The Scapegoat's Return: Watch Me Shine Now

The heavy steel door slammed shut.

The sound was not a metaphor. It was a physical force that hit the back of Crysta's skull, traveled down her spine, and vibrated in her molars.

She stood on the cracked concrete. The sunlight hit her retinas like shattered glass. She squeezed her eyes shut, her hands rising to shield her face. For three years, her world had been lit by the sickly yellow hum of fluorescent tubes. This natural light physically hurt.

"Miller."

Crysta opened her eyes. Correctional Officer Sean McCoy stood on the other side of the yellow line. His face held the exact same expression he used when ordering inmates to strip for contraband checks.

"You are free," McCoy said. His voice was flat, devoid of any human inflection. "Do not come back."

He turned his back and walked away. The secondary gate buzzed and locked behind him.

Crysta looked down at her hands. She was wearing a gray sweat suit issued by the state. It was two sizes too big. The fabric scratched against her collarbones. In her right hand, she held a thin manila envelope. It contained her release papers, a plastic ID card, and twenty-seven dollars.

Twenty-seven dollars. That was the exact monetary value of three years of her life, earned by scrubbing toilets and mopping vomit in Cell Block D.

She looked up. The highway stretched out in front of her, a gray ribbon cutting through dead, brown dirt. There were no buildings. There were no people. The nearest bus station was five miles away.

Her stomach contracted. A sharp, acidic pain twisted just below her ribs. She had not eaten since the watery oatmeal at 5:00 AM.

The sound of tires crunching on gravel made her flinch. Her right hand immediately went to her left wrist, her thumb rubbing the raw skin where the plastic identification band had lived for over a thousand days.

An old, rusted Ford pickup truck pulled out of the prison visitor parking lot. Crysta stepped back, pressing her spine against the chain-link fence. She wanted nothing to do with anyone who had business at this facility.

The truck did not pass her. It slowed down and stopped. The passenger window rolled down with a mechanical squeal.

A woman leaned over the center console. She had deep lines around her mouth and tired, kind eyes.

"Need a ride, child?" the woman asked. Her voice was soft. "Going to the bus terminal in town?"

Crysta froze. Her thumb dug harder into her left wrist. In the driver's seat, a young man gripped the steering wheel. His knuckles were white. He stared at Crysta with hard, suspicious eyes.

Crysta's throat was coated in dust. She tried to speak, but her vocal cords refused to work. Isolation had stolen her ability to engage in casual conversation. She swallowed hard, forcing saliva down her dry throat.

She nodded.

"Thank you," she rasped.

She pulled the heavy metal door handle and climbed into the back seat. The moment the door closed, a scent hit her face. Cinnamon. Baked flour. Melted butter. It smelled like a kitchen. It smelled like a life she had forgotten existed.

The woman looked at Crysta through the rearview mirror. She wiped her hands on the thighs of her jeans, a nervous, comforting gesture.

"My son, Ricky," the woman said, her voice cracking slightly. "He is in there, too."

"Mom," the young man driving snapped. His jaw muscles flexed. "Do not tell strangers our business."

The woman ignored him. "He was supposed to get visitation today. But he got into trouble again."

Crysta stared at the back of the woman's head. Her chest tightened. She knew exactly what "trouble" meant in that building. It meant solitary confinement. It meant cold concrete and the smell of your own waste.

She said nothing. The truck rattled over the uneven asphalt. Crysta watched the razor wire fade into the distance. Her breathing was shallow. She kept waiting for someone to yell at her, to tell her to face the wall.

Twenty minutes later, the truck pulled into the dirt lot of the Greyhound bus terminal.

Crysta pushed the door open. Her legs felt like lead. She stepped out and turned to the window. "Thank you."

"Wait," the woman said.

She reached into her worn leather purse. She pulled out a single twenty-dollar bill and a few crumpled singles, shoving them through the window.

"Take this, child," the woman said. "It is enough for a hot meal and a bus ticket. Starting over requires a little luck."

Crysta stared at the green paper. Her brain short-circuited.

"Mom, we need to go," the son growled, his arms crossing tightly over his chest.

Crysta stepped back. Her hands shook. "I cannot take that."

"Take it," the woman insisted, leaning further out the window. She grabbed Crysta's hand and pressed the money into her palm. "Consider it buying good karma for a mother who just wants her boy to come home. Go buy yourself something to eat."

The raw grief in the woman's eyes punched the air out of Crysta's lungs. She could not fight it.

Her fingers closed over the cash. She counted it by touch. Twenty-three dollars.

The truck pulled away, kicking up a cloud of dust. Crysta stood alone in the parking lot. She gripped the small wad of money so hard her fingernails cut into her palm. The physical pain grounded her.

