Chapter 12 - Vincent Gave Me One Piece of Evidence and Told Me Never to Forget What It MeantMonths passed.
The city changed.
Victor went to prison.
Arthur faced trial.
Daniel lost his badge.
My father came home.
My mother started sleeping through the night.
And I went back to school.
The gray sedan disappeared.
For the first time, I walked home without looking over my shoulder.
One afternoon, Vincent visited.
He brought me something.
The photograph.
The same photograph he had placed beneath the gray sedan's windshield.
I held it.
“What is it?”
“Proof.”
“Of what?”
“That you were telling the truth.”
I smiled.
“I know.”
He shook his head.
“No.”
He tapped the photograph.
“This is important.”
I looked at him.
“Why?”
“Because people will sometimes tell you that what you see isn't real.”
“They'll tell you you're imagining things.”
“They'll tell you you're too young to understand.”
“But sometimes, you know.”
He nodded.
“And when you know something is wrong, you don't have to face it alone.”
I hugged him.
He hesitated.
Then hugged me back.
My father watched from the doorway.
He smiled.
Vincent wasn't the monster people had described.
He was dangerous.
That was true.
But danger and cruelty were not the same thing.
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Vincent had chosen what kind of man he wanted to be.
And he chose protection.
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