Concurrent is total. He'll have done his time if he takes the deal assuming he's already served the year. Expunged is disappeared but (assuming) Caine means this whole time period won't just be erased just because the system erased it.djp73 wrote: ↑03 Jul 2025, 12:50is it three years each charge or total?Caesar wrote: ↑03 Jul 2025, 07:06Three years each, two suspended. One year time served. Concurrent.
They offered you a door. One year served. Two suspended. Probation. You’d be released immediately
“Fine. Sealed now. Eligible for expungement on successful completion of probation.”
If you finish high school or get a job and stay clean, your record gets sealed.”
“It don’t disappear,” Caine muttered.
“No,” Markus said, “but you get to.”
Expunged is disappeared is it not? or does he mean that people wont forget?
American Sun
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Captain Canada
- Posts: 4739
- Joined: 01 Dec 2018, 00:15
American Sun
American Sun
I read that shit four times and never registered concurrent 
American Sun
I think he means more saying guilt in court won't disappear. And the expunged is only after he clears Prob.djp73 wrote: ↑03 Jul 2025, 12:50is it three years each charge or total?Caesar wrote: ↑03 Jul 2025, 07:06Three years each, two suspended. One year time served. Concurrent.
They offered you a door. One year served. Two suspended. Probation. You’d be released immediately
“Fine. Sealed now. Eligible for expungement on successful completion of probation.”
If you finish high school or get a job and stay clean, your record gets sealed.”
“It don’t disappear,” Caine muttered.
“No,” Markus said, “but you get to.”
Expunged is disappeared is it not? or does he mean that people wont forget?
The problem with Dre jumping on the grenade like that is they could easily push for a retrail and stretch this shit FOREVER. But looks like it's working for Caine.
He's already been locked up for 6 months or so yeah? Another 6 puts him in line for his senior year
American Sun
I’m wondering if he is going to sign or roll the dice on a not guilty 
-
Captain Canada
- Posts: 4739
- Joined: 01 Dec 2018, 00:15
American Sun
Imaging being a QB losing your starting job your senior year to a dude that was in prison?redsox907 wrote: ↑03 Jul 2025, 14:44I think he means more saying guilt in court won't disappear. And the expunged is only after he clears Prob.djp73 wrote: ↑03 Jul 2025, 12:50is it three years each charge or total?Caesar wrote: ↑03 Jul 2025, 07:06Three years each, two suspended. One year time served. Concurrent.
They offered you a door. One year served. Two suspended. Probation. You’d be released immediately
“Fine. Sealed now. Eligible for expungement on successful completion of probation.”
If you finish high school or get a job and stay clean, your record gets sealed.”
“It don’t disappear,” Caine muttered.
“No,” Markus said, “but you get to.”
Expunged is disappeared is it not? or does he mean that people wont forget?
The problem with Dre jumping on the grenade like that is they could easily push for a retrail and stretch this shit FOREVER. But looks like it's working for Caine.
He's already been locked up for 6 months or so yeah? Another 6 puts him in line for his senior year
American Sun
Donde No Alcanza la Luz
The street was still asleep.
Dew clung to the rims of mailboxes and the corners of cracked cement. The sun hadn’t fully broken through, just enough light pushing over the rooftops to turn the world blue and bruised. Dre sat on the porch steps, the last step before the sidewalk, elbows on his knees, a beer sweating between his fingers. Not cold anymore. Didn’t matter.
The porch creaked behind him. His mother hadn’t stirred yet. He’d heard her moving in her room earlier, coughing once, muttering something under her breath. But she didn’t come out. She hadn’t asked where he’d gone last night or what he’d done when he came back. Maybe she didn’t want to know. Maybe she already did.
He took a slow sip, then the rest in one go.
Not for taste.
Not even for nerves.
Just because it felt like the last thing he’d get to choose for a while.
He set the bottle down beside his foot and leaned back, hands flat on the wood, head tilted toward the sky. No stars. Just that fading gray, like the world was halfway between night and morning, and nobody had made up their mind which one they wanted yet.
He could’ve kept his mouth shut.
Let Caine take the weight.
Pretended he ain’t know nothing, like everybody else does when the block gets hot.
But what kind of brother does that?
Not a real one.
And Caine was more than a friend. More than a homie from the playground. He was the one who stuck around. Who didn’t switch up even when Dre did. Who didn’t talk sideways when things went left. Who never asked for anything more than loyalty—and Dre had failed him once already.
He wasn’t about to do it again.
A breeze picked up, stirring the leaves at the curb. Somewhere down the block, a dog barked. A garbage truck grunted in the distance. Normal sounds. Sounds of a day that didn’t care what was coming for him.
Then he heard it.
A low hum. Tires on asphalt. Then another. And another.
Dre stood up.
Twelve deep, they turned the corner in unison, blue lights washing over the block like water over concrete. A slow, synchronized swarm of NOPD cruisers—headlights sharp, windows tinted, engines growling low.
He didn’t flinch.
He just turned his back.
Put his hands behind his head.
Felt the air shift as the first one rolled up.
Doors slammed. Boots hit pavement. Voices rose.
“Get on the fucking ground!”
“Hands where I can see ‘em!”
He didn’t move. Didn’t say a word.
Another voice—closer, harder.
“You got a death wish, boy? Think you big ‘cause you got a little gun? Say something slick. Give me a reason.”
He stayed still.
They rushed him.
Hands grabbed his arms, twisted his wrists, shoved his shoulder blades tight. A knee pressed into his back as they cuffed him, one of them yanking his hoodie so hard it ripped the neckline. The officer leaned close, breath hot with chewing tobacco.
“You lucky we ain’t takin’ you out back.”
Dre looked sideways, eyes calm. “You lucky I missed.”
That was all it took.
A punch to the ribs. Not hard enough to break anything—but enough to hurt.
He didn’t grunt. Didn’t blink.
Just let them drag him toward the cruiser like they were the ones doing something righteous.
The whole block lit up in blue, sirens finally screaming as neighbors peeked through blinds and front doors opened just wide enough to catch a glimpse.
They stuffed him in the back seat.
The door slammed shut.
And Dre leaned his head against the window, cheek pressing into the glass.
He’d done what needed to be done.
Now he’d sit for it.
Because loyalty wasn’t just about what you do when someone’s watching.
It was about what you can’t live with if you don’t.
The courthouse was quieter than usual, but not quiet enough.
Markus walked the length of the hallway for the third time, paper cup in hand, the coffee inside lukewarm and bitter. His blazer was off, slung over his arm, shirt sleeves rolled to his elbows like he was prepping for a surgery instead of a plea hearing. Outside, the sun was turning everything too bright. Inside, the artificial lights made the walls feel even more institutional.
He paused by the bench near the elevators and let out a breath he hadn’t realized he was holding.
Behind him, soft footsteps. Nicole’s silhouette appeared beside his in the window’s reflection, two coffees in her hands. She held one out.
“Poison or poison?” she asked. “Machine had two settings.”
He took it without looking. “Whichever one tastes more like despair.”
She didn’t sit right away, just leaned against the wall beside him, watching the courthouse doors across the way like they might swing open and give them an answer.
“How’s he doing?” she asked.
Markus shook his head. “Quiet. Focused. Scared, but not the kind you can see unless you know what to look for.”
Nicole sipped her coffee. Winced. “I don’t know how they drink this stuff.”
“Same way they drink the Kool-Aid,” Markus muttered. “It’s what’s there.”
She looked over. “You think he’s gonna be alright?”
He didn’t answer right away. His eyes followed a maintenance worker dragging a mop bucket down the far hallway, the sloshing echoing like soft applause.
“Reentry’s a myth for most of them,” he said finally. “They take these boys, squeeze them through a system built to punish before it ever tries to understand… and then expect them to come out whole.”
Nicole nodded slowly. “Caine’s smart. He’s got his mom. Mireya. Camila.”
Markus gave a dry chuckle. “They don’t make room for changed boys. Just make sure they come back changed into something worse.”
Nicole fell silent. A beat passed.
“I keep thinking,” she said quietly, “how many Caines we’ve missed.”
Markus turned toward her. “Most of them.”
Footsteps echoed up from the stairwell. A bailiff emerged, clipboard in hand. His tie was crooked, eyes tired. “ADA Babin’s ready to meet. Judge says let’s get this on the record.”
Nicole nodded. “We’ll be there in a second.”
The bailiff disappeared as quickly as he came.
Markus downed the last of his coffee, made a face, then crushed the cup in one hand.
“She’s going to bury him in legalese,” Nicole said. “Make it feel like mercy, not desperation.”
Markus reached for his blazer, eyes sharp again. “She can call it whatever she wants. We’re calling it survival.”
They moved down the hallway together, step for step.
Behind them, the echo of their footsteps stretched longer than the distance they walked—like the ghosts of every kid who never got this far were trailing close behind.
The engine was still running. A low hum under her feet, like the car was nervous too.
Mireya sat in the driver’s seat, parked crooked across two lines in the courthouse lot, one hand resting lightly on the gearshift, the other tracing a faint line on the steering wheel. Camila slept in her car seat behind her, soft snores and the occasional twitch of a dream fluttering through her small frame. The toddler's pink hoodie was bunched at the neck. One sock had fallen off.
Mireya hadn’t turned the ignition off because she wasn’t ready to sit in silence. She wasn’t ready for stillness. The kind that pressed in. The kind that made her feel every minute of the last year.