She looked up at the gray sky. Her throat burned. For the first time in three years, hot, wet tears spilled over her eyelashes and tracked down her cheeks.

She wiped her face violently with the back of her sleeve. Showing weakness in public was a habit she needed to break.

She walked into the terminal. The air smelled of diesel and stale coffee. She walked to the ticket counter.

She did not buy a ticket to the city she used to call home. That place was a graveyard.

"One ticket to Cedarwood," Crysta told the clerk.

She handed over the cash. She took her ticket. She walked out to the boarding lane, leaving the ghost of Crysta Miller behind.

The Starlight Motel sat on the edge of Cedarwood like a rotting tooth.

Crysta stood at the front desk. The manager, a man with grease in his hair and nicotine stains on his fingers, stared at her gray sweat suit.

She placed the cash the woman in the truck had given her on the scratched laminate counter. Combined with her own money, she paid for two nights.

The manager slid a brass key across the desk.

Room 114 smelled of old smoke and damp carpet. The bedspread had cigarette burns near the pillows. Crysta closed the door. She turned the deadbolt. She engaged the chain lock.

She stood in the center of the room and stared at the locked door. Her chest heaved. Oxygen rushed into her lungs so fast it made her dizzy. A door that locked from the inside. It was the most beautiful thing she had ever seen.

She walked to the nightstand and set down the manila envelope. It landed with a dull thud. That envelope was her entire existence.

Her muscles ached. A deep, bone-crushing exhaustion pulled at her limbs. But her brain was wired. Adrenaline pumped through her veins. If she closed her eyes, she would wake up to the sound of guards hitting the metal bars with their batons.

She walked into the bathroom. The tiles were cracked. She turned the shower handle all the way to the left.

She stripped off the gray clothes. She stepped under the water.

It was scalding hot. The heat hit her skin like a physical blow, turning her shoulders bright red. She did not turn it down. She wanted it to burn. She wanted the water to melt away the smell of industrial bleach and institutional soap.

She closed her eyes. The sound of the rushing water filled her ears.

But the water could not wash away the images. They clawed their way to the front of her mind, sharp and violent.

The rain. The blinding headlights. The sickening sound of metal crushing bone.

Three years ago.

She was standing in the corner of a massive ballroom. The Reese family was celebrating. Asha Reese, the biological daughter they had finally found, was the center of the universe. Asha wore a silk dress that cost more than a car.

Crysta, the adopted daughter, stood in the shadows, a champagne flute trembling in her hand. Her memory of that night was a fractured mosaic of flashing lights and screaming sirens.

The memory shifted. The ballroom faded into a dark, slick road. The sports car tearing through the rain. The impact. A heavy, sickening thud against the front bumper. A body rolling over the windshield.

Then the flashing lights. The absolute chaos. Collins pulling up in his SUV. The family lawyer appearing out of nowhere, his voice cold and sterile.

"You were behind the wheel, Crysta. You were drinking. You take the fall for this DUI. We will get you a minimum security facility. One year, tops. We will take care of everything. You are family."

She remembered looking at her adoptive father. He nodded.

She remembered looking at Collins. He squeezed her hand. "I will wait for you. We will protect you."

She agreed. She trusted them.

But the memory violently shifted to the harsh fluorescent lights of the courtroom. The judge's gavel coming down like an executioner's axe. Maximum sentence. Three years. Maximum security. No protection. No comfortable facility. They had locked her in a cage and thrown away the key, leaving her to be devoured by the system.

Crysta gasped, choking on the shower water. She fell to her knees on the hard fiberglass floor. Her hands gripped her hair, pulling the wet strands until her scalp burned.

They did not protect her. They abandoned her.

She turned off the water. She grabbed a thin, scratchy towel and dried her shivering body.

She looked in the mirror above the sink. The girl staring back had hollow cheeks and dark, bruised skin under her eyes. The soft, naive Crysta Miller died in Cell Block D.

She walked back into the bedroom. She did not turn on the small television. She could not bear the noise. Instead, she crawled into the center of the sagging mattress, pulling the thin, cigarette-burned bedspread up to her chin. She curled her knees to her chest, her body trembling violently. The silence of the room was deafening, but every time she closed her eyes, the silence was shattered by the phantom sounds of her trauma. The clanging of steel doors. The screams from the solitary wing. The heavy boots pacing past her cell.

She lay there for hours, paralyzed by the ghosts of the past three years. She wept until there were no tears left, her breaths coming in ragged, shallow gasps. The darkness outside the window slowly gave way to the gray light of dawn.

