Prologue
Sam 17 months ago
Mya,
You need to promise what was in that letter was true. Move on, build a life, and have babies. I have taken a life and when the anger is gone, and I am left looking at this cell that has become my home? Well… You deserve more than a felon. That is what I am and will always be labeled as.
It is so loud here all the time. It is never quiet or peaceful, and in a rare moment; I can relax, I draw your face, and remember that once, briefly you were mine.
It ends there. It ends there because we both deserve peace. I know you won’t see my reasoning, but it is there in bright neon hidden under your pain. You deserve a man to worship you. One who will kill to see you smile. I am a fucked-up mess, so fucked up I can’t even see tomorrow.
I feel like a strand of Christmas lights that sat in the attic for years, tangled and broken, and you keep trying to fix them, get them in a straight line and see them shine again. They won’t, Pet. They will never work again because some things need to be thrown away.
You won’t throw me away, I know that… so I have got to be the one to leave. I have seventeen months left and so much can happen in that time. Let it happen to you, Mya. Live, fall in love, and dream so fucking big that you laugh at the absurdity of it, then make it come true. Make the mistakes we all do in our twenties; they will help you grow in your thirties. Go sit in the spotlight for just once with Lex and Cal. Let the world see you and all your glory. You think you live in their shadow, but Pet, you are the sun, and the shadows will never touch you. Believe me on that.
Be someone’s favorite color, just as you were mine once. Stop wondering what went wrong, because it was my world that affected yours. I left my daughter and in it I lost her. I killed the man that took her from me, and his death has left its mark on me. Simply put, some wounds will never heal.
Seventeen months is a lifetime at twenty-two… If we cross paths when I am out known that my smile will be genuine. Understand I will leave you every time. No matter what, I will always walk away from you, because you deserve it.
Know I will always regret leaving my shop that night as much as I regret allowing you to love me. There is something unique that happens when you lose someone you love as much as I did Kace. I stopped letting anything touch me and created this shield that is so effective that I no longer let myself feel anything. I am numb and it is better than the hell I live in without her.
Move on, Pet, for both of us.
All letters will be rejected from here out and the time you have wasted on me is over. I refuse to let you fall deeper in my hole. Live, Mya. Live, butterfly.
Sully
I have read this letter a million times and I am still panicking on sending it. I don’t want to force her to move on. I can’t stomach the thought of losing her. This time I force myself to seal the envelope and send it off.
One day before release
Sam
I look to the walls and see the pictures I’ve drawn, all of her and I tell myself I am content to be left with just memories. I must be, there is nothing left that can be taken if I give up on the things I love. I sit back, the letter out of my hands now as I passed it on to Vic, the mail guy, over a year ago. It has haunted me every day since. I think about Kace and all I lost in those years. There was this pastor who came here once and, in my bitterness, I decided to go to his sermon.
He was nothing like the priests on the outside. He was a former inmate and seemed to have answers I could accept. He told me how God gave me the second chances that I blew. I had Kace, she was at peace. I had Mya who loved me and friends and family. I threw it away in a fit of rage and that was why I was miserable.
I wrote that letter to Mya shortly after we spoke.
I sent letters to Noah and Carrie but that was it. Noah was the one helping with my pop. He was diagnosed with ALS a month ago and they were doing everything they could to get him the best care.
Hearing about that diagnosis just brought the anger right back to the surface. The more I learned about that sick disease the more pissed off I got. It was then I started back into my art. I didn’t like to tattoo in here unless I felt it, but it was always a risk. I finally applied to get a tech degree in welding and sure as shit started creating some mad art. I call it that because it’s a release.
I have made my choices and I will live with them. I need to balance my fate now that my release date is so close. I cannot have all the joys in life, that has been proven. I need to find a different path, not tattooing. I love it too much. I have finally learned my lesson with loving something. It will always be destroyed. I don’t know if I killed a witch or a God in my past life, but somewhere I fucked with the wrong karma and I was done playing by the rules of chance.
