Hard Time (10 page)

It was the second Friday in November when everything changed. When the ground opened up, swallowed me whole, shot me out the other side to stare at the universe upside-down.

Darling,
I read that night.

I got some news and I don’t know how it’ll make you feel.

I’ve been granted parole.

My heart stopped.

Just stopped, suspended like my breath before a plunge into icy water. My fingers shook, my hands, my arms.

I should have told you about it as soon as I knew. My hearing was in early September and I got the official news three weeks ago. I never expected this to happen. My lawyer told me straight up, I fucked my chances ages ago, the way I told everybody I had no remorse about what I did. How I’d do it again exactly the same way. I didn’t tell you about the hearing because I didn’t like either way you might react. I figured either you’d get your hopes up and I’d probably be denied my first chance at parole, or you’d be scared about me maybe getting released. Then once I knew I was just plain afraid to tell you. I was afraid you’d stop writing to me. I’m still scared of that. I hate writing this. I hate imagining you being afraid, knowing I’m getting out. Maybe I’m wasting my time. Maybe you’re as happy about it as me. But I really have no idea, and I know what this place does to a man’s head, and that it’s foolish to get your hopes up about how things will go.

At any rate I’m being released the Tuesday after next at eight in the morning, if everything goes the way it’s supposed to.

“Oh God. Oh God.” My body was confused, feeling too many things, too intensely. The Tuesday after next. Eleven days. Eleven days.

It’s funny how we never talk about why I’m in here, even after I told you. I guessed you must be okay with it. Or okay enough for us to keep talking the way we do. I’ve only lied to you once ever, that time I got you to write that first letter for me. I want to make sure I stay honest about everything. I know that’s important to you.

I hope you don’t feel like I lied to you these last three weeks, about my getting out. I wasn’t trying to be dishonest but it was cowardly, not telling you until now. I’ve enjoyed what we have so much. I was selfish and didn’t want it to end.

But more than that, I want you to know I won’t come after you once I’m out. I’m not stupid and I know this is going to change everything. Most women who write to cons find them through a program for that. On purpose. I know you didn’t get into this on purpose. And I don’t want you to worry about what expectations I might have about you and me. It wasn’t like we were lying to each other, with the things we said. More like we were telling each other bedtime stories. I’m not dumb and I didn’t think you were making me any promises in those letters.

I think I’ve got a job lined up for when I get out, doing landscaping eventually but at first mostly snow removal and that sort of thing for the city, through the winter. I’m happy about that, since it means I’ll be outside a lot. I’ll be living in Darren.

“Shi-i-i-t.”

I know you live there too and if you see me around, it’s not on purpose. My work release supervisor hooked me up with the job, and it’s better than anything I might find on my own, especially back home. If we leave things up in the air by the time I get out, I promise I won’t talk to you unless you talk to me first, if I see you around. I promise I won’t come to the library and look for you. If we run into each other and you want to say hello, or you want to have a drink, or to do anything at all, all you’ve got to do is ask. But if all this has just been for your imagination, I understand. The last thing I want to do is make you scared of me.

I’ve got no idea what you’re thinking about all this, so I won’t write you a letter for next week. But I’ll make this as easy for you as I can.

If you already know you don’t want to see me once I’m out, wear black. I won’t be mad, I swear. I know we never expected this to get as deep as it has.

Or if you do want that and you want me to look for you around town, wear green.

If you don’t know what you want yet, don’t wear either of those colors. I’ll keep away until I get some sign from you that you made a decision. If I don’t hear anything by January first, I’ll do my best to forget about you. Or at least forget about ever getting to be with you. I’ll probably never forget how you made me feel these last few months. It really was like having a window suddenly open after years without any sunshine or fresh air.

Anyhow. See you Friday. For the last time inside here, and maybe the last time forever. If you know for sure you don’t ever want to see me, PLEASE wear black. I’d rather get disappointed up front than live in false hope, if your mind is already made up. You seem like the sort of girl who’d hate to hurt a man’s feelings. You can hurt mine though. It’s okay. I’ve been through a lot and I survived all of it so far.

