Chapter 06
“Happy late Valentine’s Day,” Andrea says with a smile that doesn’t reach her eyes. She slides a Snickers bar toward me that was on the table when I arrived. “I brought a box of actual chocolates, but they wouldn’t let me take them in, so I got this from the vending machine.”
“Thank you,” I say, slipping the candy bar into my pocket.
“How have you been since last week?” she asks. I call her nearly every day, so she probably knows the answer to this. But it’s a way to break the thin wall of ice that seems to grow between every visit.
It’s been a month since my arrival here, and while I’ve gotten accustomed to the workings of the facility, I’m still not at ease around the other inmates.
It’s better that way. I need to remain vigilant at all times, just in case.
“The same. The days all resemble each other. It’s hard to keep track,” I answer.
“Are you done reading the US Code?”
“Yes. I went through all the volumes that concern me again. I didn’t find much, but I still passed it along to my lawyers in case anything could help.”
“And?”
“There was nothing of value, nothing they didn’t already have.
” Her shoulders fall with defeat, a slight sigh brushing past her lips.
“How was the drive?” I ask. It’s the first time Kevin couldn’t come with her as he’s off to California for the weekend to introduce Maddison to Shelly’s extended family.
“Good, thanks.”
“Did you take my car?”
She winces and averts her eyes. “Andrea,” I mutter.
“Sorry, I forgot you wanted me to take it. Mine works just fine, I promise.”
“Andrea, don’t make it a thing,” I protest, poorly hiding my irritation.
She recoils at my temper, so I force myself to calm down and explain.
“I’m sorry. It’s just that … I can’t do anything else or be there for you.
Please take the Mercedes, even if it’s only for my sake.
I’ll worry every time you’re coming to visit me otherwise. ”
My voice cracks. Just a little, but enough for her to notice. Whatever protest she might have had, she keeps it to herself. “Okay, I’ll … I’ll take it next time, I promise.”
“Thank you.” There’s a pause as she looks around, anxiously picking at her nails. “Are you alright?” I ask softly.
“Why is everyone asking me that all the time?” she grumbles.
“Because you don’t look alright, Andrea. You look exhausted, and you’ve lost weight.”
“Is it that noticeable?”
“Yes.”
She sighs and closes her eyes, as if it’ll make what she has to say easier.
“I’m worried about you. My evenings are spent trying to find something, anything, that could help you get out of here, and when I finally go to bed, it takes hours to fall asleep.
I’ve lost my appetite, and I regularly feel nauseous from all the emotional distress.
I nearly puked my lunch when I got here earlier. ”
Even with her eyes closed like this, tears wet her lashes. So she closes them harder to contain them.
“I miss you all the time, Lex. The only moments I don’t are when I’m dreaming of you.
Everything is like it used to be—you’re there, and we’re happy, and it’s all perfect.
But then I wake up. I always wake up. And I start crying.
The first thing I do every morning is cry.
But then I force myself to stop, get out of bed, get ready for the day, and go to work. ”
She sniffs, her face distorted with sorrow. “And it’s so hard, Lex. It’s so damn hard. All I want to do is stay in bed and sleep all day, so I can dream of you and forget everything that’s happening. But I can’t do that.”
I don’t hold back from reaching out any longer. I grab her hand in mine, squeezing until she opens her teary eyes to look at me.
“I’ll never be able to live with myself if you’re found guilty,” she sobs. “I did this to you. It’s all my fault, Lex.”
“You didn’t,” I counter, wishing I could hold her in my arms until she stops shaking.
“I’m so sorry for doing this to you. Please, forgive me,” she begs.
I stand from the bolted-down stool and grab her face in my hands, wiping away her tears with my thumbs. “You didn’t do this,” I say in a low voice. “I did it to myself. I made the mistakes, not you, Andrea. Please, stop crying. You’re breaking my heart.”
“No touching!” a guard orders from the other side of the room.
Reluctantly, I let go of her and sit down. It takes about a minute for Andrea to regulate her emotions, and once she’s able to talk again, she lets out a cynical chuckle. “I bet you wish you’d never met me.”
“Nothing could ever make me wish that.”
“But you wouldn’t be here.”
“We can’t know that for sure, and it doesn’t change a thing. Hiring you will forever be the best decision I’ve ever made.”
“It’s not like you had a choice. I was the best candidate by far,” she reminds me, wiping her cheeks with the back of her hand. When she returns it to the table, I grab it and bring it to my lips for a quick kiss. The salty taste of her tears lingers when I let her go.
