Therefore, gaining his compliance to complete my task on February fourteenth isn’t a shock.
Next Valentine’s Day, I’ll hand-deliver my gift and then place a kiss on that cute mouth of hers. She’ll taste like chocolate and smell like flowers. I’ll cuff her to the bed and caress what the damn bars of my cell prevent me from touching this year.
She might be too young for me. Too innocent and gentle, which is how she should stay. But she also walked into my life willingly. She became my obsession, so she’ll pay the price.
Besides, in the end, age is unimportant.
“Mail.”
An envelope drops between the bars of my cell before the guard saunters off to continue playing mailman for the rest of the block. Barely sparing him a glance, I stand from the cot and retrieve the white envelope.
By now, Aspen has gotten my present, but this can’t be in response, because the letter wouldn’t have made it from her to me that quickly. That means she’s been thinking about me too and sent this in anticipation of today.
The envelope tears in my rush to open it.
Cade,
I hope February is treating you well.
I understand my letters have provided you comfort, but unfortunately, this will be the last one I write to you. I’vewithdrawn from the program for personal reasons I can’t explain.
Please don’t hate me. I’ve genuinely enjoyed talking to you and meeting you.
However long you still have inside, I hope it goes well. I told the director you were really kind and a great conversationalist and would make an excellent partner for another volunteer. I hope they match you with someone, or at the very least, that my report helps you in any manner it can in there.
Continue writing, Cade. You have a lot to give others.
In another life, we could be friends. In this one, we’re running in two different directions. Again, don’t hate me. I hate myself enough for both of us.
Be well. Be happy. One day, be free.
Your friend,
Aspen
Red coats my vision, and the fragile sheet of lined paper is nothing more than a crumpled ball in my fist as a kind of anger—one I haven’t felt in a long, long time—comes out to play.
The last time anger like this filled my veins, people died.
She’sdone—just like that? She’s leaving.She’s ending this forpersonal reasons. That’s not an actual explanation, but a cop-out. She’s made herself a crucial part of my fucking life—all to take herself from it. Unacceptable.
She’s made me dream and hope. She’s become myobsession. All to leave?
No. Fuck that.
Unclenching my fist, I drop the letter on top of all the others scattered on my bed as if it were a crown atop a kingdom of misery, then grab a fresh sheet of paper to tell her what she’ll actually be doing.
Let’s see how submissive I can make her by demanding her return. She wants to please me; I know she does. Why else would she have taken my photo request and came in person, and then returned when I asked her to? She’s as infatuated with me as I am with her.
And sweetheart, that’s alright.
A few words in, with my pen poking through the paper more than getting any writing down, I stop. If she’s told the director she’s cancelling her enrollment, then this letter won’t be sent. Threatening the guards to get it to her won’t end well for me, and I’m too close to the end of my sentence to fuck up—especiallynow, when I haveherto get out for.
Suddenly, I hate these bars for an entirely new reason. They’re preventing me from reaching her. The last time something was kept from me, it landed my ass in prison.
My little pen pal won’t be escaping this easy, however. Once I’m free and I find her, there will be no more bars that’ll protect her from me.
I storm back to my cot and flatten the crumpled letter. Even if it’s the one she claims that’ll end us, it’ll be kept with the others. In the end, it’s stillherwriting, her pen marks, and rereading the stack is all I have.
