I pause, my fingers clenching into fists, the weight of the last few months pressing against my ribs. Do I wonder where she is? Every fucking day, because I want to know so when I get out of this hell hole, I’m going to make sure she tells me everything.
“I don’t care anymore,” I whisper, even though it’s a lie and I know it. “After everything I’ve been through in here... she’s dead to me. She’s nothing.”
I say the words because I need to believe it myself.
I stare at the bunk above me. There’s a stain there, maybe blood, and I count the cracks running across the concrete. Anything to keep from seeing her in my mind again.
If she really knew me, really loved me, she wouldn’t have let this happen. Wouldn’t have left me here to rot with the guilt of a crime I never committed.
I close my eyes and let the thoughts drown me.
Until I hear it.
The clank of boots. The rattle of keys. A door opening.
I don’t move.
“Crawford,” the guard barks.
I sit up, squinting toward the light from the flashlight in his hand. “Yeah?”
“You’ve got a visitor.”
I frown. “Now? It’s the middle of the damn night.”
He doesn’t answer, just steps aside waiting for me to get up. Who the hell would be here at this time of night?
I slip off the bed slowly, muscles stiff and aching from the last beating I had a few days ago.
I follow the guard down the corridor, looking at the cells as I walk past them. The door opens and I walk in, but stop in my tracks when I see him.
Tall. Broad. Arms folded.
I freeze.
My heart hits my ribs like a fucking drum. My knees almost buckle.
“Cain.”
His name is a breath, a whisper that barely escapes me. But it’s him. The weight in the air shifts the second I step further into the room.
For the first time since I walked into this place, my chest feels lighter. My lungs expand like they remember how to breathe again.
Before I realize it, I’m walking, no… power-walking straight toward him, and the second I reach him, I throw my arms around him, gripping him hard, like he’s the only thing tethering me to the ground.
I feel his arms wrap around me, strong and solid. I feel him press his hand to the back of my head, grounding me like he always has from a far.
“Let’s go home,” Cain says.
Three words.
And everything inside me breaks.
Present time
I watch Olivia as she walks behind the bar and see the smile on her lips as another worker walks over to her. From the moment I’ve seen her back at college this is the first genuine smile on her lips. How I’ve missed that smile, she used to smile like that for me.
Why the hell does it piss me off that she’s smiling at others and not me? Even now, after everything, she still has a hold on me.
