I have no idea how Ray’s body ended up in the back of my van, and I’m blunt about one thing: it wasn’t me who put him there. The room freezes as a chilling question lands in the air: who could have done this? I don’t know for sure. Your guess is as good as mine, but the reality is scary simple: it had to be someone who roams these streets, someone who knows the lay of the land and where the shadows hide. It’s the kind of truth that sinks its claws in you, because whatever happened, the motive had to be strong enough to push someone to kill. Adela’s misstep, some mistake she made along the way, now haunts us all, twisting the night into a knot of fear and doubt.

Time crawls, heavy and inexorable, as the threat of discovery tightens its grip. It’s only a matter of time before the truth surfaces, and when it does, the fallout will be brutal—an unflinching reckoning that won’t spare anyone who stood near the edge. You don’t deserve love. You don’t deserve forgiveness. Those words sting, a harsh verdict thrown into the darkness, insisting that what’s coming will be painful, raw, and personal, a storm that will lash back at anyone who has brushed against the wreckage I’ve caused.

The tension thickens with whispers and accusations that gnaw at the mind: am I involved in dealing drugs? Is Ray steering me toward a life I never wanted to lead? The questions circle like vultures, circling nearer with each breath. No, I tell myself, I’m not doing anything. I’m not the engine of this nightmare, I’m merely a passenger along for the ride, praying the truth doesn’t tear me apart.

Then a tremor of vulnerability breaks through the facade. You can tell me the truth, the reminder says, voice soft but insistent, as if coaxing a frightened child toward safety. Mommy, it’s me. It’s me. I won’t do that anymore. The plea cuts through the noise, a lifeline thrown in a sea of accusations, a desperate request to hold on to something near and real.

The weight of rumors hits with a sharper edge: Dylan has claimed that Ray has been pressuring him and April to take drugs. The name lands like a cold knife, a shard of reality piercing the surface of the myth we’re trying to keep intact. It sounds unreal, almost too much to bear, but Dylan’s fear is tangible—he was genuinely worried about me, about us, about letting Ray into our lives. And in that moment, the decision in my heart is stark: I will never let Ray into this house again. Ever. The imperative to shut him out spills over into the everyday cadence of life: you’ve got to go to work. You’ll be late. Go. Go. Go. The harsh judgment rings out: people like you don’t deserve a life.

The argument cuts to the core: you don’t know what I’ve done for us. There is no “us” left to salvage. Whatever we had is over, etched in a line that cannot be uncrossed. The plea to Laurel is a last-ditch effort to keep a sliver of connection alive: don’t do this. Please, Laurel, don’t do this. Open the door. Let me in, just for a moment, so we can talk.

The room’s noise swells again as the sense of danger presses in. I’m not asking for permission to linger; I’m asking for a chance to explain, a moment to speak aloud the truth that’s been living in the shadows. If we can only talk, maybe we can find a way to understand what happened, to see past the fear and the anger and find a path back from the edge.

We move toward a real conversation, away from the blur of accusation and toward the fragile light of honesty. We decide to meet somewhere private, a space where we can hear each other without the intrusions of the world outside. The plan feels almost ceremonial, a small act of defiance against the chaos that has consumed us.

And then the conversation takes the shape of a confession: maybe I can be brave enough to admit what I’ve done, to lay bare the consequences of a life I’ve hurried through in the shadows. I acknowledge the truth without flinching: I am entangled in drugs, a dealer, something I never intended to broadcast but something I’ve hidden because of the fear of losing what little I have left.

The revelation lands with a brutal honesty: this isn’t something I wanted you to know, not something I imagined you’d understand. If you had known, would you still look at me the same way? The answer—no, probably not. I’ve lived a life that many would condemn, not because I wanted to be evil, but because I believed I had to survive. The past, with all its pain and broken promises, followed me like a shadow I couldn’t outrun.

I speak of the line I crossed and how it gnaws at me: the law of the jungle—take what you can before someone takes you. It’s a creed that shaped my choices, shaping the person I became, the person you’ve begun to see. Yet in that moment of confession, there’s a spark of something else, a memory of the first time I believed in a future that wasn’t built on fear: you. You saw in me something worth believing in, something that suggested I could become the real version of myself—someone capable of a stable life, a home, a family.

The air tightens as I face the weight of my own words: I am a monster. Don’t call me that, I want to beg you to see the man I could be, not the man the world has labeled. The accusation lands again, this time sharper: you terrorize vulnerable children. The counterpoint emerges in a rush of memories—the truth that even if the children in question are growing into teens, the harm I’ve caused is real and undeniable, a wound that won’t easily heal.

I try to pull the past into the present, to explain the years of hurt that brought me here. I was not always the person I am now. I was a child myself once—barely more than a boy—stolen from safety and thrown into streets that taught me to survive at any cost. The raw timeline unfolds: ten years old when I sold my first bag, a life already tilted toward danger before I could even spell out the word “home.” Depression haunted my granddad, and the family that might have saved me wasn’t there. I found Celia in a moment of desperate hunger for belonging, a choice that felt like salvation but turned into a debt I could never repay. She offered warmth, shelter, and a family, but it was a trap disguised as care, a chain I wore long after I learned the harsh lesson that no one truly saves you unless you save yourself.

Then the most brutal memory—my granddad, the one steady figure who stood against the storm, stepping in front of a bus and losing his life. They found a note in his pocket, a plea to look after a boy named Raymond, a haunting line that would echo through my life, insisting that someone still cared, even when the world had already abandoned me. That moment—eight years old, alone, unseen—shaped the person I would become: the loner trying to cling to a sense of belonging while treading through a landscape of abandonment and hardship.

I tell Laurel that the past isn’t just a chain; it’s a map with wrong turns and wrong doors, a map I’ve followed until I finally found someone who seemed to offer a different path. The longing to be good, to be worthy, to be loved, bleeds through every sentence. And I’m careful not to pretend that untangling this will be quick, easy, or painless. The road to forgiveness is long, and probably not guaranteed. Still, I’m asking for a chance to prove that the real me—the man who loved her, the man who learned to fight past his past, the man who wants a future with her and the kids—can still exist beneath the weight of all I’ve done.

As the confession winds down, the room feels like it’s listening with bated breath. The truth isn’t a tidy ending; it’s a raw, jagged seam in the fabric of our lives. The road ahead is uncertain, lined with questions and risks, but there remains a stubborn ember of hope: maybe, if we’re brave enough to face it together, there’s a chance to rebuild what was lost, to reconcile the harm with accountability, and to find a way forward that isn’t defined by the worst moments of our past.

If you’re listening, if you’re still in this with me, know this isn’t a plea for easy answers or quick absolution. It’s a request for the stubborn, messy possibility of redemption. I want a chance to prove I can be more than my worst choices, to prove that the man who did these things can choose differently, to face the consequences head-on, and to fight for a life that isn’t the echo of the harm I’ve caused but the start of something better.