Remember Me?

The iron gates groaned open, and with them, twenty years of memories flooded back like a dam had cracked. Anthony Reyes stepped out into sunlight for the first time as a free man. The wind hit his face differently now—older, wiser, weathered. He held a Bible in one hand, a small duffel in the other, and in his heart, the weight of a past that never let go.

Twenty years ago, Anthony had taken a life in a moment of blind rage. A man he’d once called “brother.” A family friend. A backyard-barbecue, godparent-to-my-kid kind of friend. It happened without warning, without a mask, and with a child watching from the hallway—just seven years old, trembling, crying, frozen. That child had to testify against him, their voice barely strong enough to speak. Anthony never forgot that voice.

Inside prison, Anthony broke—then rebuilt. He found faith not in desperation, but in surrender. He read scripture in the mornings, cleaned up messes not his own, and held the hands of dying inmates who had no one else. He’d become a model prisoner. The guards respected him. The inmates listened when he spoke.

When his parole was finally granted, he didn’t rush toward comfort. He went straight into service.

He became a street preacher.

On busy corners in the city, he'd raise his hands and cry out the Gospel. His voice had a rawness that caught attention. “Repentance is real,” he’d shout. “Forgiveness is for you!” He never wore a collar, only a secondhand suit and a wooden cross around his neck.

He wasn't perfect. Just forgiven.

He never imagined his past would catch up in the form it did.

The crowd was decent for a Thursday. Tourists, workers on lunch break, teens with earbuds in, all drifting past while he preached near the subway station.

“The Lord says,” Anthony's voice boomed, “‘Vengeance is Mine, I will repay,’ says the Lord!”

A young man stood across the street, frozen. Rage brewed under a calm surface. It had been years, but the voice, the cadence—it hadn’t changed. That voice had echoed in courtrooms, had haunted nightmares.

Marcus Boyd had been the child in the hallway. Now 27, his muscles taut beneath his jacket, his soul weathered and brittle. He never healed. He never forgave.

He didn’t believe in that “Forgiveness stuff.”

Every Sunday, his mother had tried to drag him to church. He’d sit there with his fists clenched, watching crosses and choirs, thinking how can a murderer preach the Word of God?

He watched Anthony embrace strangers, pray over addicts, kiss babies.

Where was this kindness when my dad needed it?

That question rotted him from the inside out.

That Thursday, Marcus had followed Anthony for three blocks. He knew where he'd be. He pulled the ski mask from his backpack. His fingers brushed the gun.

He stepped forward.

Anthony had just raised his hands again, eyes to the sky, “You don’t need to carry the weight—”

Gunshots cracked the air like thunderclaps.

Screams erupted. Bodies scattered. Anthony tried to run, but a sharp pain exploded in his leg, and he crumbled to the pavement.

Blood soaked his pants. His hand pressed instinctively to the wound.

Marcus pushed through the crowd. Calm. Focused. Gun in hand. He stepped over the fallen preacher.

Anthony looked up, face twisted in pain, and asked, “Why?”

The man pulled up the ski mask.

“Remember me?”

Recognition hit like another bullet. Anthony's mouth fell open. “Marcus…”

“At a loss for words?” Marcus spat. “You remembered what you did... to a friend. To my dad.”

Anthony's eyes welled. “Marcus, I—”

“Shut up.”

Marcus ordered him to his knees. Anthony complied, lifting his arms weakly. Blood dripped from his fingertips.

“I’m truly sorry,” Anthony said. “I’ve waited twenty years to say it to your face. I took your father from you. I can never undo that. But I accept whatever comes. I have accepted it.”

Phones were out now. Recording. Windows of nearby stores filled with horrified faces.

Marcus’s hand shook.

“Apology not accepted,” he growled. He raised the gun again.

Anthony’s voice trembled. “I understand.”

“I was seven!” Marcus screamed. “Seven! We trusted you!”

The moment cracked. Marcus's fury faltered. Grief surged in its place. He staggered back a step, eyes wild, breathing ragged. The years collapsed in his mind like dominoes—his father's funeral, his mother's tears, his own therapist sessions he never finished.

And still—Anthony just knelt there. Not begging. Not pleading. Just… waiting.

Sirens howled in the distance.

“PUT THE GUN DOWN!” police shouted from behind their doors.

Marcus looked at the flashing lights, then back at Anthony.

He pulled the trigger.

Anthony’s shoulder jerked back. He cried out. But he didn’t fall.

Police fired.

Marcus’s body jolted. The gun fell.

He collapsed to the pavement, blood blooming from his chest.

The footage went viral in hours.

"Street Preacher Shot by Murder Victim's Son"

"Redemption or Justice?"

"The Day Forgiveness Collided with Vengeance"

News anchors argued over who the victim was. Protesters and pastors quoted scripture. Internet commenters typed essays and hate.

But in a quiet hospital room, Anthony awoke two days later.

His shoulder was bandaged. His leg ached. A Bible rested on the table beside him.

A nurse entered, gently.

“Visitor for you.”

It was Marcus's mother.

She was grayer now, face lined with sorrow. She sat beside Anthony and didn’t speak for a while.

“I never forgave you,” she whispered. “I never thought I could.”

Anthony nodded, throat thick.

She reached into her purse and pulled out a photo—young Marcus, gap-toothed, grinning, on his father’s shoulders.

“I lost two men that day. My husband… and eventually my son.”

Tears spilled from her eyes.

“I came here… to say I don’t know if I’ll ever forgive you completely. But I know… I don’t want hate anymore. It’s eaten too much already.”

Anthony wept openly.

They sat in silence, bound by grief, by years, by a shared loss too heavy for words.

Months later, Anthony returned to the street.

A cane in his hand. A bullet scar on his shoulder. He wasn’t as loud anymore.

He didn’t shout sermons. He told stories. His own story.

He didn’t beg people to forgive.

He showed them what it looked like to live with the consequences and still choose love.

Sometimes, people asked about Marcus.

Anthony never spoke with bitterness.

He’d say, “He was a boy who never got to be whole again. And I broke him. I don’t blame him.”

One evening, after the crowd dispersed, a man approached Anthony. Young. Late twenties.

“Are you the guy from the video?”

Anthony sighed. “Yes.”

The man nodded. “I don’t go to church or anything. But... the way you didn’t fight back. The way you still came back. That’s got me thinking.”

Anthony smiled gently. “That’s all I ask.”

They sat on the curb together as the sun dipped behind the city.

Anthony still carried the weight of his past. But he carried it differently now—not with shame, but with purpose.

He'd found acceptance.

Not from the world.

But from God.

And slowly… from himself.

THE END