“I’m so sorry for doing this to you. Please, forgive me,” she begs.
I stand from the bolted-down stool and grab her face in my hands, wiping away her tears with my thumbs. “You didn’t do this,” I say in a low voice. “I did it to myself. I made the mistakes, not you, Andrea. Please, stop crying. You’re breaking my heart.”
“No touching!” a guard orders from the other side of the room.
Reluctantly, I let go of her and sit down. It takes about a minute for Andrea to regulate her emotions, and once she’s able to talk again, she lets out a cynical chuckle. “I bet you wish you’d never met me.”
“Nothingcould ever make me wish that.”
“But you wouldn’t be here.”
“We can’t know that for sure, and it doesn’t change a thing. Hiring you will forever be the best decision I’ve ever made.”
“It’s not like you had a choice. I was the best candidate by far,” she reminds me, wiping her cheeks with the back of her hand. When she returns it to the table, I grab it and bring it to my lips for a quick kiss. The salty taste of her tears lingers when I let her go.
“I also dream of you, you know,” I confess, hoping she’ll feel less alone in her solitude.
“Really?”
“Yes. I dreamt of Seoul last night. We were back at the night market, strolling around like we had all the time in the world.”
“My dreams are rarely that innocent,” she confesses, her cheeks turning pink.
“You’re rarely fully dressed in mine, too.”
Just like that, the immense sadness she was prone to minutes ago fades away. “I feel like we’ll deserve a vacation when you get out,” she decides. “Where are you taking me?”
“I’m the one who has to pick?”
“Duh, you’re the one paying for it.”
“Hot or cold?”
“Hot. I’m so done with winter.”
“Alright… Maybe a bungalow on a beach, somewhere? Mexico, Thailand, French Polynesia…”
“Hm, I like that a lot, Coleman. Maybe a private island, so I can be topless and have no tan lines.”
“Now,Ilike that a lot, Walker.”
Although I’ve never been one to take vacations or travel abroad, it’s suddenly all I want. To be alone with my freckled dork, with only the sun and the fishes to witness our days. The salt on her skin wouldn’t be from her tears but from the clear blue sea, and only sand would adorn her golden skin.
I can see it so vividly, waking up by her side, her legs quick to part for me to show her how much I love her, first thing every day. Then, after a breakfast composed of local delicacies and fruits, we’d swim, lie in the sun, talk, laugh… We’d have dinner with the sunset as our only entertainment, and afterward I’d make love to her again with tenderness and passion.
And every morning, we’d start over.
These are the kinds of days I can see myself getting lost in. No Mondays, no weekends, no responsibilities… Only Andrea and me, with nothing to keep us away from one another.
Someone shouts somewhere in the room, ripping me from that fantasy vacation. Just like that, the crystal-clear waves and tropical fruits are gone, replaced by barred windows and dangerous inmates.
“My lawyers called this morning,” I explain.
“And?”
“They think we’ll have to rely heavily on character evidence.”
“What’s that?”