“I also dream of you, you know,” I confess, hoping she’ll feel less alone in her solitude.
“Really?”
“Yes. I dreamt of Seoul last night. We were back at the night market, strolling around like we had all the time in the world.”
“My dreams are rarely that innocent,” she confesses, her cheeks turning pink.
“You’re rarely fully dressed in mine, too.”
Just like that, the immense sadness she was prone to minutes ago fades away. “I feel like we’ll deserve a vacation when you get out,” she decides. “Where are you taking me?”
“I’m the one who has to pick?”
“Duh, you’re the one paying for it.”
“Hot or cold?”
“Hot. I’m so done with winter.”
“Alright … Maybe a bungalow on a beach, somewhere? Mexico, Thailand, French Polynesia …”
“Hm, I like that a lot, Coleman. Maybe a private island, so I can be topless and have no tan lines.”
“Now, I like that a lot, Walker.”
Although I’ve never been one to take vacations or travel abroad, it’s suddenly all I want. To be alone with my freckled dork, with only the sun and the fishes to witness our days. The salt on her skin wouldn’t be from her tears but from the clear blue sea, and only sand would adorn her golden skin.
I can see it so vividly, waking up by her side, her legs quick to part for me to show her how much I love her, first thing every day.
Then, after a breakfast composed of local delicacies and fruits, we’d swim, lie in the sun, talk, laugh …
We’d have dinner with the sunset as our only entertainment, and afterward I’d make love to her again with tenderness and passion.
And every morning, we’d start over.
These are the kinds of days I can see myself getting lost in. No Mondays, no weekends, no responsibilities … Only Andrea and me, with nothing to keep us away from one another.
Someone shouts somewhere in the room, ripping me from that fantasy vacation. Just like that, the crystal-clear waves and tropical fruits are gone, replaced by barred windows and dangerous inmates.
“My lawyers called this morning,” I explain.
“And?”
“They think we’ll have to rely heavily on character evidence.”
“What’s that?”
“People attest on the stand that I’m an honorable and upstanding man, so I can’t possibly be Nammota.”
“That’s a good thing, right?” she asks, hopeful.
“Not entirely. If we go this route, then the prosecution can call their own character witnesses to the stand. I’ve made more enemies than friends in my life, so it might benefit them more than me.”
“Well, you have me, Kevin, Shelly, the guys at Kelex, your family …”
“My sisters might take the stand unless my father puts pressure on them not to.”
“He’d do that?”
“Of course. He and Miriam have decided to keep their distance and treat me like the black sheep of the family—which isn’t completely wrong.”
“They’re such assholes,” Andrea protests, appalled.
“It won’t look good to a jury that my own parents won’t take the stand for me.”
“We can still make it work. I’ll testify the shit out of your character, baby.”
“That’s another reason I’m reluctant to go this route,” I explain, lowering my voice. “I can’t have you and the people I care about put on the stand to lie for me. Perjury is a serious offense, and I won’t see you or Kev hurt by this.”
“So what? We don’t lie?”
“I’ll make sure my lawyers don’t put you on the stand, so you won’t even have the temptation to do it.”
“But the prosecution will, Lex. They’ll have me on the stand like last time. And I don’t care what you think or what you want, I will lie.”
“Andrea, you need to be reasonable about this. Even if you lie, I might not make it out of here. But if you’re caught doing it, you risk prison time. Obstruction of justice, accessory to a crime, you pick one. They can get you in serious trouble.”
“If the situations were reversed, wouldn’t you lie for me?” she asks, irked.
“What I would do doesn’t matter. I’m asking you not to.”
“Then we have a problem, Lex. Because lying is probably the least problematic thing I’m willing to do to get you out of here. The prosecution will have me as a witness, and I will lie to save you.”
Irritated by her stubbornness, I blow air out of my nose and lean back on the stool. I look away, trying to calm down, and my hands come together on their own to crack knuckles. Andrea stays quiet as well, seemingly as annoyed as I am by this turn of events.
Suddenly, she lets out a small gasp, like she’s had an idea, and leans forward, drawing my eyes back to her. A smile is on her lips, and her eyes twinkle with excitement, pleased with her epiphany.
“Let’s get married,” she blurts out.
I can probably count on one hand the times my brain has entirely stopped working. And all of them were because of this unpredictable woman. This one, though … It’s a whole other kind of dysfunction.
I don’t even have time to fully grasp the implications before my brain commands my mouth to say, “No.”