The radio murmured something low—a talk show, maybe, or a traffic update—but the words blurred like water on glass.
She looked down at her hands.
No rings. No scars. Just skin. But she knew how much they’d done. What they’d held. What they’d given away.
She reached up and adjusted the rearview mirror.
Her own reflection stared back—tired, too pale under the overhead dome light, the bruise of exhaustion shadowing her cheekbones. For a moment, she didn’t recognize the girl in the glass.
That girl had once planned a life that didn’t include courtrooms and cell blocks and text messages from men with money in envelopes. That girl had wanted college, freedom, a quiet kind of success.
Now she looked like someone who had clawed her way out of something dark and hadn’t quite made it to the light.
“I used to know who you were,” she whispered to herself. “I don’t know what you are now.”
Camila stirred behind her. Mireya turned, voice soft. “Shhh. It’s okay, baby. Mommy’s here.”
She turned back to the mirror. Wiped at her face. Set her jaw.
She thought about what Caine had endured. A year locked up. A year being talked about instead of talked to. A year of letters, hearings, silence, pressure. He’d carried it all. Quietly. Desperately. Stubborn to the end.
He shouldn’t have had to.
She reached back and brushed Camila’s curls gently. The girl sighed in her sleep.
Mireya exhaled. “Your daddy shouldn’t have to beg the world to see he’s worth keeping,” she said aloud. Her voice didn’t waver. “And I hope you never have to either.”
The words didn’t feel like a declaration. Just a promise.
She looked in the mirror one last time. Not for vanity. Not even for clarity.
Just to remind herself that she was still here.
Still standing.
Still trying.
Then she turned the key and shut the engine off.
The quiet was immediate.
She sat with it for one breath. Two.
Then she reached for the door handle and stepped into the day.
The courtroom wasn’t full.
No jury. No crowd. Just a scattering of clerks, the court reporter, a bailiff near the door. Babin and her assistant. The judge already on the bench, peering over wire-rimmed glasses like this was just another line on the docket. Markus stood beside him. Nicole sat at the table with an open folder and a pen she hadn’t used yet.
Caine stood at the defense table, alone but flanked. Wrists uncuffed. Ankles still chained.
He didn’t shake.
But his chest felt tight.
The judge cleared his throat. “Mr. Guerra, I’ve reviewed the plea agreement submitted by your counsel and accepted by the district attorney’s office. We will now enter your responses into the record.”
Caine nodded once.
“Do you understand that by pleading guilty, you waive your right to a trial by jury?”
“Yes, Your Honor.”
“That you are giving up the right to confront your accuser, the right to remain silent, the right to compel witnesses on your behalf?”
“Yes, Your Honor.”
“That the recommended sentence is three years on each count—accessory to attempted carjacking and simple possession—two suspended, one year time served, to run concurrently, followed by supervised probation?”
“Yes, Your Honor.”
“That you will be required to attend a drug treatment program and enrollment in an education program and obtain employment, and that you may have no contact with your co-defendants?”
“Yes, Your Honor.”
“That a violation of these conditions may result in the revocation of your probation and your return to custody for the suspended portion of your sentence?”
“Yes, Your Honor.”
Each answer came without pause.
Like they weren’t even questions. Just pieces of a long hallway he’d already walked down in his head.
But then the judge set the file down.
“And now, in your own words, please explain what you did on the night in question.”
Caine hesitated.
Just a beat.
The pause wasn’t because he didn’t know the answer. It was because he finally had to say it.
Not in code. Not in silence. Not behind closed doors or inside folded letters.
He turned his head slightly. Saw Mireya in the gallery. Sara beside her. Camila curled into her grandmother’s lap, thumb in mouth.
Caine looked back to the bench.
“I was there for the carjacking,” he said, voice quiet but even. “I didn’t plan it. But I didn’t stop it. I had drugs on me—for my use.”
He swallowed, eyes lowering to the floor before lifting again.
“I didn’t want it to go like that,” he said, the words catching just slightly. “But I let it. I didn’t leave when I should have. Didn’t walk away when I knew better. That’s on me.”
The silence that followed was thick.
Not judgmental.
Just heavy.
The judge didn’t blink. “The court accepts the plea.”
A beat passed.
“The sentence is imposed as agreed upon—three years on each count, two suspended, one served concurrently, followed by two years supervised probation. Terms include mandatory treatment and education and employment participation. No contact with codefendants.”
He tapped the folder once, as if that made it final.
“You are being given a second chance to become an upstanding citizen and contribute to society. I suggest you make use of it. I hope your daughter is a powerful enough reason for you to never appear in my courtroom again.”
Caine didn’t react.
Didn’t blink.
Didn’t smile.
He just nodded once, slow.
“Yes, sir.”
Markus shook his hand. Nicole rested hers on his shoulder.
The gavel didn’t bang.
The judge simply stood and walked off the bench.
Just like that, it was done.
Caine was no longer a defendant.
Just a boy with a record.
Just a boy with a second chance.
Back in the holding area, he was met by a CO with a clipboard and a set of forms. Release paperwork. Processing instructions. Afternoon light sliced through the narrow windows like it was trying to reach him.
He signed his name.
Handed it back.
And waited for the next door to open.
She didn’t take the sidewalk that led to the parking lot.
Didn’t wait for the crowd to thin or for Mireya to finish buckling Camila into the car seat. She just walked. One foot in front of the other, down the courthouse steps, across the street, past the corner with the slow light and cracked curb, all the way to a bench two blocks away.
There, she sat.
Her knees ached. Her heels throbbed from the cheap flats she’d worn too many times. Her purse sagged across her shoulder, heavy with receipts and prayer cards and a plastic sandwich bag of mints she never passed out.
She didn’t reach for any of it.
Just sat in the fading light, shoulders curved inward, as if trying to disappear into herself.
Her phone buzzed. A message from one of her sisters. Then another. Her brother’s name flashed next. Then her mother.
She didn’t open them.
She didn’t even wipe the screen.
She clutched the rosary in one hand, phone in the other. Neither could stop the tears.
They came slow. Not violent. Not with sobs. Just quiet, endless wetness sliding down her cheeks like they’d been waiting a year for permission.
A year of holding her breath every time the phone rang.
A year of praying in bathroom stalls and bus stops.
A year of pretending that faith and strength were the same thing.
She cried like someone who didn’t know if the relief she felt was even real yet.
Around the corner, laughter rang out—boys in school uniforms crowded around a bike, one of them doing a bad wheelie, the others cheering. She watched them like ghosts.
For a second, she saw him again. Ten years old. Skinny. Loud. A blur of legs and wild energy tearing down the street with someone’s ball and no shoes.
Then the image faded.
And she was just a mother again.
Alone on a bench.
Trying to remember how to breathe now that her son was free.
The knock came just after five.
Sharp. Measured. The kind that didn’t ask.
Percy glanced toward the front door from the kitchen, already knowing. His grandmother was still in her bedroom, half-listening to a gospel radio station and folding laundry slow like her bones had turned to glass overnight.
He opened the door.
Jill Babin stood there in a tailored blazer, notepad tucked under one arm, two deputies behind her—one Black, one white, both with mirrored sunglasses and the kind of stance that said don’t try anything.
She didn’t ask to come in. Just stepped past the threshold with the authority of someone who’d been in too many living rooms like this one.
She gave a tight smile. “We’ll be brief.”
The deputies stood by the door, silent.
“I assume you’ve heard by now,” Babin began. “Andre Helaire was arrested early this morning. He’s confessed to planning the crimes you were a witness to. Also confessed to attempting to shoot you, myself, and a sheriff’s deputy back in December.”
Percy’s mouth went dry. He didn’t speak.
Babin continued, cool and measured. “Caine Guerra entered a plea today. Accessory and possession. He’ll be released tonight.”
Percy blinked.
She waited, watching him.
He looked down at his hands. They were shaking.
Not much. Just enough.
“I told the truth,” he said, voice flat.
Babin didn’t argue. “You told a truth.”
He looked up. “So, what now? Y’all charging me?”
She shook her head. “No. Your deal stands. Probation, supervision, check-ins. But I’d advise you file to transfer that probation to another parish.”
“Why?”
She didn’t soften. “Because snitches don’t live long in New Orleans.”
Silence fell heavy in the kitchen.
Babin adjusted her notepad, already turning toward the door. “I’d suggest Anacoco. Not much out there, but at least you have Toledo Bend.”
She walked out without waiting for a response.
The deputies followed, one pausing just long enough to tip his head politely toward Percy’s grandmother, who had peeked from behind the curtain.
Percy stood still.
Then slowly backed into the kitchen, pulled out a chair, and sat.
He rubbed a hand over his face.
The fridge hummed. The radio from the back room warbled something about deliverance. The sun threw long, slanted shadows across the linoleum floor.
And Percy stared at the wall like it was going to start closing in.
Because for the first time since that night, he realized:
He was truly on his own.
“You know we gon’ reach out,” Ramon said, not looking up from the table. “Ain’t no expiration on this.”
Caine adjusted the folder under his arm. “I know.”
Tyree smirked from the corner, lacing up his sneakers like it was just another day. “Just don’t forget who looked out. We ain’t do it for nothing.”
“I know the deal,” Caine said.
EJ leaned back, arms crossed. “Good. Keep it that way.”
They didn’t hug him. No daps. Just the weight of words that meant more than they said. The kind that came with strings.
