Chapter Nine
T he letter came not long after Halloween, her words bubbling with a palpable excitement that nearly jumped off the page.
Gabriel,
I did it! I submitted my change of major form! I’m now a political science major! It’s not going to be easy getting into law school, but I feel so good about taking that first step.
I haven’t told my dad yet, he might be supportive, I just think it would be a good idea to wait until I can show him a few semesters of good grades to prove to him I’m serious about this.
Lilly and Bryce were decent about it, if not exactly excited. They think I should tell my dad now, but they’ve agreed not to mention it until I’ve finished a few more classes.
Thanks for encouraging me and believing in me. I don’t think I would’ve had the courage to do it without you.
It felt good, the idea that he had truly changed someone’s life for the better. There was someone out there that was glad that he had been there for them. It wasn’t pity or charity that kept her writing to him now, it was a shared connection. A hard, dark place inside opened more than he had been willing to let it open in a long time.
But now I need you to do something for me. I need you to think about trying to find a way to petition the court and challenge your conviction. I’ll help you myself if I have to but you deserve to be heard. You deserve a fair chance.
He thought about her words all night, staring at the ceiling as unfamiliar hope pushed against his carefully guarded heart. His experiences had warned him against believing in anything too much, the cost of faith was too high. It knocked the breath out of you when it crumbled from under your feet. He understood why she felt differently, why she still believed in God and good things, and he didn’t want his failures to be what robbed her of it.
Mia,
I’m so proud of you.
I don’t know if I’ve told you, but it’s my birthday coming up. I’m going to be twenty-eight and it’s been more than twelve years since they put me in here. I asked around after you told me about it, some of the guys in here spend a lot of time trying to help everyone with their cases, and they made it pretty clear that Texas doesn’t like to let go of you once they have you in a jail cell. Even if the state overturned my conviction, there’s almost a 100% chance that they would charge me with the murder all over again and make me go through a new trial. Don’t waste your time on me.
He was afraid that she’d be angry at his refusal but when the next letter came, it brought only understanding and an unexpected gift. He didn’t recognize it for what it was at first. A paper that was thicker and stiffer than what she usually wrote on fell out of the envelope to land by his feet. It was a plain white rectangle with a single line of script written neatly on the back in Mia’s handwriting.
Just to let you know I was thinking about you!
Puzzled, he turned it over in his hands to find a glossy photograph. The background was a neat and tidy kitchen with bright sunlight streaming in the windows but dominating the image was a cupcake with red frosting and a single lit candle in the hands of the most beautiful woman he had ever seen.
His breath caught in his throat, his fingers trembled, his heart began to pound as he drank in the details of her.
A slender build, brown hair that tumbled just past the shoulders of a dark blue dress, and a simple gold cross that hung from a chain around her neck. But it was her face that captivated him. A pert nose dusted with freckles. A soft mouth, pink and turned up in a wide smile. Hazel eyes with long lashes that sparkled with laughter.
The sounds of the prison faded away, a dull buzzing of insignificant noise as he stared at her. His eyes roamed the photo again and again, trying to memorize every line of her as though someone might try to snatch the picture away from him.
This was Mia.
His Mia.
He rubbed his thumb over the image, careful not to smudge it as he imagined what it would be like to have her actually smile at him with such warmth and then hung it on the wall beside his bed. He could see her now when he woke up and when he drifted off to sleep.
“What’s that?”
Gabriel sighed and flopped back down in his bunk. Alex had become increasingly annoying since Mia’s letters had started arriving and there wasn’t much he wouldn’t do for an ounce of privacy at this point. “Nothing, it’s none of your business.”
Alex ignored him, standing up to crowd Gabriel’s bunk and peer over him at the photo tacked to the wall. “Is that her?”
Gabriel shrugged. “Yeah, that’s her.”
Alex laughed, the rumble shaking his whole body so hard he had to sit back down on his own bed again.
“Something funny? There’s not a damn thing to laugh at, she’s perfect.”
“That’s what’s so funny. You were already half gone over this girl and now you find out she looks like that . You’re so fucked.”
Gabriel pressed his lips together and swallowed hard. “She’s just a friend.”
Alex nodded. “Yep, and it kills you. It would kill me too if I had a girl that looked like that on the outside and I knew I was never getting out of here.” For a moment, there was something on Alex’s face that looked like pity, but it was gone so quickly that Gabriel was sure he’d imagined it.
Gabriel didn’t answer, but he didn’t take her picture down off the wall as he settled in his bunk to read her letter.
Gabriel,
I know this is a poor excuse for a birthday gift but I couldn’t send the actual cupcake so it will have to do. I take personal exception to the prison’s rule against sending you food. First no Halloween candy, and now no birthday cupcakes? It’s cruel, evil, and inhumane. Unfortunately, due to this, I was forced to eat your cupcake for you. I’m sure you understand that I couldn’t allow it to go to waste!
He shook his head, a laugh bubbling up from deep down inside that helped push his worries out of his mind. She loved food and he would’ve given her a hundred cupcakes, a thousand, one every day of her life if it kept that smile on her face.
Is there anything I can get for you for a real present? Surely, there’s something you want?
He glanced at the picture and pushed the thought away. He couldn’t let Alex be right about this, he couldn’t think of her that way when she was...well she wasn’t thinking of him that way, that was for damn sure. She was his friend. His closest and only friend. He had nothing at all beyond that to offer her, had no right to think the kind of thoughts that were creeping at the edge of his mind.