Respectfully,

Eric

I read the pages a second time, then set them down. A car honked outside and I jumped.

I rubbed my face, hard. “Oh fuck.”

Was it oh fuck? Was that how I was supposed to feel?

Who cared what I was
supposed
to feel—how did I actually feel? I tried to listen to my body, but the adrenaline was deafening, hurricane-force winds.

I felt scared, for sure. Scared of Eric? Maybe. Or scared because in the span of one letter, my shapeless, pleasurable illusion had solidified and shattered, and all I held now were shards. Scared because my two choices were both perfectly terrifying.

Wear green, throw myself into his arms. Then find out we really didn’t share anything outside these letters. Or find out he was dangerous to more than just that one man he’d assaulted. Maybe not immediately. Maybe slowly, the way Justin had revealed himself.

I finally did what I should’ve done back when he’d sent me that first letter. I looked up his crime.

Aggravated assault with a deadly weapon, with intent to maim. Sentenced 5–8 years in Cousins Correctional Facility and fined $5,000.

Fucking. Fuck.

Five to eight years? Clearly, Jake had been talking in generalities when he’d told me ten. But the details couldn’t help me now. I’d needed them months ago—needed them, but feared them. Put the pleasure of this crazy fantasy above my own goddamn safety.

Wear black, and stay away. Then find out he wouldn’t do as he promised and leave me alone. Or find out he would, and then what we’d had would just be . . . over.

Just gone, like we’d shot it between the eyes? The most vibrant thing I’d known in the past five years, dead, cold, the fire doused even quicker than it had crackled to life.

Three choices,
I reminded myself. Don’t wear green or black, but instead resign myself to the uncertainty. That didn’t feel much different than the black option, aside from offering the both of us the cruel gift of hope.

I needed answers. And that meant asking questions, ones I’d been determined never to pose to this man.

* * *

The next Friday I wore not a stitch of black or green, and I doubt I’d ever been this nervous, walking through the dayroom behind Shonda. Not even on my first shift. I didn’t seek his eyes, but I sensed him all the same. I’d never felt so awful in my entire life, striding past that man, ignoring him, too scared to see his face, knowing he must have been dying all week, praying to see me in his beloved green. Somewhere in my periphery, a man was aching. A man I’d loved. A man I’d never really known. A man who owed me answers.

I didn’t look for him in the yard during my lunch break, didn’t spot him during Book Discussion. That should’ve been a relief, shouldn’t it? But I didn’t breathe easier, realizing he wasn’t in the room. His attention had become some strange, dark, private treat to brighten the toughest day of my week, and I’d come to crave it. His absence left a pit in my chest, deep enough to feel even behind my nerves.

I watched the clock all through the afternoon Resources block, foot tapping, heart lodged in my throat. If he didn’t show, I really was fucked. I’d have no clue what to expect after he got out. I’d have no idea how he felt about my no-black–no-green ambivalence—whether he was sad or angry or perfectly accepting.

Bad and violent.
That’s what his crime had been, in his own words. Were bad, violent crimes only done by bad, violent men? Could a man who was fundamentally bad make a woman feel the way Eric Collier had made me feel, all these weeks?

Of course they can.
Justin had. Millions of bad men made millions of lonely women feel good. Like a drug, pleasurable and reckless, so hard to quit after you start living for the fix. I rubbed my temples, smoothed my ponytail again and again, bit my lip and blew out long, nervous jets of sour breath. I probably looked like a frigging junkie.

To my mingled horror and relief, he came to me during Resources. Earlier than usual, like he’d known I’d need to talk.

I extracted myself from the inmate I was helping, and though it was rude, I went over to where Eric had sat, passing men who’d been waiting for my attention.

I plopped right down across from him, and I didn’t waste a second.

“Congratulations,” I said tightly, hands clasped before me.

Though he smiled, he held back some. He could tell from my tone that I wasn’t on the verge of planning our first extramural rendezvous. “Thanks.”

