I press my knuckles into my mouth, biting down hard enough to feel it, to anchor myself to something real. Pain is honest. Pain doesn’t lie.
“I learned,” I go on, quieter now. “You should know that.”
I learned how to wait.
I learned how to watch without being seen.
I learned how to sit in a cage and sharpen myself into something patient enough to last.
I learned that love doesn’t disappear when you lock it up.
It mutates.
The guard walks past the bars, keys jangling, boots echoing, and I don’t look at him. I don’t need to. He’s temporary. He always was.
Scarlett isn’t.
I gather the letters slowly, deliberately, stacking them into a neat pile for the first time in years. I square the edges. Smooth them down. Treat them with care again.
“You think you ended it,” I whisper, my mouth curling into a smile that never quite reaches my eyes. “You think you won.”
I slide the stack under the mattress, out of sight but never out of reach.
“You should’ve killed me,” I add softly. “That day in court.”
Because now?
Now the door is going to open.
And I’m coming home.
The lights never really go out in here. They just dim enough to remind you that darkness is a privilege you don’t deserve.
I stay on the floor long after my legs go numb, long after the cold stops being something I notice and starts being something I am. My back presses into the wall. My head knocks once, twice, against the concrete, not hard enough to knock myself out, just hard enough to feel it. To remind myself I still exist. That I’m still here. That I didn’t imagine her.
I drag the letters back out from under the mattress again. I tell myself it’s the last time. It never is.
I spread them out in front of me, slow, methodical, like I’m laying out a body. Each one a piece of her. Each one a fucking insult.
“You didn’t even have the decency to open them,” I mutter, staring at the red stamps. My throat tightens. I swallow hard and keep going. “You couldn’t look at my words, but you could look at me while you destroyed me.”
I pick up another envelope and tear it open again even though it’s already ripped to shit, paper splitting under my fingers. I read the same lines I’ve read a hundred times.
I still dream about you.
I still wake up reaching for you.
I still believe you’ll tell the truth.
I snort, bitter and ugly. “Fucking idiot,” I tell myself. “That’s what loving you made me.”
My hand shakes as I drop the letter. I don’t let it stop. I won’t give my body the satisfaction of falling apart without my say-so.
I close my eyes and she’s there instantly, like she always is. Not the version she pretends to be now. Not the one in court. The real one. The one she never lets anyone see.
Scarlett on the edge of the bed, knees pulled to her chest, chewing on her thumb when she’s nervous. Scarlett whispering my name like it’s a sin. Scarlett gasping when I get too close, not because she wants me to stop, but because she wants me to keep going.
“You were never afraid of me,” I whisper, my voice rough, curling around the memory. “You were afraid of wanting me.”