I’m sorry I only have time for a short letter today, but I wanted to tell you that I understand how you feel. I don’t want to get your hopes up and then have the system let you down again. Even if all it got you was another chance to tell your story in front of a jury, I think you deserve a fair trial. I’m still willing to do whatever I can to help, but I won’t push you if you aren’t ready.
I’ll write more soon, and I may have some exciting stories to tell when I do because I’m going to a party with Lilly and Bryce! A real party, for the first time ever! I’ve never done anything like this before and maybe it’s ridiculous to be this excited, but I don’t care!
I promise I’ll tell you all about it in my next letter!
Mia
But the next letter didn’t come.
He didn’t get worried when the first few days passed, but by the end of the first week he’d grown concerned. By the end of the second week, he was terrified.
Alex avoided him as much as possible, giving him space to sit broodingly on his bunk and glare at the picture of her on his wall.
The letters he sent her weren’t being returned to him, so she must have kept them, but he couldn’t figure out why she wasn’t answering them. His biggest fear, though he knew he had no right to it, was that she had abandoned him, moved on at the request of her friends or her father or some boyfriend she hadn’t told him about.
He’d sagged in relief when a letter finally came, and he tore it open, eyes scanning hungrily … his joy turning to despair when he recognized the tears stains that marked the words.
What could he have done to cause her such pain?
His stomach twisted, and he swallowed down the bile that crawled up his throat as he forced himself to read, to try and make sense of what she was saying.
Gabriel,
I’m sorry, so sorry, that I haven’t written. I read your letters, and I know you’ve been worried about me, but I didn’t know how to explain.
Something happened, something bad, at the party that night.
People were drinking when we got there and Lilly wanted to go home but I wanted to stay, just for a little while, because I’d never been to a party before. I should have listened but we weren’t drinking, I never drink, and I thought everything would be fine, you know?
He squinted trying to make out the next few lines, tears had fallen heavily there, and it was hard to read what she had written.
I lost Lilly and Bryce in the crowd and there were some guys I had never met before. I was trying to get through, to find my friends, but they wouldn’t let me. They said, well it doesn’t matter exactly what they said …
He knew exactly the kind of bullshit they’d said and if he wasn’t already in prison, he would have landed himself in one for using his fists to teach every single one of them how to watch their fucking mouths around her.
… but it was awful. They were pulling on my clothes and laughing. I told them to stop, but they didn’t listen, and I just wanted to leave. I wanted to find Lilly and Bryce and go home, but they wouldn’t let me. They were blocking my way out of the room, and I was so scared of what they might do to me.
They needed more than their mouths fixed and his blood bubbled with rage. He looked around, momentarily blind to his surroundings, chest heaving with fury and the need to do something. It took a moment for him to realize how trapped he was, how helpless. He was no good to her in here, couldn’t even protect her when shit like this happened.
He pushed a hand into his hair, chest rumbling with impotent anger as he read the rest, his fury rising with each word.
I hit one of them, it probably didn’t even hurt him, but they weren’t expecting it and I ran out of the room while they were distracted.
I couldn’t talk to my friends about it because I was embarrassed and they’d know it was my fault for not wanting to leave, and I didn’t want to tell my dad because he’d probably never let me leave the house again. I tried but I couldn’t keep it bottled up inside and I ended up telling James.
I know I haven’t told you about James and I’m sorry about that, but I’ve been on a few dates with him. He’s our youth pastor and I’m the pastor’s daughter and it all seemed so perfect on the surface. Everyone thought we’d be the perfect couple and I wanted to think that, too.
He asked me what I wore to the party and then said that maybe it had been a bad idea for me to go wearing that dress and maybe I should have worn a sweater over it or picked a longer skirt. He said that maybe I needed to try harder not to cause someone else to stumble. He agreed not to tell my dad because he didn’t want anyone to know and be ashamed of what I’d caused.
He wants to be a pastor someday like my dad and I don’t know how I can help him run a church if I’m leading others into sin and it causes them to do such horrible things. I mean, he might not have wanted to marry me anyway because of law school, but I hadn’t even had a chance to talk to him about that.
I’m so mad at everyone right now, but especially myself and at first, I thought that I should never talk to anyone else about it because I couldn’t handle anyone else looking at me the way that James did. It was so lonely, and I was having such frightening nightmares, but then I realized that of all the people in my life, you were the one person that I could say anything to, and you’d never judge me.
I don’t know what I need you to do, but please don’t let me be alone in this. Please tell me it’s going to be okay.
Mia
Gabriel buried his face in his hands, rage coiled uselessly in every muscle of his body. He wanted to hurt someone, to rip and tear at them and make them bleed for what they’d done to her. She’d been so innocent, so full of light, and now the world had put its disgusting fingerprints on her, and she blamed herself.
Alex walked into the cell, his brows lifting as he saw the paper in Gabriel’s hands. “You finally get a letter? I thought for sure she’d finally gotten smart …” He trailed off at the snarl of rage on Gabriel’s face. “What the hell? What happened? Did she get married and break up with you?”
Gabriel’s teeth were clenched, his fist tightening over and over again reflexively.
“That son of a bitch made her feel like it was her fault.”