“That’s wonderful news, about your release and your job,” I said, then dropped my volume to demand, “What
exactly
did you get incarcerated for?” I knew now, but I wanted to hear how he’d frame it.

“Aggravated assault with a deadly weapon. With the intent to maim.”

Exactly as the Internet had told me, word for word. Was it better or worse that he wasn’t trying to soften it?

“Oh God,” I breathed, squeezing my eyes shut. Then I caught myself, knowing I had to act calm before the inmates or officers got too curious about our conversation. I pulled a random stack of papers out of my tote and set them between us, a prop.

“That’s what the judge decided it was, anyhow.” He huffed a tight sigh, attention dropping my hands for a moment, then back to my face. “You want to hear about it?”

“No, but I think I have to. Tell me.”

“I beat a man half to death with a tire iron.”

Oh God.
Oh God oh God oh God.
This was so much worse than a bar fight taken too far. So visceral. So
brutal.

After ten seconds’ mute stupor, I managed to ask,
“Who?”

“This guy I knew from back home.”

“And was that your intent?”
Intent!
And he’d told me it was impulsive. “To . . . to maim him?”

“I didn’t intend anything. I just knew he had to be hurt . . . But I probably would have killed him if I hadn’t gotten stopped.”

I mouthed, “Oh fuck.” I looked down at my hands, finding them worrying the stack of papers, folding them over and over along a softening seam. I let them go and met his eyes. “Do you regret it?”

“I don’t, no.”

“Even though you’ve forfeited five years of your life?”

“It wasn’t a choice, how it went down.”

“Were you . . .”

“On drugs or something? Nope. Clear as a bell.”

“And would you handle it differently, if you had it to do over?”

Again, he shook his head, then spoke the words I dreaded. Words I’d read in his handwriting, but they hurt so much worse out loud. “I wouldn’t change a thing.”

Fucking hell.
I couldn’t care for this man. Not a man who’d taken a
tire iron
to another human being, no matter what that person had done to him. I hated Justin, for what he’d done with his bare hand. I ought to
loathe
Eric Collier. I ought to. But I couldn’t, not until I had the answer to the most important question of all.

“Why?”

“I can’t tell you.”

“Why on earth not?”

“Because the why of it is wrapped up in somebody else’s business. Business it’s not my place to share.”

“If you don’t tell me . . . I can’t process this, if you can’t tell me why.”

“Sorry. He hurt somebody, so I hurt him back. That’s all I can say.”

“Then . . . Then I don’t think I can see you,” I murmured. “When you’re out.”

He nodded once, but unmistakable disappointment passed over his face, dark as a shadow. “I thought that might be the case. That’s your choice.”

What the fuck was I supposed to say to him now? This wasn’t how breakups worked, in a sane world. “What we had . . .”

He sighed, leaning back. “Yeah. Yeah. It was real nice for me, too.”

I was about to go on, but he pushed out his chair, stood. Quick motions, but not aggressive. Efficient. And I realized from the way his face and neck had gone pink . . . He might cry. He was leaving so he wouldn’t cry in front of me. My heart twisted, as real as if two hands were wringing it, strangling it. So badly I was staggered to imagine how the thing he’d done to that man must’ve hurt so much worse. It barely seemed possible.

He pushed in the chair, not looking at me. “Thanks for all your help, Ms. Goodhouse.”

The name landed hard, all knuckles. “It was . . . It was my pleasure.”
Don’t go. Don’t go.
But he’d already pulled away, out of that conspiratorial bubble we’d inhabited so many times, here in this room. “Good luck,” I offered. “With everything.”

A half-assed wave as he turned and headed for the door, a limp and dismissive thing.

My chest ached so bad, I pressed a palm to the spot.

I just broke a man’s heart.

I broke his heart, but he beat another human being near to death. And he’d do it again.
He’d told me so. Without an ounce of regret.

An impatient inmate plopped himself down in Eric’s seat, and I went through the motions of my job. But in my head all I heard were his words, ones I’d read enough times to engrave across my memory.

I’m not the nicest guy but I’d try real hard to be whatever you wanted.

That’s how I think of you now. Like my lover.