Ramon finally looked at him.
Just for a second.
Not a full stare—just a flick of the eyes, a shift in posture. But something in it changed. Not threatening. Not warm either. Just a reminder.
Caine saw it.
Understood it.
The way people like them said don’t forget without saying or else.
He gave the smallest nod.
The CO opened the gate without a word.
He stepped out.
The walk was longer than he remembered.
Not in distance. In weight.
Caine held the plastic bag with his clothes in one hand, the manila folder tucked under his other arm. It held his release documents, probation terms, a list of conditions typed out in Times New Roman. At the back were the journal entries. The letters to Camila. Stuffed between court orders and supervision forms like they belonged there.
The hallway echoed with each step. A CO walked a few paces ahead, not talking, not rushing. Just there to open the last few doors between Caine and the world.
He passed by pods he used to wake up in. Common rooms where he studied and sat through intake classes. The vending machines that never worked. The smell of bleach and sweat and microwave ramen that would never quite leave his clothes.
At the final checkpoint, another officer took the bag and handed him the clothes he was arrested in.
Same gray hoodie. Same black jeans. Same sneakers—creases worn deep, but still his size. He pulled them on slowly, half-expecting them to pinch or sag. They didn’t.
Like they’d just been waiting.
He signed for the folder, barely reading the form. Just his name, looping and uneven, as if written by a boy who’d learned to spell it in another life.
“Your PO expects contact by 5 p.m. tomorrow,” the CO said. “You miss it, we come looking.”
Caine nodded. No words.
The CO hit the buzzer, and the door clicked open.
Outside, the sky was washed in afternoon gold, the sun leaning just enough to throw long shadows across the parking lot. Heat came in slow, not harsh—just warm enough to feel real.
He stepped out and stopped.
Sara was already out of the car, walking toward him in a navy T-shirt and old sandals, her arms spread before she even got to him.
“Mi bebé,” she whispered, throwing her arms around him. “Gracias a Dios, gracias a Dios, gracias a Dios.”
Caine didn’t say anything. He just held her. Let her sob into his chest, her shoulders shaking with the kind of release only a mother could carry for that long. His hand pressed against her back, steady. Her keys jangled at her hip like a reminder—she drove here. She saved for this. She made it happen.
They pulled apart slowly.
“You hungry?” she asked, still wiping at her eyes. “I got snacks in the car, we can stop somewhere if—”
“I just want to go home.”
Sara nodded quickly. “Okay. Okay. Let’s go.”
They walked to the car together. She opened the passenger door and waited while he got in, then started the engine.
It was an old Buick, tan with a cracked dash and a rattling AC, but it purred like it still had a few more years in it.
“I bought it last month,” she said. “Didn’t want you missing appointments, or waiting on anyone else to come get you. It’s ours now.”
Caine looked out the window. The city rolled past slowly—graffiti-tagged underpasses, bus stops, stoop-sitters with dice in their palms. Life kept moving. Always had.
He leaned his head against the glass, not sleeping, just listening.
The tires hummed. The engine whined a little. The world didn’t seem like it had changed much. But he had. Or maybe he just saw it all clearer now.
They pulled into the park ten minutes later. It was nearly empty, just a few families on the swings and a man selling snowballs from a cooler. Wind rustled through the leaves, lifting voices in the air like kites.
Caine saw them before they saw him.
Mireya stood by the swings, pushing Camila gently, her hair pulled back in a loose ponytail, hoodie sleeves shoved past her elbows. Camila’s tiny sneakers kicked forward with each swing, curls bouncing, a bright squeal tumbling from her lips.
Sara reached over and touched his shoulder. “She just wants her dad.”
Caine didn’t move right away.
He stared.
Like his body couldn’t process it—this being real.
Camila giggled again.
And that was enough.
He opened the door and stepped out.
The swing creaked.
Camila turned—and saw him.
“¡Dada!”
She launched herself from the swing without waiting, running across the grass with all the force her toddler legs could muster.
Caine dropped to his knees.
She collided with him, arms around his neck, legs half-dangling, half-wrapped.
He held her.
Tight.
Longer than he meant to. Longer than he’d thought he could without breaking.
Mireya walked up slowly. Her eyes were wide, uncertain, like she didn’t know what to do with this moment. Her hands were at her sides.
Caine stood, still holding Camila, and reached out.
Mireya stepped in.
He wrapped one arm around her too.
Kissed her on the forehead.
And said, soft but sure: “Lo siento.”
Mireya pressed her face into his shoulder. Her whisper was just for him.
“Ya lo sé.”
She stepped back, wiping a tear with the heel of her hand, then smiled at Camila.
“Your daddy’s home, mami.”
Camila giggled again, tracing her finger across his chin.
But Mireya didn’t look away.
Her eyes lingered on Caine’s face—searching, memorizing, bracing.
Not for joy.
Not for comfort.
For the ache she already knew would come back. For the truth she’d swallowed too many times: that peace wasn’t permanent. That the world didn’t stay quiet for long.
She blinked, lips pressed in something close to a smile, but her gaze said more.
Caine just stood there.
Sunlight catching the edge of his hoodie.
A daughter in one arm.
A girl he never stopped loving by his side.
The world hadn’t forgiven him.
But they had.
And maybe—just maybe—that was enough.
The street was still asleep.
Dew clung to the rims of mailboxes and the corners of cracked cement. The sun hadn’t fully broken through, just enough light pushing over the rooftops to turn the world blue and bruised. Dre sat on the porch steps, the last step before the sidewalk, elbows on his knees, a beer sweating between his fingers. Not cold anymore. Didn’t matter.
The porch creaked behind him. His mother hadn’t stirred yet. He’d heard her moving in her room earlier, coughing once, muttering something under her breath. But she didn’t come out. She hadn’t asked where he’d gone last night or what he’d done when he came back. Maybe she didn’t want to know. Maybe she already did.
He took a slow sip, then the rest in one go.
Not for taste.
Not even for nerves.
Just because it felt like the last thing he’d get to choose for a while.
He set the bottle down beside his foot and leaned back, hands flat on the wood, head tilted toward the sky. No stars. Just that fading gray, like the world was halfway between night and morning, and nobody had made up their mind which one they wanted yet.
He could’ve kept his mouth shut.
Let Caine take the weight.
Pretended he ain’t know nothing, like everybody else does when the block gets hot.
But what kind of brother does that?
Not a real one.
And Caine was more than a friend. More than a homie from the playground. He was the one who stuck around. Who didn’t switch up even when Dre did. Who didn’t talk sideways when things went left. Who never asked for anything more than loyalty—and Dre had failed him once already.
He wasn’t about to do it again.
A breeze picked up, stirring the leaves at the curb. Somewhere down the block, a dog barked. A garbage truck grunted in the distance. Normal sounds. Sounds of a day that didn’t care what was coming for him.
Then he heard it.
A low hum. Tires on asphalt. Then another. And another.
Dre stood up.
Twelve deep, they turned the corner in unison, blue lights washing over the block like water over concrete. A slow, synchronized swarm of NOPD cruisers—headlights sharp, windows tinted, engines growling low.
He didn’t flinch.
He just turned his back.
Put his hands behind his head.
Felt the air shift as the first one rolled up.
Doors slammed. Boots hit pavement. Voices rose.
“Get on the fucking ground!”
“Hands where I can see ‘em!”
He didn’t move. Didn’t say a word.
Another voice—closer, harder.
“You got a death wish, boy? Think you big ‘cause you got a little gun? Say something slick. Give me a reason.”
He stayed still.
They rushed him.
Hands grabbed his arms, twisted his wrists, shoved his shoulder blades tight. A knee pressed into his back as they cuffed him, one of them yanking his hoodie so hard it ripped the neckline. The officer leaned close, breath hot with chewing tobacco.
“You lucky we ain’t takin’ you out back.”
Dre looked sideways, eyes calm. “You lucky I missed.”
That was all it took.
A punch to the ribs. Not hard enough to break anything—but enough to hurt.
He didn’t grunt. Didn’t blink.
Just let them drag him toward the cruiser like they were the ones doing something righteous.
The whole block lit up in blue, sirens finally screaming as neighbors peeked through blinds and front doors opened just wide enough to catch a glimpse.
They stuffed him in the back seat.
The door slammed shut.
And Dre leaned his head against the window, cheek pressing into the glass.
He’d done what needed to be done.
Now he’d sit for it.
Because loyalty wasn’t just about what you do when someone’s watching.
It was about what you can’t live with if you don’t.
~~~
The courthouse was quieter than usual, but not quiet enough.
Markus walked the length of the hallway for the third time, paper cup in hand, the coffee inside lukewarm and bitter. His blazer was off, slung over his arm, shirt sleeves rolled to his elbows like he was prepping for a surgery instead of a plea hearing. Outside, the sun was turning everything too bright. Inside, the artificial lights made the walls feel even more institutional.
He paused by the bench near the elevators and let out a breath he hadn’t realized he was holding.
Behind him, soft footsteps. Nicole’s silhouette appeared beside his in the window’s reflection, two coffees in her hands. She held one out.
“Poison or poison?” she asked. “Machine had two settings.”
He took it without looking. “Whichever one tastes more like despair.”
She didn’t sit right away, just leaned against the wall beside him, watching the courthouse doors across the way like they might swing open and give them an answer.
“How’s he doing?” she asked.