By the time the sun fully rose, the visceral panic had burned itself out, leaving behind a hollow, gnawing ache in her stomach. Hunger. It was a primal, grounding force. It forced her to sit up. It forced her to breathe.

She pulled a pen and a piece of motel stationery from the drawer. She sat on the edge of the bed, her hands still shaking slightly, but her mind sharpening with the absolute necessity of survival. She wrote down her remaining cash. She wrote down the cost of food.

Today, she would find a job. She would scrub floors, she would wash dishes. She would survive. Because surviving was the only way she would ever be strong enough to face the people who had left her in the dark.

The Cedarwood sun beat down on the pavement, radiating heat through the thin soles of Crysta's cheap canvas shoes.

It was Monday. She wore a plain black t-shirt and dark jeans she had bought from a thrift store for eight dollars. They were clean, but they hung loosely on her emaciated frame.

She pushed open the glass door of a local coffee shop. The bell chimed.

The manager, a woman with a tight ponytail, smiled at her. "Can I help you?"

"I am looking for a job," Crysta said. "I can serve, clean, whatever you need."

The manager handed her a clipboard. "Fill this out."

Crysta sat at a small table. She filled in her name. She left the address blank. She moved down the page.

Her pen stopped.

HAVE YOU EVER BEEN CONVICTED OF A FELONY?

Her thumb instinctively dropped to her left wrist, rubbing the raw skin. Her heart hammered against her ribs. If she lied, they would find out during the background check. Lying was a violation of her parole.

She checked the box marked YES.

She handed the clipboard back. The manager glanced at the paper. The smile vanished from her face instantly. Her facial muscles went slack.

"We will keep this on file," the manager said, sliding the clipboard under the counter. "Don't call us. We will call you."

Crysta walked out. The bell chimed again, mocking her.

Tuesday. A fast-food restaurant. The teenager behind the counter saw the checked box and laughed nervously before tossing the application in the trash.

Wednesday. A laundromat. The owner shook his head before she even finished filling out the form.

Thursday. A gas station. The manager, a large man with sweat stains on his collar, leaned over the counter. "We don't hire thieves and junkies here. Get out."

Friday.

Crysta sat on the concrete curb outside a small grocery store. Her stomach was a hollow, screaming cavern. She had eaten half a loaf of bread in five days. Her blood sugar was so low her vision blurred at the edges.

She looked at her hands. They were shaking.

The motel rent for her extended stay was due tomorrow. She had four dollars left. She was going to end up on the street. And if she ended up on the street, her parole officer would send her back to prison.

A wave of nausea hit her. She bent over, resting her forehead on her knees, trying to breathe through the sharp pain in her gut.

A heavy vehicle pulled into the parking space right in front of her. The engine rattled before dying.

Crysta did not look up. She didn't have the energy.

A pair of worn work boots stepped onto the pavement.

"Child?"

Crysta flinched. She knew that voice.

She slowly raised her head. Margo Novak stood there, holding a canvas grocery bag. Margo's eyes widened in shock.

Crysta's chest seized. Shame flooded her veins, making her face burn. This woman had given her twenty-three dollars, and here she was, starving on a curb like a stray dog. She wanted the concrete to open up and swallow her.

"Is that you?" Margo took a step closer. She wiped her hands on the thighs of her jeans. "You look awful. Are you sick?"

Crysta tried to stand up, but her legs gave out. She slumped back onto the curb.

Pride was a luxury she could no longer afford. Her throat tightened, and the words ripped their way out of her chest.

"I cannot find a job," Crysta choked out. Her voice was broken, desperate. "Nobody will hire me. They see the box on the application, and they throw me out."

Margo stared at her. The older woman's face softened. Her eyes grew wet. She was looking at Crysta, but Crysta knew Margo was seeing her son, Ricky. Margo was seeing the exact future that awaited her own child.

Crysta grabbed the edge of Margo's jeans. Her knuckles were white.

"Please," Crysta begged. The word tasted like blood. "I will do anything. I will wash dishes. I will haul trash. I just need a chance to eat. Please."

Silence stretched between them. The sound of cars passing on the street seemed miles away.

Crysta let go of Margo's jeans. She dropped her head. She had pushed too hard. She had ruined it.

"I run a diner," Margo said.

Crysta's head snapped up.

Margo's voice was firm. "It is small. The pay is minimum wage. But I need a waitress."

Margo reached out her hand. The skin was rough, calloused from years of hard work.

Crysta stared at the hand. Her lungs expanded, pulling in a massive breath of air. The crushing weight on her chest lifted just enough for her to survive.

She reached up and grabbed Margo's hand. She nodded violently, tears spilling over her cheeks.