“That’s perfect. I can’t wait to come see you, baby.”
“Take the Mercedes. I don’t want you to drive for so long in your car.”
I roll my eyes. “It works fine. Four hours isn’t that long.”
“Half an hour in that thing is already too long,” he protests sternly. “Take my car.”
Again, I want to argue, but I bite my tongue. His control-obsessed mind probably needs that more than I need to use my car to drive there. “Okay,” I easily concede.
Seconds stretch, and I’m not sure what to say. Guilt eats me up from the inside as I visualize him in jail, stripped of his dignity and rights.
The box with the ring seems to weigh a ton in my hand. I want to let him know I found it, tell him, “Yes, I’ll marry you,” but I don’t want that moment to be forever altered by the reality of our situation.
“Lex?”
“Hm?”
“We’ll get through this, right? And in a couple of years, we’ll look back and laugh at how silly it all was, right?”
His answer takes several seconds to come, and when it does, it breaks my heart a little more. “I don’t know, Andrea.”
He doesn’t lie. Not even to reassure me.
Before I can say something, someone shouts something around Lex. “Sorry, I have to go,” he explains. “Calling hours are about to end.”
“Oh… Can we come visit you tomorrow?” I quickly ask.
“Yeah, it should be okay now that I’ve been processed.”
“Then I’ll come, maybe with Kev.”
“Okay.”
“I love you, baby.”
“See you soon, Andrea.” He hangs up before I can say anything, and I stay there with my phone pressed to my ear.
I always knew this was going to be hard, but it may be even harder than I anticipated. He isn’t okay, and it’s barely been three weeks since the arrest. At best, the trial will unfold in six months, and I don’t want to imagine what his mental state will look like by then.
Fighting back the tears, I return the phone to my pocket, close the box with the ring, and place it in the empty underwear drawer. I fold everything, arrange it in there, and then move on with the tidying. When I pick up a pair of Lex’s sneakers, my morale dips even further than it already had.
It’s the one where he wrote Andy on the sole, and that unavoidably brings me back to Christmas at my parents’ place, and how damn happy we were, dancing together among the guests.
“Fuck this shit,” I mutter to myself, letting go of the shoes. Looking up, I fight the tears again. “I’m not crying today.”
But I need some comfort, so I walk to the bedroom, kick my shoes off, and crawl into the messy bed. A familiar scent comes to my nose, and I grab a pillow to shove my face into it, breathing it in. Not that one. I pick another, give it the same treatment, and—
There… It smells of Lex.
The trace is faint, but it’s here, so I hug the pillow tightly and dip my nose in it. I miss him so fucking much. I miss holding him, waking up against him, hearing him talk, laugh, or be a nerd and explain some random facts to me. I miss how he makes me feel, who I am around him. I miss what we had, the connection, the ease… It’s all gone right now, and I’m not sure we’ll ever get it back.
I remain here for a long time, staring at the wall in front of me. He was right, and I should have known better. Who am I to argue with a literal genius? The ten-year deal was a bargain, and I should never have talked him out of it.
Compared to the rest of our lives, a decade feels like nothing.
Chapter 04
In our civilized world, it’s easy to forget we descend from animals since our instincts take the back seat to our heightened intelligence. But in a place like this, where being civilized holds no ground, it’s impossible not to be reminded of it. Not that I’d compare this prison to a literal jungle, but in the sense that I’ve never had to be so attentive to what my lizard brain has to say.
