Read LIFE BEFORE DAMAGED VOL. 10 (THE FERRO FAMILY) for Free Online

Whatever she found in this file makes her nervous and I have this sick premonition it’ll mean the end for us. Something in here has her spooked. Maybe it spooked Gina, too, but she never got a chance to tell me. I thought Gina was going to accept my proposal that night. What if I was wrong? I get to the last couple of pages. It’s the charges for the rave...
    My eyes go wide, and I whip around to face Sidney.
    “This can’t be real.” I place my hand over my face and lean back against the swing in disbelief. “I’m guilty. I killed him.”
    Sidney’s voice is light, careful. “Peter. I’m so sorry. You’ve been living with this weight on your shoulders for so long, but it was a lie.” Sidney leans in and puts an arm around my shoulders, resting her head on mine.
    I can’t move. I’m too stunned.
    According to the file, I didn’t kill the guy at the rave. The autopsy report concludes the cause of death was an aneurism due to chronic cocaine use and overdose. There were signs of concussion due to my punch, but not sufficient enough to send a healthy man into a coma. The redhead tried filing for manslaughter charges after her boyfriend’s death. The cops had me in their line of sight for a while, but once the autopsy results came back, the charges were reduced to a minor assault.
    The man overdosed.
    It wasn’t my fault.
    It wasn’t my punch.
    As for the fire, the witnesses all say the same thing. After I left, the redhead and her boyfriend continued yelling at each other. He collapsed during the argument, knocking a table to the ground as he fell. That’s when the candles fell into the drapes. That’s when the fire started. It was officially ruled an accident.
    I stare at the page and see nothing. A cascade of emotion and regret pool within me so quickly I’m ready to split apart at the seams.
    “Peter? Talk to me. Say something.” Sidney takes one of my hands in hers and squeezes gently. She looks into my eyes, her gaze laced with concern.
    I swallow hard, and my confession comes out for the first time since the events of that night, so long ago. “I had no recollection of starting that fire. When my mother came out with the police reports, it was easy to believe I’d caused it all. I lived in an angry and frustrated daze most of the time. I was doing whatever I could to piss off the people around me, just to feel something, anything but numbness. I was in no state of mind to recall any of the specifics. This all happened around the time of Sean’s trial. Amanda and their baby had just died so horrifically, and my brother, a man I looked up to, was suddenly believed to be a callous, cold-blooded murderer. I was a mess.”
    Sidney’s fingers trace reassuring circles on the back of my hand.
    I try to give her a smile, but it’s weak. “All I remember from that night is leaving once I’d knocked that brute to the ground. When I got to my car and heard the screaming, I looked back and saw what was going on inside. I remembered seeing Gina run up those stairs. I needed to make sure she was okay. She’d intrigued me, and I’d sent her off running scared. She didn’t deserve to have her life endangered because of a stupid shit like me, so I went back in to make sure she got out.”
    “You risked your life to save her.”
    “Don’t make me into a hero, Sidney. I wasn’t a good person at all. I was a fuck-up.”
    “Very few people would consider putting themselves in harm’s way to save a stranger. You did more than think about it—you ran inside a burning building. That doesn’t sound like a bad person to me. That guy sounds a lot like the man I love, actually.”
    “No, there’s no way to overcome who you really are. Who I was then is who I am now, and who I am will damn our future.”
    “Peter, you’re right. People don’t change, but you don’t seem to understand the mask you wore then wasn’t you—the guy with the heart and poems, that’s you. It’s still you.”
    “No, it’s