Wood (A True Lover's Story #2) - A.E. Via Page 0,43

shrank back at the anger he saw. He’d never seen his dad lose his temper to the point where he balled his fists as if he was about to attack. “The Board of Bishops took my church. Eighty-four percent of our congregation left after what you did. Killing that innocent woman. No matter how much we said that we didn’t raise you that way, it didn’t matter.” His dad scowled at him. “We gave you a beautiful life by raising you in a God-fearing, morally decent home, and look what you gave us in return.”

“I’m. Sorry. I’ve said it so much I’ve lost count. I wrote you repeatedly saying exactly what happened that night—since neither of you came to my trial—that I wasn’t drunk at all. It really was an accident. I want you to know that I’m not holding any grudges about you all not being there for me during the scariest time of my life or never writing. I’m too old for that now, and too much time has passed. I really wish we could get beyond this, but I don’t think we can…” Wood trailed off to see if anyone would deny his words, but his father continued to seethe while his mother turned her face away.

Wood sighed. It was freezing and his father was going to end up catching pneumonia if he didn’t get back inside. “I understand. I guess this really is goodbye.”

His father nodded stiffly.

Oh God! The hurt almost made him drop to the ground in defeat, but he’d wait until he was alone to lose his shit. “Can I have my belongings that were removed from my condo? My landlord said he had to give my possessions to my next of kin and that he contacted you,” Wood said. They suddenly looked guilty, and Wood started to get nervous. “It’s okay if you didn’t move my furniture—I guess you had no way of storing all my stuff. But…” Wood bit anxiously on his lip. “But you did keep my portfolios, right? My drawings, my equipment?”

His mom walked away from the door, and Wood breathed a sigh of relief. He’d be happy to just have his portfolios. His tattoo equipment was old and outdated anyway, and it was going to cost him a small fortune to replace… but his art was irreplaceable. He’d been building his collection since junior high school. He’d won awards for some of them.

“We had no obligation to keep any of your things. It wasn’t our responsibility to protect your possessions after you abandoned them. We lost our church and livelihood… and I guess you did too.”

Wood frowned. “What?”

His mother appeared at the door and opened it just wide enough to set a half-full, black trash bag at his feet. She was wiping tears from her red-rimmed eyes with a baby blue lace handkerchief as she closed herself back inside. Okay, if they’d dumped his art in there, then some of it might be salvageable. Wood scrambled into the bag, then fell to his knees on the hardwood porch at what he saw. The pain flaring in his freezing kneecaps didn’t register as he lifted letter after unopened letter. What the… “What the hell is this?” Wood raised a stack of mail in his hand and saw they were all from him.

“That’s all we have of yours. You can take it with you when you go,” his father said dishearteningly, looming over him like the prison guards did when Wood was at his lowest… “And don’t come back here, Herschel. The devil took our son from us long before he went into that prison.”

Wood ignored them as he frantically dug around in the bag for any sign of one of his portfolios. Please, please be in here. I’ll even take one. Wood felt the tears stinging his cheeks, but he didn’t stop clawing through the letters that held his deepest thoughts as he searched for his artwork. He still had a chance of living his dream and being a tattoo artist on the beach if he could get his credentials together and back to El. He tried not to stare helplessly at the still-sealed envelopes that held words that were torn from his chest and put on paper in hopes they’d one day understand who he really was. Years of pouring his heart out, and they couldn’t be bothered to read a single word.

“Leave, Wood Jr.,” his father said sternly. “Leave now or I’ll call your parole officer. He said