minutes early. I sit in my car, breathing in and out, trying to calm my nerves.
It’s useless. Ten minutes before my time, I get out of the car and enter the courthouse, go through the metal detector, and a guard nods to the correct courtroom.
The room is empty, except for the panel of four professionals who sit at the front. A woman whose nameplate says Judge Filmore says, “Can you state your name so I can verify you’re in the correct hearing? These are closed proceedings.”
I clear my throat. “Mia Crimson.”
She looks at her file then back at me. “You are Clay Crimson’s sister?”
“Yes, your Honor.” Her sympathetic expression only makes my nerves oscillate faster.
“And you are the only living relative?”
I nod, unable to talk as a thick ball forms in my throat.
There’s no one but me left.
“Please, have a seat, then.” She motions to the seats.
Do I sit at the front or the back?
The back. The farther away from Beckett the better.
Several minutes pass, and I tap my foot and twist my fingers together in nervous anticipation.
The doors finally open, and a guard stands between a man in an orange jumpsuit and me, guiding him to the front of the room. His hands and ankles are chained together.
My heart beats faster in my chest. I swallow hard, looking at the back of him.
He’s different—filled out, full of muscle, no longer a boy. His hair is darker than ten years ago, and he has a thin goatee. I can’t see his face, but when the judge asks him questions, his voice is the same one that yells in my dreams, “Get down, Mia.”
It’s deeper than ten years ago, but it’s his voice.
“Is there anything you would like to say today to your victim’s family?” The judge points to me.
Beckett turns around. My insides quiver hard and I blink back tears. The boyish grin he used to carry is gone. His chiseled jaw is now a man’s. Eyes that used to be full of happiness are full of sadness, and...hardness?
Surprise fills his face, almost as if he doesn’t know me. He opens his mouth to speak then closes it, turns to the judge, and asks her who I am.
He doesn’t remember me? Is this some kind of sick joke?
When she tells him that I’m Clay’s sister, he spins to me. “Mia? You’re alive?” The blood drains from his face.
Confusion once again fills me. Why does he think I died?
His remorse seems genuine, but he doesn’t deny killing Clay. His eyes bore into mine as if he’s trying to tell me something, but I don’t know what.
He killed your brother. Don’t let him fool you.
But he couldn’t have.
Then why doesn’t he deny it?
The judge tells him to turn back, and then she says, “Is there anything you would like to say, Ms. Crimson?”
Tell her to lock him up.
But he yelled for you to get down the night of the shooting.
I came to tell her to keep him in jail. That ten years isn’t enough for my brother’s life. I am here to plead with her to keep him locked up forever. But I can’t. Instead, my social anxiety overpowers me and, to my surprise, I barely get out, “No.”
The muscles in his back tense, and the judge tells him she is releasing him. In forty-eight hours, he will be free.
I’m sorry, Clay. I’ve failed you.
Tears stream down my face. He will be free in two days, and my brother will still be in the ground. The last ten years of my life will always be a decade of grief and loneliness due to what Beckett did.
But he gets to go free.
As the officer escorts him out of the courtroom, he locks eyes with me, his jaw clenched.
On the outside, Beckett Brooks is still as beautiful as I remember, except now he’s a man. But I won’t ever forget the ugliness that must reside inside him.