Markus shook his head. “Quiet. Focused. Scared, but not the kind you can see unless you know what to look for.”
Nicole sipped her coffee. Winced. “I don’t know how they drink this stuff.”
“Same way they drink the Kool-Aid,” Markus muttered. “It’s what’s there.”
She looked over. “You think he’s gonna be alright?”
He didn’t answer right away. His eyes followed a maintenance worker dragging a mop bucket down the far hallway, the sloshing echoing like soft applause.
“Reentry’s a myth for most of them,” he said finally. “They take these boys, squeeze them through a system built to punish before it ever tries to understand… and then expect them to come out whole.”
Nicole nodded slowly. “Caine’s smart. He’s got his mom. Mireya. Camila.”
Markus gave a dry chuckle. “They don’t make room for changed boys. Just make sure they come back changed into something worse.”
Nicole fell silent. A beat passed.
“I keep thinking,” she said quietly, “how many Caines we’ve missed.”
Markus turned toward her. “Most of them.”
Footsteps echoed up from the stairwell. A bailiff emerged, clipboard in hand. His tie was crooked, eyes tired. “ADA Babin’s ready to meet. Judge says let’s get this on the record.”
Nicole nodded. “We’ll be there in a second.”
The bailiff disappeared as quickly as he came.
Markus downed the last of his coffee, made a face, then crushed the cup in one hand.
“She’s going to bury him in legalese,” Nicole said. “Make it feel like mercy, not desperation.”
Markus reached for his blazer, eyes sharp again. “She can call it whatever she wants. We’re calling it survival.”
They moved down the hallway together, step for step.
Behind them, the echo of their footsteps stretched longer than the distance they walked—like the ghosts of every kid who never got this far were trailing close behind.
~~~
The engine was still running. A low hum under her feet, like the car was nervous too.
Mireya sat in the driver’s seat, parked crooked across two lines in the courthouse lot, one hand resting lightly on the gearshift, the other tracing a faint line on the steering wheel. Camila slept in her car seat behind her, soft snores and the occasional twitch of a dream fluttering through her small frame. The toddler's pink hoodie was bunched at the neck. One sock had fallen off.
Mireya hadn’t turned the ignition off because she wasn’t ready to sit in silence. She wasn’t ready for stillness. The kind that pressed in. The kind that made her feel every minute of the last year.
The radio murmured something low—a talk show, maybe, or a traffic update—but the words blurred like water on glass.
She looked down at her hands.
No rings. No scars. Just skin. But she knew how much they’d done. What they’d held. What they’d given away.
She reached up and adjusted the rearview mirror.
Her own reflection stared back—tired, too pale under the overhead dome light, the bruise of exhaustion shadowing her cheekbones. For a moment, she didn’t recognize the girl in the glass.
That girl had once planned a life that didn’t include courtrooms and cell blocks and text messages from men with money in envelopes. That girl had wanted college, freedom, a quiet kind of success.
Now she looked like someone who had clawed her way out of something dark and hadn’t quite made it to the light.
“I used to know who you were,” she whispered to herself. “I don’t know what you are now.”
Camila stirred behind her. Mireya turned, voice soft. “Shhh. It’s okay, baby. Mommy’s here.”
She turned back to the mirror. Wiped at her face. Set her jaw.
She thought about what Caine had endured. A year locked up. A year being talked about instead of talked to. A year of letters, hearings, silence, pressure. He’d carried it all. Quietly. Desperately. Stubborn to the end.
He shouldn’t have had to.
She reached back and brushed Camila’s curls gently. The girl sighed in her sleep.
Mireya exhaled. “Your daddy shouldn’t have to beg the world to see he’s worth keeping,” she said aloud. Her voice didn’t waver. “And I hope you never have to either.”
The words didn’t feel like a declaration. Just a promise.
She looked in the mirror one last time. Not for vanity. Not even for clarity.
Just to remind herself that she was still here.
Still standing.
Still trying.
Then she turned the key and shut the engine off.
The quiet was immediate.
She sat with it for one breath. Two.
Then she reached for the door handle and stepped into the day.
~~~
The courtroom wasn’t full.
No jury. No crowd. Just a scattering of clerks, the court reporter, a bailiff near the door. Babin and her assistant. The judge already on the bench, peering over wire-rimmed glasses like this was just another line on the docket. Markus stood beside him. Nicole sat at the table with an open folder and a pen she hadn’t used yet.
Caine stood at the defense table, alone but flanked. Wrists uncuffed. Ankles still chained.
He didn’t shake.
But his chest felt tight.
The judge cleared his throat. “Mr. Guerra, I’ve reviewed the plea agreement submitted by your counsel and accepted by the district attorney’s office. We will now enter your responses into the record.”
Caine nodded once.
“Do you understand that by pleading guilty, you waive your right to a trial by jury?”
“Yes, Your Honor.”
“That you are giving up the right to confront your accuser, the right to remain silent, the right to compel witnesses on your behalf?”
“Yes, Your Honor.”
“That the recommended sentence is three years on each count—accessory to attempted carjacking and simple possession—two suspended, one year time served, to run concurrently, followed by supervised probation?”
“Yes, Your Honor.”
“That you will be required to attend a drug treatment program and enrollment in an education program and obtain employment, and that you may have no contact with your co-defendants?”
“Yes, Your Honor.”
“That a violation of these conditions may result in the revocation of your probation and your return to custody for the suspended portion of your sentence?”
“Yes, Your Honor.”
Each answer came without pause.
Like they weren’t even questions. Just pieces of a long hallway he’d already walked down in his head.
But then the judge set the file down.
“And now, in your own words, please explain what you did on the night in question.”
Caine hesitated.
Just a beat.
The pause wasn’t because he didn’t know the answer. It was because he finally had to say it.
Not in code. Not in silence. Not behind closed doors or inside folded letters.
He turned his head slightly. Saw Mireya in the gallery. Sara beside her. Camila curled into her grandmother’s lap, thumb in mouth.
Caine looked back to the bench.
“I was there for the carjacking,” he said, voice quiet but even. “I didn’t plan it. But I didn’t stop it. I had drugs on me—for my use.”
He swallowed, eyes lowering to the floor before lifting again.
“I didn’t want it to go like that,” he said, the words catching just slightly. “But I let it. I didn’t leave when I should have. Didn’t walk away when I knew better. That’s on me.”
The silence that followed was thick.
Not judgmental.
Just heavy.
The judge didn’t blink. “The court accepts the plea.”
A beat passed.
“The sentence is imposed as agreed upon—three years on each count, two suspended, one served concurrently, followed by two years supervised probation. Terms include mandatory treatment and education and employment participation. No contact with codefendants.”
He tapped the folder once, as if that made it final.
“You are being given a second chance to become an upstanding citizen and contribute to society. I suggest you make use of it. I hope your daughter is a powerful enough reason for you to never appear in my courtroom again.”
Caine didn’t react.
Didn’t blink.
Didn’t smile.
He just nodded once, slow.
“Yes, sir.”
Markus shook his hand. Nicole rested hers on his shoulder.
The gavel didn’t bang.
The judge simply stood and walked off the bench.
Just like that, it was done.
Caine was no longer a defendant.
Just a boy with a record.
Just a boy with a second chance.
Back in the holding area, he was met by a CO with a clipboard and a set of forms. Release paperwork. Processing instructions. Afternoon light sliced through the narrow windows like it was trying to reach him.
He signed his name.
Handed it back.
And waited for the next door to open.
~~~
She didn’t take the sidewalk that led to the parking lot.
Didn’t wait for the crowd to thin or for Mireya to finish buckling Camila into the car seat. She just walked. One foot in front of the other, down the courthouse steps, across the street, past the corner with the slow light and cracked curb, all the way to a bench two blocks away.
There, she sat.
Her knees ached. Her heels throbbed from the cheap flats she’d worn too many times. Her purse sagged across her shoulder, heavy with receipts and prayer cards and a plastic sandwich bag of mints she never passed out.
She didn’t reach for any of it.
Just sat in the fading light, shoulders curved inward, as if trying to disappear into herself.
Her phone buzzed. A message from one of her sisters. Then another. Her brother’s name flashed next. Then her mother.
She didn’t open them.
She didn’t even wipe the screen.
She clutched the rosary in one hand, phone in the other. Neither could stop the tears.
They came slow. Not violent. Not with sobs. Just quiet, endless wetness sliding down her cheeks like they’d been waiting a year for permission.
A year of holding her breath every time the phone rang.
A year of praying in bathroom stalls and bus stops.
A year of pretending that faith and strength were the same thing.
She cried like someone who didn’t know if the relief she felt was even real yet.
Around the corner, laughter rang out—boys in school uniforms crowded around a bike, one of them doing a bad wheelie, the others cheering. She watched them like ghosts.
For a second, she saw him again. Ten years old. Skinny. Loud. A blur of legs and wild energy tearing down the street with someone’s ball and no shoes.
Then the image faded.
And she was just a mother again.
Alone on a bench.
Trying to remember how to breathe now that her son was free.
~~~
The knock came just after five.
Sharp. Measured. The kind that didn’t ask.
Percy glanced toward the front door from the kitchen, already knowing. His grandmother was still in her bedroom, half-listening to a gospel radio station and folding laundry slow like her bones had turned to glass overnight.
He opened the door.
Jill Babin stood there in a tailored blazer, notepad tucked under one arm, two deputies behind her—one Black, one white, both with mirrored sunglasses and the kind of stance that said don’t try anything.
