Then suddenly, she smiles. I feel the corners of my eyes hardening in confusion and I cock my head to one side curiously. A smile of my own teases the corners of my lips.

“What is it?” I ask, suddenly beaming.

Bray shakes her head. “It’s nothing,” she says and reaches her hands across the table, enclosing them over mine. Her fingers are cold and frail. She leans over and kisses the tops of my warm, calloused ones. And while I’m worried the guard might say something to her about that, I don’t care much, either.

“Then what was with your letter?” I ask.

She slides her hands away. “I just wanted to see you,” she says.

“But you knew I’d come,” I say. “I-It just… sounded urgent. Baby, is there something you’re not telling me?”

She sighs. “Yeah, but it’s not really that big of a deal.”

“Well, what is it?”

She hesitates and says, “My release date has been moved to the ninth.”

“But why?” I ask. “I mean it’s only four days more, but—”

“It’s just some kind of technicality,” she answers.

Wanting her to stay positive, I make sure to do the same. I let my smile reappear and I say, “Well, that’s fine. I mean, sure, four days sucks, but it’s just four days. You’ll be OK, right?”

She nods. “Yes.”

Something doesn’t feel right. I feel like she’s lying to me. But why would she do that? Why would she lie about something like that?

I’m just being paranoid. That’s ridiculous. No way I’m going to accuse her of not being truthful. Not now. She doesn’t need that from me.

“Good,” I say and reach out to hold her hands like she did mine.

“So, tell me about Mitchell,” Bray says.

“Well… he’s not on meth anymore,” I say. “And he’s working at that tire and lube place over by our old school. He really does feel like shit for what he did. To both of us. Not just me.”

Bray’s smile is soft and forgiving. “Well, you tell Mitchell that it’s OK,” she says. “I’m not mad at him. He couldn’t help what he did. How’s your mom doing? And your dad?”

“They’re great,” I say, nodding. “Mom got engaged to James. I just found out last Thursday. They’re getting married in March. My dad is the same as he was before. A hardworking loner. He wanted me to tell you he wants us to visit him in Savannah when you come home. He really likes you. Always has.”

Bray’s eyes light up with her smile and then she looks down at the table.

My smile fades and I’m reluctant to ask, but I have to. “Are… your parents, or Rian, still contacting you much?”

She shakes her head. “My mom has visited several times. I think she feels guilty. My dad… well, he’s visited me, but it feels like it always has, like he’s only here out of obligation. But I forgive him. I don’t want to feel angry or hurt by anyone anymore. I just want to be free. To feel free. In my heart, y’know?” She tilts her head to one side and her eyebrows draw inward thoughtfully.

Maybe I do know what she means, but then again, I feel like there’s something much more to it than that. Something about what she said fills me with an uncomfortable feeling. I can’t place it, but it worries me.

Having nothing more to go on, I simply nod and say, “Yeah, I know. I understand that need.” And then I ask, “What about Rian?”

Bray’s smile brightens a little again.

“She’s visited several times, usually in the first half of the day.” I was glad for that, because I wanted my time with Bray to be mine and not to have to share it with someone else. Like right now, I always visit in the late afternoon hours, after I get off work. “But she’s been writing me a lot.”

“How do you feel about that?”

She shrugs. “I’m not sure. I mean, I’m glad she’s making an effort, but I just have a hard time trusting her motives.”

I completely understand that.

Bray, as usual, is distant. I want to reach across the small table and pull her into my arms. It depresses me that I can’t, that I can’t hold her, kiss her, be myself with her and make her smile. I feel completely fucking helpless.

Bray’s eyes keep straying. To the wall behind me, toward the door she was walked through minutes ago, toward the guard sitting at the long, rectangular-shaped particleboard table next to the white wall. Everything but me.

I look over my shoulder to see that the guard is reading a newspaper, so I scoot my chair over a little closer to her. Finally, her eyes fall on mine again. I smile at her, revealing my teeth. It feels kind of goofy, and apparently it is judging by that weird, amused look she’s giving me in return. Then I grin impishly and get the blushing reaction out of Bray that I was shooting for.

I enclose her left hand underneath both of mine.

