Page 14 of These Tears

With my heart threatening to break out of my chest, I dart back into the kitchen, scrambling as I search for the scrap of paper I’d meant to burn, not send!

Anna peeks around the archway from the sitting room, chestnut hair fanning over the white wood, a cup of tea in one hand, her brows faintly furrowed. One – somewhat darker – arches higher. She got them tinted this morning as a little well-earned self-love.

They look… aggressive, but to each their own.

Then I realise – so does the smirk. It’s got a tremor under it.

Too… guilty almost.

‘What are you looking for?’ she asks, somehow far too pleased with herself.

I do a double take at that grin, my eyes narrowing.

‘There was a letter…’ I mutter, glaring at the table. ‘Next to the candles.’

I tap my index finger against the desk nervously.

‘The one with the poem?’ she asks.

Life drains out of me.

Her smile stretches wider. Entirely unapologetic.

‘I sent it with the divorce papers,’ she says, too casually for the emotional arson she’s just committed.

My lungs forget how to work; my ticker flatlines.

‘So,’ she adds, sweet as poison, ‘are you going to tell me who E. Crane is, and why you’re writing poems to him?’

And now? I’m hyperventilating.

I’ve spent two days tearing my hair out over how not to scare him off – weighing every word like it might shatter this contact – when in reality, the arrow had already been loosed, flying through the dark without my permission.

It hits me a second too late – he didn’t reject it.

It settles somewhere between panic and thrill.

Jerking upright, I immediately bolt into the basement to grab my phone.

Because it looks like I need to get hold of Rebecca and ask what forms Elias and I would need to complete.

My insides sink even as my pulse kicks into overdrive.

Nothing says stable decision-making like requesting a photo shoot.

In prison.

Because a man wrote one word on a card.

I’ll just… bring my own straitjacket while I’m at it.

3

Mary Shelley’s Frankenstein skids across the steel table. My palm slaps down on it before it can topple off.

His eyes lift to mine, dry amusement twinkling at the corners.

He’s forty-one. I don’t know what he looked like going in, but prison has not softened him. If anything, it makes him more contained. Watchful.