She didn’t ask to come in. Just stepped past the threshold with the authority of someone who’d been in too many living rooms like this one.
She gave a tight smile. “We’ll be brief.”
The deputies stood by the door, silent.
“I assume you’ve heard by now,” Babin began. “Andre Helaire was arrested early this morning. He’s confessed to planning the crimes you were a witness to. Also confessed to attempting to shoot you, myself, and a sheriff’s deputy back in December.”
Percy’s mouth went dry. He didn’t speak.
Babin continued, cool and measured. “Caine Guerra entered a plea today. Accessory and possession. He’ll be released tonight.”
Percy blinked.
She waited, watching him.
He looked down at his hands. They were shaking.
Not much. Just enough.
“I told the truth,” he said, voice flat.
Babin didn’t argue. “You told a truth.”
He looked up. “So, what now? Y’all charging me?”
She shook her head. “No. Your deal stands. Probation, supervision, check-ins. But I’d advise you file to transfer that probation to another parish.”
“Why?”
She didn’t soften. “Because snitches don’t live long in New Orleans.”
Silence fell heavy in the kitchen.
Babin adjusted her notepad, already turning toward the door. “I’d suggest Anacoco. Not much out there, but at least you have Toledo Bend.”
She walked out without waiting for a response.
The deputies followed, one pausing just long enough to tip his head politely toward Percy’s grandmother, who had peeked from behind the curtain.
Percy stood still.
Then slowly backed into the kitchen, pulled out a chair, and sat.
He rubbed a hand over his face.
The fridge hummed. The radio from the back room warbled something about deliverance. The sun threw long, slanted shadows across the linoleum floor.
And Percy stared at the wall like it was going to start closing in.
Because for the first time since that night, he realized:
He was truly on his own.
~~~
“You know we gon’ reach out,” Ramon said, not looking up from the table. “Ain’t no expiration on this.”
Caine adjusted the folder under his arm. “I know.”
Tyree smirked from the corner, lacing up his sneakers like it was just another day. “Just don’t forget who looked out. We ain’t do it for nothing.”
“I know the deal,” Caine said.
EJ leaned back, arms crossed. “Good. Keep it that way.”
They didn’t hug him. No daps. Just the weight of words that meant more than they said. The kind that came with strings.
Ramon finally looked at him.
Just for a second.
Not a full stare—just a flick of the eyes, a shift in posture. But something in it changed. Not threatening. Not warm either. Just a reminder.
Caine saw it.
Understood it.
The way people like them said don’t forget without saying or else.
He gave the smallest nod.
The CO opened the gate without a word.
He stepped out.
The walk was longer than he remembered.
Not in distance. In weight.
Caine held the plastic bag with his clothes in one hand, the manila folder tucked under his other arm. It held his release documents, probation terms, a list of conditions typed out in Times New Roman. At the back were the journal entries. The letters to Camila. Stuffed between court orders and supervision forms like they belonged there.
The hallway echoed with each step. A CO walked a few paces ahead, not talking, not rushing. Just there to open the last few doors between Caine and the world.
He passed by pods he used to wake up in. Common rooms where he studied and sat through intake classes. The vending machines that never worked. The smell of bleach and sweat and microwave ramen that would never quite leave his clothes.
At the final checkpoint, another officer took the bag and handed him the clothes he was arrested in.
Same gray hoodie. Same black jeans. Same sneakers—creases worn deep, but still his size. He pulled them on slowly, half-expecting them to pinch or sag. They didn’t.
Like they’d just been waiting.
He signed for the folder, barely reading the form. Just his name, looping and uneven, as if written by a boy who’d learned to spell it in another life.
“Your PO expects contact by 5 p.m. tomorrow,” the CO said. “You miss it, we come looking.”
Caine nodded. No words.
The CO hit the buzzer, and the door clicked open.
Outside, the sky was washed in afternoon gold, the sun leaning just enough to throw long shadows across the parking lot. Heat came in slow, not harsh—just warm enough to feel real.
He stepped out and stopped.
Sara was already out of the car, walking toward him in a navy T-shirt and old sandals, her arms spread before she even got to him.
“Mi bebé,” she whispered, throwing her arms around him. “Gracias a Dios, gracias a Dios, gracias a Dios.”
Caine didn’t say anything. He just held her. Let her sob into his chest, her shoulders shaking with the kind of release only a mother could carry for that long. His hand pressed against her back, steady. Her keys jangled at her hip like a reminder—she drove here. She saved for this. She made it happen.
They pulled apart slowly.
“You hungry?” she asked, still wiping at her eyes. “I got snacks in the car, we can stop somewhere if—”
“I just want to go home.”
Sara nodded quickly. “Okay. Okay. Let’s go.”
They walked to the car together. She opened the passenger door and waited while he got in, then started the engine.
It was an old Buick, tan with a cracked dash and a rattling AC, but it purred like it still had a few more years in it.
“I bought it last month,” she said. “Didn’t want you missing appointments, or waiting on anyone else to come get you. It’s ours now.”
Caine looked out the window. The city rolled past slowly—graffiti-tagged underpasses, bus stops, stoop-sitters with dice in their palms. Life kept moving. Always had.
He leaned his head against the glass, not sleeping, just listening.
The tires hummed. The engine whined a little. The world didn’t seem like it had changed much. But he had. Or maybe he just saw it all clearer now.
They pulled into the park ten minutes later. It was nearly empty, just a few families on the swings and a man selling snowballs from a cooler. Wind rustled through the leaves, lifting voices in the air like kites.
Caine saw them before they saw him.
Mireya stood by the swings, pushing Camila gently, her hair pulled back in a loose ponytail, hoodie sleeves shoved past her elbows. Camila’s tiny sneakers kicked forward with each swing, curls bouncing, a bright squeal tumbling from her lips.
Sara reached over and touched his shoulder. “She just wants her dad.”
Caine didn’t move right away.
He stared.
Like his body couldn’t process it—this being real.
Camila giggled again.
And that was enough.
He opened the door and stepped out.
The swing creaked.
Camila turned—and saw him.
“¡Dada!”
She launched herself from the swing without waiting, running across the grass with all the force her toddler legs could muster.
Caine dropped to his knees.
She collided with him, arms around his neck, legs half-dangling, half-wrapped.
He held her.
Tight.
Longer than he meant to. Longer than he’d thought he could without breaking.
Mireya walked up slowly. Her eyes were wide, uncertain, like she didn’t know what to do with this moment. Her hands were at her sides.
Caine stood, still holding Camila, and reached out.
Mireya stepped in.
He wrapped one arm around her too.
Kissed her on the forehead.
And said, soft but sure: “Lo siento.”
Mireya pressed her face into his shoulder. Her whisper was just for him.
“Ya lo sé.”
She stepped back, wiping a tear with the heel of her hand, then smiled at Camila.
“Your daddy’s home, mami.”
Camila giggled again, tracing her finger across his chin.
But Mireya didn’t look away.
Her eyes lingered on Caine’s face—searching, memorizing, bracing.
Not for joy.
Not for comfort.
For the ache she already knew would come back. For the truth she’d swallowed too many times: that peace wasn’t permanent. That the world didn’t stay quiet for long.
She blinked, lips pressed in something close to a smile, but her gaze said more.
Caine just stood there.
Sunlight catching the edge of his hoodie.
A daughter in one arm.
A girl he never stopped loving by his side.
The world hadn’t forgiven him.
But they had.
And maybe—just maybe—that was enough.
American Sun
That feeling of holding your child after not seeing them a while....hits different. Can only imagine how it would feel after the year Caines had.
American Sun
Tout Bèt Mennen Kay Yo
The couch was old. Springs half-dead. Leather peeling like skin after a burn. But it was his.
Caine sat up slow, breath steady. The light coming through the living room blinds was thin and gray, like it hadn’t fully decided to be morning yet. The TV was off. The house was quiet. Too quiet for a place this full.
He folded the blanket corner to corner, then again, pressing out the wrinkles with his palm. He slid it under the couch pillow and gave it one more flattening pat before standing.
The spot was clear now. No trace left.
Just how Hector wanted it.
His uncle’s snore rumbled faint through the wall. One of the cousins—Saul, maybe Cruz—coughed in the back room. Caine didn’t move until both sounds faded. Then he grabbed his towel and headed toward the bathroom.
The mirror above the sink caught him sideways—taller now, leaner. The scar on his forearm from one of his many fights in OJJ. A line near his eyebrow that wasn’t there a year ago.
He turned the water on and let it run. Steam fogged the glass. When he stepped under the spray, he breathed deep once. Held it. Let it out slow.
This was freedom.
Technically.
When he stepped out, towel around his waist, his phone buzzed from where it sat on the windowsill.
Unknown number. He already knew.
He opened the text:
7:45 a.m. Drug test. Do not be late.
Another buzz:
Bring ID.
Caine sighed. The time read 5:56. He had maybe two hours to get across town, piss in a cup, and still make it to school before the tardy bell.
He got dressed quick—uniform polo, khaki pants, fresh Nikes that still looked like they didn’t belong to him. Grabbed his backpack, his hoodie, and was out the door before the house fully woke.
…
The probation office was in one of those squat brick buildings with parking lot lines faded like scars. No sign out front. Just a buzzer and a metal detector.
Inside smelled like Lysol and defeat.
Caine checked in. The receptionist barely looked up before telling him, “Room two.”