“When you get out of here,” I say in a low voice, “We’re gonna have a lot of sex to make up for lost time.”

She lowers her eyes again, but this time it’s only because of the hot blush overshadowing her features. I stroke the very center of the palm of her hand softly with the tip of my pinky finger, gazing into her eyes with a mischievous quality. And then I whisper, “I’d say, at least a full week straight of nothing but sex. Everywhere. In every way. In every part of you.” I faintly lick the dryness from my lips, taking my time about letting my tongue hide away back inside my mouth, all the while still stroking the center of her palm with my finger.

Her eyes flutter.

While it was my intention only to make her feel better, give her a sense of normalcy, just talking about it, thinking about it, and touching her hand in such a suggestive way, it’s made me so hard that I have no doubt about what I’ll be doing first thing when I get home.

Bray’s blushing face turns softer and she says, “I really do miss you.”

I smile softly back at her and kiss her knuckles once before letting go of her hand. “I miss you, too. But it won’t be long and you’ll be home, where you belong, with me. There’s so much that I want to say to you and show you. I feel like even though we’ve known each other all our lives and that we’ve been through so much, once you get out of here it’ll be a new beginning. A do-over. This time we’ll get it all right.”

Bray’s face warms with a smile, softening her eyes, making her appear loving and… strangely sympathetic.

Thirty minutes is over before we know it, and she’s standing up.

“Bray, I love you,” I say, as she starts to walk away. “More than anything.”

She turns at the last second, the last one in a line of orange jumpsuits, and smiles back at me with a look of pure devotion.

“I love you too, Elias,” she says sincerely, yet the tone of her voice is lifeless.

She follows the line out the door, and I can’t help but feel that it’s the last time I’ll ever see her.

Chapter Twenty-Nine

Elias

Rian called me an hour ago and invited me over to discuss something “important.” Before I agreed, I made her promise me that nothing had happened to Bray. Like I said, it’s always my worst fear when I get a call from Bray’s sister. Since we’re not married, if something were to happen to her while in jail, they would likely call her blood relatives before they’d call me, even though Bray put me at the top of her emergency contact list.

Rian said that it was not about anything like that. Thank God.

“I want my sister to come home with me when she’s released,” Rian says as she sits across from me at the kitchen table. Her long, dark hair, much like Bray’s, is draped over both shoulders; her almond-shaped green eyes, not at all like Bray’s, are scrutinizing me. She and Bray look very much alike, but Rian has always appeared more stern and intimidating. Just like their father. I think it’s one reason I never liked her much: she is too much like Mr. Bates, whom I pretty much despise. A mug of hot coffee covers the bottom half of her face as she takes a slow sip. Then she sets the mug down in front of her, her manicured fingernails tapping the ceramic.

“Why would you want her to come here?” I ask. “She should be with me.”

“And she will be,” Rian says. “But she went through a lot with you—”

I slap the palm of my hand down on the table, and stare her down. “All the more reason for her to come home with me where she belongs.”

“No, Elias, you don’t understand.” Her head falls gently to one side and dark bangs fall around her eyes. “I want my sister to know that you’re not the only person in this world who cares about her.”

I laugh drily. “Really? And I’m assuming you’re talking about yourself and your parents?”

“Look,” she says, staring at me with an unwavering gaze, “I know you think I don’t care about her because our parents were hard on her growing up, but I love my sister. I tried to have a relationship with her, but she always pushed me away. I didn’t understand her destructive personality, so I gave her the space she seemed to want. But I always loved her.”

I sigh and shake my head. She’s fucking unbelievable.

“You let her push you away, Rian. Instead of standing by her and trying to understand her, you opted for the easy way out. And don’t even get me started on your parents.” I throw my hands up in front of me and then lean back in the chair. There are many more things I want to say to her, but I hold back.

“I agree with you about our parents,” Rian says. “Even I could see that they were just tired of dealing with Brayelle. But I’m only three years older than my sister. You treat me as if I’m just like they are, that I am just as guilty as they are—but you have to understand, I didn’t know any better for most of our lives. I mean… I knew what my sister was going through, but I didn’t know how to help her. I was young.”