Chapter 2 #2
So many nights we’d talk on the phone. For hours, she shared all her hopes and dreams with me.
How she wanted to get married young and have kids early.
She was going to build her career, work with an amazing chef, then start her own restaurant, and I was going stay home and take care of the kids.
Fuck. She can’t walk away from this opportunity.
She can’t lock herself away from love and miss out on the family she wants.
She was meant to be a mom. Unlike my mom, Wren has so much love in her heart to give and would make the best mother in the world.
Which means…there’s only one thing for me to do.
I tuck her letter away with the other sixty, and my gut twists at the thought of never receiving another.
But I have to do this. I won’t be selfish.
I’ve already let this go on for long enough.
It’s what’s helped me survive in this place, but knowing she’s giving up her dreams is pure hell. That undeniable truth will kill me.
I pull out the blank piece of paper and envelope from inside my pillow, the one I’ve been saving since her first letter arrived.
Every week, I fought myself from writing her back.
My hand shakes as I write her name. The ink is blurred through the tears burning in my eyes.
I promised I’d never lie to her. I promised I’d love her forever.
She’s going to hate me. But that’s the point.
Right? She has to hate me in order to let me go.
She has to see nothing but pain when she thinks of me.
It’s the only way. It’s the only way she’ll move on and let love in again.
It’s the only way she’ll give up this losing battle of fighting for my freedom and go chase after her dreams.
A tear slips and I wipe it away, putting the pen back on the paper and forcing my hand forward.
Wren,
I got your letter, and I think you’re making a big mistake passing up that opportunity with Chef Zen.
It’s nice of you to work on my case, but I have to say, you shouldn’t waste any more of your time.
I’ve committed enough crimes while being inside that my robbery charge is benign.
Been sent to the hole for nearly taking a man’s life, and that’s why that attorney knows it’s a losing battle.
It was while I was in the hole that I did some soul searching. Learned a lot about myself and what I want when I get out of this hell. And that brings me to the reason I haven’t been writing you.
At first, it was because I wanted you to move on with your life.
Like I told you in the courtroom, I didn’t want to hold you back.
But that’s no longer the only reason. I didn’t write because I didn’t want to face the truth and have to tell you this.
Mainly, I didn’t want you to hate me. But it’s time for me to man up and quit stringing you along.
My hand stops, not wanting to write the next part.
I’m sorry, angel. God, I’m so fucking sorry.
She’s going to be devastated when she reads this.
I can see her face. The tears running down her pretty cheeks, getting stuck in her dimples.
I can hear her wailing sobs. The soul-wrenching sound echoes in my mind.
But…they’ll eventually dry out, and slowly the pain will fade.
And one day, she’ll find her way again. She’ll move on and put me in the past. She’ll find her happiness.
If I have to get her to hate me to make her find her smile again, I’ll do it.
I’ll endure any pain no matter how excruciating, just to know my girl is happy.
The nicest way for me to say this is that I don’t think what I felt for you was love.
Not the kind of love that will lead to marriage.
I think it was infatuation and my dick’s excitement over conquering a virgin.
My secret desire to dirty up the pretty little rich girl and see if I could actually get a girl like you to fall for me.
I know that’s harsh to say, and I know as you read this you’re probably cursing my name, but I want you to know my truth.
Call it my guilty conscience, but when I read your letter, I didn’t feel right about keeping this from you any longer.
You’re truly a sweet girl and deserve to go off and find your happiness.
Besides, if you think about it, we’re young, Wren.
Hell, you’re only twenty. And I’m only twenty-four.
We have our whole damn lives ahead of us to have fun, to fuck around, explore things.
Sow our oats. One thing I’ve learned in this place is that life is too fucking short to get strapped in a commitment.
I feel that way for you too. You’re a pretty girl with a good head on your shoulders.
You should date, get some more experience under your belt, have fun.
I’m sure when you go work at the restaurant, you’ll meet all kinds of guys that will want to date you.
My body nearly convulses as the pain slices through.
I can’t imagine another man laying a finger on my girl.
I can’t fucking handle the thought of her being in someone else’s arms, laughing at their jokes, telling them her deepest secrets.
Waking up in their bed and greeting them with one of her brilliant smiles.
Or fucking worse, being pregnant with their child.
Fuck! Why the fuck did it have to go this way? What the hell did I do to deserve this?
When I get out of here, I’m going to make them all pay.
Every last fucking dirty cop, corrupt judge, and the fucking witness who lied through his fucking teeth, claiming he saw me leaving the scene of the crime.
They’re all going to feel my wrath, and then they really will have a reason to lock me up.
Talk about breeding killers. They locked away an innocent man, but when I get out, I’m seeking vengeance.
I won’t ever forget our time together. It was fun while it lasted.
Hitting it with you was fucking hot. But once I’m out, I’m going to want to see if I can find a girl who’s a little more daring in the sack.
A girl who I don’t have to hold back with.
It’s not that you were bad in bed, you were just a little too tame for a man like me. A little too sweet and innocent.
I grip my hand in a fist to keep myself from ripping the paper up and flushing it down the toilet.
My girl was incredible in bed. She may have been new to sex and a little reserved at first, but her innocence and sweetness is what I craved.
I had dated wild girls willing to try anything, girls who would let me fuck them up one side and down the other, but none of them blew my mind like Wren.
When we made love, it was like magic. I don’t need more.
I just want her. But keeping her means binding her heart to a prison sentence, and I’m not going to do that.
I truly hope you find what you’re looking for, Wren.
Even though I don’t see a future with you, and don’t love you in that way, I still love you as a friend and want you to be happy.
I’d ask you to keep me updated, but I don’t want to be a prick.
I know this letter is going to upset you, and I know I deserve your hatred, but I’d hate myself more if I strung you along and let you go on believing that you mean more to me and that there’s going to be something between us when I get out of this joint. That’s why I finally decided to write.
Well, I guess this is goodbye. Not exactly my finest moment, but a necessary one.
I hope you know you will always hold the place in my heart as the girl who showed me that I was more than the trailer trash I was raised to be.
And for that, I thank you. I hope you find your dreams, and maybe one day, I’ll be eating in your restaurant.
Your friend,
Kayden
I seal the letter in the envelope then storm from my cell, dropping it in the outgoing mailbox before I change my mind.
I rush outside to the courtyard and a roar tears from my chest. It feels like I’m dying inside.
It feels like my heart has been ripped out and is no longer beating.
I take a heaving breath of air, trying to fill my lungs but they’re closing up on me.
I’ve never experienced anything like this.
I drop to my knees as the panic grabs onto my thoughts and the pain takes me under.
“What’s wrong, pretty boy? You praying? Or do you just want to be on your hands and knees for me? Been waitin’ for my chance to tap this tight ass of yours. It was only a matter of time before I caught you.”
Snake’s voice barely registers through the shouting in my head that’s telling me I’ve just made the biggest mistake of my life.
That I should’ve handled things differently.
I look up, and all I see is evil. The evil sneer on his face.
The evil in this cruel fucking world. The evil that’s going to cloud my girl when she reads what I wrote.
All I see is the sadness that’s going to consume her.
My body rises from the ground as a coldness settles into every crevice of my being, and I teach the disgusting pervert—who earned every minute of his prison sentence—a lesson.
With every punch and kick, Snake feels the agony that’s splitting me open.
And when he crumples to the ground, his body limp, his heartbeat barely registering, lungs hardly rising, I’m reminded of the monster I am.
I’m reminded that my girl deserves more than to end up with a criminal like me. Writing her was the right thing to do.