He found Roussel waiting with a clipboard and a look like he’d been annoyed since sunrise.
“Cup. Bathroom’s down the hall,” Roussel said, shoving the plastic at him.
Caine took it, started walking.
“Don’t get slick,” Roussel called after him. “You’re being observed.”
Caine stopped mid-step. “You watching me piss?”
Roussel gave a half-shrug. “Should be used to it by now.”
Caine clenched his jaw. Said nothing.
He handed the full cup back a few minutes later.
Roussel didn’t even thank him. Just checked a box. “You got work?”
“Yeah,” Caine said. “Concession stand at Karr.”
Roussel checked his watch like it had offended him. “Then you better get there. ‘Cause if you’re late to class, I’m violating you.”
Caine bit his tongue hard enough to taste blood. He wanted to say, Then why the fuck did you call me in this morning? But he didn’t.
Freedom, it turned out, came with a curfew and a cup.
He just nodded. Turned. And walked out.
Outside, the air was warmer. The sky brighter.
Didn’t feel like it changed anything.
Caine pulled up his hood, tightened the strap on his backpack, and started walking fast toward the bus stop.
One week out.
And already, the leash was showing.
The hallway smelled like bleach and cheap perfume. The kind that clung to you after walking past a group of girls crowding around a phone, laughing too loud. Mireya tightened her grip on the strap of her backpack, stepping around a puddle someone had left by the water fountain. Her name had been called in second period for a tardy—again. She didn’t bother correcting it. Didn’t matter.
She hadn’t been sleeping anyway.
Her phone buzzed in her pocket.
Jamie: You coming or I’m giving your hours away. I can’t keep waiting.
Mireya stared at the message, thumb hovering. She closed her eyes, took a breath, then typed back:
I’ll be there after school.
She didn’t wait for a reply.
The guidance counselor’s office was three doors down from the main office, past the motivational posters and a peeling mural of the school mascot. She knocked once and stepped in.
Ms. Hanley looked up from her computer, her face lighting up with something dangerously close to hope. “Mireya. Good to see you again.”
“Yeah.” Mireya sat. Tried to look less tired than she felt. “I wanted to ask about dual enrollment.”
Ms. Hanley blinked once, surprised—but quickly masked it with a smile. “That’s wonderful. I wasn’t sure if you were still thinking about college.”
“I am.” Mireya said it flat. Not to convince the counselor. To convince herself.
“Well, you’re right on time. Spring ACT’s coming up. If you score well enough, Delgado has a few evening course options that could work around your schedule.”
She opened a drawer and pulled out a packet—stapled forms, barcoded sheets, a yellow information flier on ACT prep classes.
“You’ll need to register for the test first. It’s $68. But I always suggest a student do the writing as well which is $93,” Ms. Hanley said, clicking through a screen. “Unless you qualify for a fee waiver, which you might.”
Mireya stared at the number. Her face didn’t change.
Ms. Hanley flipped through a drawer and pulled out a registration packet, sliding it across the desk. “Here’s the next testing window. It’s in March. This is the registration form, and this—” she pulled out another sheet “—is a breakdown of the fees.”
Sixty dollars might as well have been six hundred.
Her fingers curled around the edge of the folder. “Okay.”
Ms. Hanley glanced up. “You all right?”
“I’m fine.”
The counselor gave her a nod that said she didn’t believe her but wasn’t going to push.
Mireya took the packet. Stood.
“If you get that waiver, make sure you bring it in before next Friday,” Ms. Hanley said. “And Mireya?”
Mireya paused in the doorway.
“You’re smart. Don’t let opportunities pass you by.”
Mireya didn’t answer.
She just nodded once and stepped back into the hall.
The papers felt heavier than they should’ve in her hand.
Smart didn’t pay registration fees.
Smart didn’t fix everything that had already fallen apart.
Only money did that.
Smart didn’t fix hunger. Smart didn’t fix rent.
The hallway smelled like bleach and pine cleaner, like every other floor in the hotel. Sara’s cart rattled as she pushed it toward the next room, gloves sticking slightly as she adjusted the bin on top. Her knees ached from crouching and scrubbing all morning. The linen bag at her side was already sagging heavy with used towels and sheets.
“Hey girl,” came a voice behind her.
Sara turned. It was Charmaine, one of the older housekeepers with tight curls slicked back under a paisley bandana and the kind of wisdom people mistook for nosiness.
“You get that apartment yet?”
Sara shook her head, dragging the cart to a stop. “No. I bought a car instead.”
Charmaine’s eyebrows shot up. “A car? You finally letting them kids take care of themselves?”
Sara gave a small laugh, tired. “No. Caine needed it. For probation. Appointments and school. Couldn’t risk him being late.”
Charmaine clicked her tongue. “Girl, you got a big heart and bad luck. What you gonna do now?”
“Start saving again,” Sara said simply. “Just gonna take time.”
Charmaine leaned against the wall, arms crossed. “You know, you could move into one of them motels up on Chef. Use that address for the state forms. They won’t count your mama’s income or your brother’s and them, and that Section 8 waitlist opens right up.”
Sara frowned. “That’s fraud.”
“It’s survival,” Charmaine shrugged. “You wouldn’t be the first.”
Sara straightened up, her voice a little firmer. “It’d be a violation of Caine’s probation. He has to stay at an approved address. They’d send him back for that.”
Charmaine didn’t push it. Just nodded slow. “Well. Ain’t nobody looking out for us but us. You know that.”
“I do,” Sara said, already turning back to the cart. “That’s why I bought the car.”
Charmaine reached into her apron and passed her a wrapped honey bun. “Eat something. You look tired.”
Sara smiled faintly, took it, and moved to the next door.
A family passed her down the hall—toddler in pajamas, mother balancing a breakfast tray. Sara looked away before the ache could settle in.
The hallway stretched long ahead of her. Room after room. Day after day.
One job to stay afloat.
Another dream pushed off.
Caine sat in the back of the biology classroom, eyes low, pen scratching lightly across a crumpled sheet of paper. Ms. Levron’s voice droned on about codons and amino acids, something about transcription and translation—but the words didn’t reach him. Not really.
Instead, he wrote what he knew.
prison walls don’t echo, they absorb
you leave a piece of yourself in every silence you survive
freedom come with rules, but so did jail—difference is who writes them
The bell rang sharp. Chairs scraped. Bags zipped. Everyone else moved fast—eager to get out, get loud, get back to whatever passed for normal.
Caine stayed seated.
He always waited. Watched the room clear out. Then moved.
In the hallway, the noise wrapped around him. Sneakers squeaked. Laughter bounced off lockers. He adjusted his backpack, drifting into the stream of students without looking anyone in the eye.
“Caine.”
Caine turned.
Mr. Landry stood outside a classroom door, one foot braced against the frame, a folder in one hand, a coffee in the other.
“You surviving?” he asked.
Caine shrugged. “Cleaner than Carver.”
Quentin chuckled. “Low bar, but fair.”
Caine nodded toward the folder. “Appreciate you getting me in. I know that wasn’t easy.”
Quentin tilted his head. “Used what little goodwill I had. So try not to skip class as much as you did back at Carver.”
“I won’t.”
Caine pulled a book from his backpack and handed it over—Invisible Man, spine bent, sticky notes poking out the top.
Quentin took it, flipping through a few pages. “You finish it?”
“Twice.”
Quentin raised an eyebrow.
“Some parts felt like a mirror,” Caine added. “Other parts made me want to break it.”
“Then it did its job,” Quentin said. He stepped inside for a second, then came back and handed Caine another one—Monster by Walter Dean Myers. “Let me know what you think of this one.”
Caine took it.
“You’ll like the format,” Quentin added. “But the weight? That’s the real story.”
Caine nodded.
He didn’t need to say anything else.
Quentin didn’t either.
Caine turned and walked down the hallway. The Hall of Champions gleamed with polished trophies and framed photos of state titles, the golds and purples bright under fluorescent lights.
He passed the trophy case. Gold plaques, frozen smiles. For a second, he wondered if any of them had ever sat where he had. If their stories ended in courts or colleges.
Caine kept walking. Book in hand.
Trying to figure out what kind of story he was supposed to be now.
The yard smelled like dust and gasoline—grit baking into her skin before she even reached the trailer. Mireya stepped through the gate without a word, her boots dragging slightly from how heavy they felt after a full school day. Her hoodie was damp at the collar, backpack pulling at one shoulder.
She didn’t get ten steps in before Leo intercepted her.
He pushed off the side of a parked forklift, hands stuffed in his pockets. “Been a minute.”
She didn’t stop walking. “Didn’t realize I owed you conversation.”
He followed, not quite beside her. “You could’ve let someone know. You vanish, people assume things.”
“I wasn’t working,” she said flatly. “Wasn’t my problem.”
Leo clicked his tongue. “Still isn’t, huh?”
She turned toward him just enough to speak without stopping. “You needed someone to run your errands. Not check in.”
He looked her over once—head to toe. “You back now?”
Mireya didn’t answer.
From behind, Kike called out in Spanish, half-laughing but without warmth. “You want to be a guerita, now? I thought we were family”
Mireya’s jaw clenched.
She pushed through the door to the office without responding.
Inside, the AC buzzed, stale and barely working. Jamie sat at the desk, flipping through paperwork with the same irritation he always wore like a second skin.
Someone else was in her chair.
