“Yes,” I confessed. “I can’t...” I wasn’t able to say it aloud. I couldn’t bear to think of the alternative. That he had, in fact, eaten her after I left. “That’s not my Gatsby.”
“Have you spoken to him since? If it were me, I would have had to know what exactly happened that night.”
“No, he told me not to contact him. He was so sure he’d get off. That they’d see it wasn’t him.”
“But they didn’t. They found him guilty. They put him on death row.”
My lower lip began to tremble again. “That they did. How did you know?”
I licked my lips as the man led me down the ramp, backonto the stage. He lifted me up and I crawled to my feet. He let me go, and a moment later, soft music began to play.
“How did you know I love this music?” I asked.
“I have my ways. You ask a lot of questions, Daisy.” He returned to me and took my hands. Slowly, we began to dance in slow circles.
“And you give no answers.”
“Alright, ask something. I’ll give you one for one.”
“How do you know about Gatsby?” I asked again.
He took a moment before replying. “We were cellmates.”
Flashes of his tattoos and the muscles went through my mind. Of course.
“Did he give you all those tattoos?”
“Most of them. And he gave you this one?” He trailed a single finger along the inside of my arm, tracing the words. I shivered all the way from my arm down to my center.
“He did. It was his first ever tattoo.” I smiled softly at the memory of that day. Me on the bed, him leaning over me, his green eyes set in concentration.
“His talents have only grown since then. You’d be proud of him.”
“I already was.”
We danced silently. I moved closer to him. He was strong, confident in his movements. I inhaled his scent. It was all man, and soon, my mind began to create a face from nothing. He was handsome, I presumed, with a chiseled jaw and nose. He was blonde, and his eyes so green...
In my head, I was reunited with Gatsby. I rested my head on his chest and truly relaxed for the first time in ages. This was the life I’d always wanted. He spun me around, and I sighed.
“Does he still think of me?” I whispered.
“Every day,” he replied, just as soft.
“I don’t know why he did it. Took the blame for it all. I begged him to go with me. No one would have known. But he was insistent.”
“He had his reasons. Reasons even he wasn’t sure would pay off.”
“So he sent you in his place?” My words were desperate. I was riding a line I wasn’t sure how to even articulate. I knew it was impossible for him to be the man I really wanted. But he also wasn’t the man I was currently engaged to. Who exactly was I betraying by staying here in this man’s arms?
“You seem lost in thought.” He interrupted my musings.
“Yes. I was thinking of the man I agreed to marry.”
“He’s irrelevant,” the man growled. “When you’re here, he doesn’t exist.”
I snuggled deeper into his chest.
“What about you? Do I get to know about you? Why are you here?”
