“I couldn’t let him own any part of me anymore. He doesn’t get my fear. He can’t control me with it. That doesn’t mean I won’t be afraid; I can’t help it. But it means I can push it back and fight it off.”

“With our help.” Todd kissed her forehead and pushed to stand again.

He paced and Ben sat holding her hand. Jeremy excused himself for several minutes and came back red-eyed but more steady. Brody looked off into space and Adrian spoke quietly to Emery.

It wasn’t an exceptionally long wait before they were called back in and the parole board unanimously rejected Cabot’s request for parole and agreed to rehear the case in three years.

Erin exhaled, putting her head in her hands and swallowing back emotion. Standing straight, she held her back and head up high and thanked the board before walking out.

35

The night air was warm as the sunset rendered the grassy knoll on the hill facing the stage a riot of oranges and pinks.

Erin walked out with Adrian, and the sound of the crowd going wild at seeing her there bolstered her, fed her, made her smile.

She adjusted her strap and began to play, laying the beat, enticing Adrian’s voice to join, enticing his guitar to play with hers. And he did. The song caught her, and then another, until she’d given in and let it carry her. It had been a very long time, but it felt good and right that she be there.

Stage left, her family stood. Her mothers-in-law, Brody, those brothers-in-law who were still part of their lives. Most important, Todd and Ben watched her, smiling, understanding what it meant for her to be there.

She tipped her head back and looked into the sky, looked up at the stars and sent out thanks. She wasn’t that woman she’d been eleven years before, playing small clubs, having a hot affair with a cop who had big issues with his sexuality. She’d changed and there were still parts of her inside that were broken. She still jumped at loud noises and hated crowds. But the part where her music lived thrived and unfurled, filling the stage, freeing her in the way only that one thing could.

She had a past filled with bad things and a future filled with joy. In the balance, that was really all anyone could ask for.

Adrian broke off for the bridge and they fed off each other like they had for so many years before the darkness came. But it was there, like it had never left, and instead of tears, she only had laughter.