A man she didn’t know, maybe mid-40s, in a pressed white shirt and slacks that didn’t belong anywhere near this yard. His loafers were spotless. A watch gleamed from under his cuff.
He turned at the sound of the door. Looked at her for a second too long.
The way he looked at her—calm, assessing, like she was a ledger entry instead of a person—made her skin tighten.
“You’re Mireya?” he asked.
She crossed her arms. “Who’s asking?”
The man smiled without teeth. “Just someone who appreciates neat ledgers. You’ve got a good eye. Noticed it the first time I looked through your numbers.”
Then he stood, adjusted his sleeves, and walked out like he owned the building.
Mireya waited until the door shut.
“Who was that?” she asked Jamie.
Jamie barely looked up. “Accountant.”
“He got a name?”
Jamie shrugged. “Doesn’t matter. He signs off.”
“On what?”
“Everything.”
Mireya stared for a second. Then dropped her backpack onto the corner table and slid into the newly vacated chair.
She glanced over at Denise, who had her head buried in a bowl of gumbo. Sighing, she pulled up the first set of slips.
The apartment still smelled like bleach and fried rice.
Caine sat on the floor with Camila in front of him, a coloring book opened between them. His back leaned against the couch, shoulders relaxed for once. The sun pushed through the thin curtains just enough to bathe the room in a sleepy glow. Camila hummed to herself as she scribbled the letter “B” in green crayon—backwards, crooked, perfect.
“B de burro,” he said gently.
“Buh-roh,” she repeated, tongue tripping over the r.
He smiled. “That’s close, mamas. You gon’ get it.”
She looked up at him with serious eyes, then down at the page again. A second later, she held up the crayon triumphantly.
“Look!” she said, showing him her masterpiece. A jumble of shapes. An attempt at the word “Dada.”
Caine nodded solemnly. “Genius-level,” he said. “MIT already calling.”
She giggled.
He reached over and drew a heart next to her scribbles. “You gotta be as smart as your mama.”
As if summoned by name, the front door clicked open.
Mireya walked in, her hoodie sleeves pushed halfway up, boots caked in dry mud, hair pulled into a loose bun. She looked exhausted—sweat clinging to her brow, the corners of her mouth set in a line too tired to frown.
“Where’s my mom?” she asked, toeing off one boot by the door.
“She let me in and dipped,” Caine said. “Didn’t say where she was going.”
Mireya dropped her bag on the recliner and sank onto the couch behind him. Caine tensed for a second, feeling her presence at his back. Then her hand landed softly on his shoulder, and he let out a breath he hadn’t noticed he was holding.
He turned slightly, eyes falling to her boots.
“Why you still working there?” he asked, voice low. “Ain’t like Kike ever—”
“I need the job,” she said, cutting him off without heat. “You think food fall from the sky?”
Camila interrupted them by holding up her latest creation—a messy, colorful drawing of three stick figures under a crooked sun. One tall. One medium. One tiny.
Caine took it carefully, like it was sacred.
Her scribbles looked freer than anything he ever drew.
He pointed to each figure. “Who’s this?”
Camila’s finger tapped the tallest one. “Dada.”
Then the medium one. “Mommy.”
Then herself. “Yo.”
Mireya looked down, something unreadable in her expression.
Caine swallowed.
The quiet stretched out between them, filled only by the rustle of paper and the sound of Camila reaching for another crayon.
Mireya finally spoke, voice almost a whisper. “She didn’t forget.”
Caine nodded. “I didn’t expect her to.”
Mireya didn’t respond.
But her hand stayed on his shoulder. Not tight. Not hesitant.
Just there.
A reminder.
Of what still connected them.
Of what hadn’t been lost.
The couch was old. Springs half-dead. Leather peeling like skin after a burn. But it was his.
Caine sat up slow, breath steady. The light coming through the living room blinds was thin and gray, like it hadn’t fully decided to be morning yet. The TV was off. The house was quiet. Too quiet for a place this full.
He folded the blanket corner to corner, then again, pressing out the wrinkles with his palm. He slid it under the couch pillow and gave it one more flattening pat before standing.
The spot was clear now. No trace left.
Just how Hector wanted it.
His uncle’s snore rumbled faint through the wall. One of the cousins—Saul, maybe Cruz—coughed in the back room. Caine didn’t move until both sounds faded. Then he grabbed his towel and headed toward the bathroom.
The mirror above the sink caught him sideways—taller now, leaner. The scar on his forearm from one of his many fights in OJJ. A line near his eyebrow that wasn’t there a year ago.
He turned the water on and let it run. Steam fogged the glass. When he stepped under the spray, he breathed deep once. Held it. Let it out slow.
This was freedom.
Technically.
When he stepped out, towel around his waist, his phone buzzed from where it sat on the windowsill.
Unknown number. He already knew.
He opened the text:
7:45 a.m. Drug test. Do not be late.
Another buzz:
Bring ID.
Caine sighed. The time read 5:56. He had maybe two hours to get across town, piss in a cup, and still make it to school before the tardy bell.
He got dressed quick—uniform polo, khaki pants, fresh Nikes that still looked like they didn’t belong to him. Grabbed his backpack, his hoodie, and was out the door before the house fully woke.
…
The probation office was in one of those squat brick buildings with parking lot lines faded like scars. No sign out front. Just a buzzer and a metal detector.
Inside smelled like Lysol and defeat.
Caine checked in. The receptionist barely looked up before telling him, “Room two.”
He found Roussel waiting with a clipboard and a look like he’d been annoyed since sunrise.
“Cup. Bathroom’s down the hall,” Roussel said, shoving the plastic at him.
Caine took it, started walking.
“Don’t get slick,” Roussel called after him. “You’re being observed.”
Caine stopped mid-step. “You watching me piss?”
Roussel gave a half-shrug. “Should be used to it by now.”
Caine clenched his jaw. Said nothing.
He handed the full cup back a few minutes later.
Roussel didn’t even thank him. Just checked a box. “You got work?”
“Yeah,” Caine said. “Concession stand at Karr.”
Roussel checked his watch like it had offended him. “Then you better get there. ‘Cause if you’re late to class, I’m violating you.”
Caine bit his tongue hard enough to taste blood. He wanted to say, Then why the fuck did you call me in this morning? But he didn’t.
Freedom, it turned out, came with a curfew and a cup.
He just nodded. Turned. And walked out.
Outside, the air was warmer. The sky brighter.
Didn’t feel like it changed anything.
Caine pulled up his hood, tightened the strap on his backpack, and started walking fast toward the bus stop.
One week out.
And already, the leash was showing.
~~~
The hallway smelled like bleach and cheap perfume. The kind that clung to you after walking past a group of girls crowding around a phone, laughing too loud. Mireya tightened her grip on the strap of her backpack, stepping around a puddle someone had left by the water fountain. Her name had been called in second period for a tardy—again. She didn’t bother correcting it. Didn’t matter.
She hadn’t been sleeping anyway.
Her phone buzzed in her pocket.
Jamie: You coming or I’m giving your hours away. I can’t keep waiting.
Mireya stared at the message, thumb hovering. She closed her eyes, took a breath, then typed back:
I’ll be there after school.
She didn’t wait for a reply.
The guidance counselor’s office was three doors down from the main office, past the motivational posters and a peeling mural of the school mascot. She knocked once and stepped in.
Ms. Hanley looked up from her computer, her face lighting up with something dangerously close to hope. “Mireya. Good to see you again.”
“Yeah.” Mireya sat. Tried to look less tired than she felt. “I wanted to ask about dual enrollment.”
Ms. Hanley blinked once, surprised—but quickly masked it with a smile. “That’s wonderful. I wasn’t sure if you were still thinking about college.”
“I am.” Mireya said it flat. Not to convince the counselor. To convince herself.
“Well, you’re right on time. Spring ACT’s coming up. If you score well enough, Delgado has a few evening course options that could work around your schedule.”
She opened a drawer and pulled out a packet—stapled forms, barcoded sheets, a yellow information flier on ACT prep classes.
“You’ll need to register for the test first. It’s $68. But I always suggest a student do the writing as well which is $93,” Ms. Hanley said, clicking through a screen. “Unless you qualify for a fee waiver, which you might.”
Mireya stared at the number. Her face didn’t change.
Ms. Hanley flipped through a drawer and pulled out a registration packet, sliding it across the desk. “Here’s the next testing window. It’s in March. This is the registration form, and this—” she pulled out another sheet “—is a breakdown of the fees.”
Sixty dollars might as well have been six hundred.
Her fingers curled around the edge of the folder. “Okay.”
Ms. Hanley glanced up. “You all right?”
“I’m fine.”
The counselor gave her a nod that said she didn’t believe her but wasn’t going to push.
Mireya took the packet. Stood.
“If you get that waiver, make sure you bring it in before next Friday,” Ms. Hanley said. “And Mireya?”
Mireya paused in the doorway.
“You’re smart. Don’t let opportunities pass you by.”
Mireya didn’t answer.
She just nodded once and stepped back into the hall.
The papers felt heavier than they should’ve in her hand.
Smart didn’t pay registration fees.
Smart didn’t fix everything that had already fallen apart.
Only money did that.
Smart didn’t fix hunger. Smart didn’t fix rent.
~~~
The hallway smelled like bleach and pine cleaner, like every other floor in the hotel. Sara’s cart rattled as she pushed it toward the next room, gloves sticking slightly as she adjusted the bin on top. Her knees ached from crouching and scrubbing all morning. The linen bag at her side was already sagging heavy with used towels and sheets.
“Hey girl,” came a voice behind her.
Sara turned. It was Charmaine, one of the older housekeepers with tight curls slicked back under a paisley bandana and the kind of wisdom people mistook for nosiness.
“You get that apartment yet?”
Sara shook her head, dragging the cart to a stop. “No. I bought a car instead.”
Charmaine’s eyebrows shot up. “A car? You finally letting them kids take care of themselves?”
Sara gave a small laugh, tired. “No. Caine needed it. For probation. Appointments and school. Couldn’t risk him being late.”
Charmaine clicked her tongue. “Girl, you got a big heart and bad luck. What you gonna do now?”
“Start saving again,” Sara said simply. “Just gonna take time.”
Charmaine leaned against the wall, arms crossed. “You know, you could move into one of them motels up on Chef. Use that address for the state forms. They won’t count your mama’s income or your brother’s and them, and that Section 8 waitlist opens right up.”
Sara frowned. “That’s fraud.”
“It’s survival,” Charmaine shrugged. “You wouldn’t be the first.”
Sara straightened up, her voice a little firmer. “It’d be a violation of Caine’s probation. He has to stay at an approved address. They’d send him back for that.”
Charmaine didn’t push it. Just nodded slow. “Well. Ain’t nobody looking out for us but us. You know that.”
“I do,” Sara said, already turning back to the cart. “That’s why I bought the car.”
Charmaine reached into her apron and passed her a wrapped honey bun. “Eat something. You look tired.”
Sara smiled faintly, took it, and moved to the next door.
A family passed her down the hall—toddler in pajamas, mother balancing a breakfast tray. Sara looked away before the ache could settle in.
The hallway stretched long ahead of her. Room after room. Day after day.
One job to stay afloat.
Another dream pushed off.
~~~
Caine sat in the back of the biology classroom, eyes low, pen scratching lightly across a crumpled sheet of paper. Ms. Levron’s voice droned on about codons and amino acids, something about transcription and translation—but the words didn’t reach him. Not really.
Instead, he wrote what he knew.
prison walls don’t echo, they absorb
you leave a piece of yourself in every silence you survive
freedom come with rules, but so did jail—difference is who writes them
The bell rang sharp. Chairs scraped. Bags zipped. Everyone else moved fast—eager to get out, get loud, get back to whatever passed for normal.
Caine stayed seated.
He always waited. Watched the room clear out. Then moved.
In the hallway, the noise wrapped around him. Sneakers squeaked. Laughter bounced off lockers. He adjusted his backpack, drifting into the stream of students without looking anyone in the eye.
“Caine.”
Caine turned.
Mr. Landry stood outside a classroom door, one foot braced against the frame, a folder in one hand, a coffee in the other.
“You surviving?” he asked.
Caine shrugged. “Cleaner than Carver.”
Quentin chuckled. “Low bar, but fair.”
Caine nodded toward the folder. “Appreciate you getting me in. I know that wasn’t easy.”
Quentin tilted his head. “Used what little goodwill I had. So try not to skip class as much as you did back at Carver.”
“I won’t.”
Caine pulled a book from his backpack and handed it over—Invisible Man, spine bent, sticky notes poking out the top.
Quentin took it, flipping through a few pages. “You finish it?”
“Twice.”
Quentin raised an eyebrow.
“Some parts felt like a mirror,” Caine added. “Other parts made me want to break it.”
“Then it did its job,” Quentin said. He stepped inside for a second, then came back and handed Caine another one—Monster by Walter Dean Myers. “Let me know what you think of this one.”
Caine took it.
“You’ll like the format,” Quentin added. “But the weight? That’s the real story.”
Caine nodded.
He didn’t need to say anything else.
Quentin didn’t either.
Caine turned and walked down the hallway. The Hall of Champions gleamed with polished trophies and framed photos of state titles, the golds and purples bright under fluorescent lights.
He passed the trophy case. Gold plaques, frozen smiles. For a second, he wondered if any of them had ever sat where he had. If their stories ended in courts or colleges.
Caine kept walking. Book in hand.
Trying to figure out what kind of story he was supposed to be now.
~~~
The yard smelled like dust and gasoline—grit baking into her skin before she even reached the trailer. Mireya stepped through the gate without a word, her boots dragging slightly from how heavy they felt after a full school day. Her hoodie was damp at the collar, backpack pulling at one shoulder.
She didn’t get ten steps in before Leo intercepted her.
He pushed off the side of a parked forklift, hands stuffed in his pockets. “Been a minute.”
She didn’t stop walking. “Didn’t realize I owed you conversation.”
He followed, not quite beside her. “You could’ve let someone know. You vanish, people assume things.”
“I wasn’t working,” she said flatly. “Wasn’t my problem.”
Leo clicked his tongue. “Still isn’t, huh?”
She turned toward him just enough to speak without stopping. “You needed someone to run your errands. Not check in.”
He looked her over once—head to toe. “You back now?”
Mireya didn’t answer.
From behind, Kike called out in Spanish, half-laughing but without warmth. “You want to be a guerita, now? I thought we were family”
Mireya’s jaw clenched.
She pushed through the door to the office without responding.
Inside, the AC buzzed, stale and barely working. Jamie sat at the desk, flipping through paperwork with the same irritation he always wore like a second skin.
Someone else was in her chair.
A man she didn’t know, maybe mid-40s, in a pressed white shirt and slacks that didn’t belong anywhere near this yard. His loafers were spotless. A watch gleamed from under his cuff.
He turned at the sound of the door. Looked at her for a second too long.
The way he looked at her—calm, assessing, like she was a ledger entry instead of a person—made her skin tighten.
“You’re Mireya?” he asked.
She crossed her arms. “Who’s asking?”
The man smiled without teeth. “Just someone who appreciates neat ledgers. You’ve got a good eye. Noticed it the first time I looked through your numbers.”
Then he stood, adjusted his sleeves, and walked out like he owned the building.
Mireya waited until the door shut.
“Who was that?” she asked Jamie.
Jamie barely looked up. “Accountant.”
“He got a name?”
Jamie shrugged. “Doesn’t matter. He signs off.”
“On what?”
“Everything.”
Mireya stared for a second. Then dropped her backpack onto the corner table and slid into the newly vacated chair.
She glanced over at Denise, who had her head buried in a bowl of gumbo. Sighing, she pulled up the first set of slips.
~~~
The apartment still smelled like bleach and fried rice.
Caine sat on the floor with Camila in front of him, a coloring book opened between them. His back leaned against the couch, shoulders relaxed for once. The sun pushed through the thin curtains just enough to bathe the room in a sleepy glow. Camila hummed to herself as she scribbled the letter “B” in green crayon—backwards, crooked, perfect.
“B de burro,” he said gently.
“Buh-roh,” she repeated, tongue tripping over the r.
He smiled. “That’s close, mamas. You gon’ get it.”
She looked up at him with serious eyes, then down at the page again. A second later, she held up the crayon triumphantly.
“Look!” she said, showing him her masterpiece. A jumble of shapes. An attempt at the word “Dada.”
Caine nodded solemnly. “Genius-level,” he said. “MIT already calling.”
She giggled.
He reached over and drew a heart next to her scribbles. “You gotta be as smart as your mama.”
As if summoned by name, the front door clicked open.
Mireya walked in, her hoodie sleeves pushed halfway up, boots caked in dry mud, hair pulled into a loose bun. She looked exhausted—sweat clinging to her brow, the corners of her mouth set in a line too tired to frown.
“Where’s my mom?” she asked, toeing off one boot by the door.
“She let me in and dipped,” Caine said. “Didn’t say where she was going.”
Mireya dropped her bag on the recliner and sank onto the couch behind him. Caine tensed for a second, feeling her presence at his back. Then her hand landed softly on his shoulder, and he let out a breath he hadn’t noticed he was holding.
He turned slightly, eyes falling to her boots.
“Why you still working there?” he asked, voice low. “Ain’t like Kike ever—”
“I need the job,” she said, cutting him off without heat. “You think food fall from the sky?”
Camila interrupted them by holding up her latest creation—a messy, colorful drawing of three stick figures under a crooked sun. One tall. One medium. One tiny.
Caine took it carefully, like it was sacred.
Her scribbles looked freer than anything he ever drew.
He pointed to each figure. “Who’s this?”
Camila’s finger tapped the tallest one. “Dada.”
Then the medium one. “Mommy.”
Then herself. “Yo.”
Mireya looked down, something unreadable in her expression.
Caine swallowed.
The quiet stretched out between them, filled only by the rustle of paper and the sound of Camila reaching for another crayon.
Mireya finally spoke, voice almost a whisper. “She didn’t forget.”
Caine nodded. “I didn’t expect her to.”
Mireya didn’t respond.
But her hand stayed on his shoulder. Not tight. Not hesitant.
Just there.
A reminder.
Of what still connected them.
Of what hadn’t been lost.
-
Captain Canada
- Posts: 4739
- Joined: 01 Dec 2018, 00:15
American Sun
Gott remember to keep my Spanish dictionary on me when I get through some of these updates. But glad he got released. Let's get this thing going.
American Sun
Captain Canada wrote: ↑06 Jul 2025, 11:25Gott remember to keep my Spanish dictionary on me when I get through some of these updates. But glad he got released. Let's get this thing going.
