I knew then that if I tried to go through with it, I would only make a bad situation worse.
Bray hasn’t been doing well. Every time I see her I notice that she has slipped deeper into the darkness that lives inside of her. I haven’t slept much since she’s been away, worried that every time my phone rings it will be Rian, Bray’s sister, telling me that Bray attempted suicide. Or achieved it. I like to think that she’ll never try because she’s strong and refuses to let the darkness consume her again, but a part of me believes deep down that it’s only because nothing is available to her. Because of Bray’s previous suicide attempt in South Carolina and her bipolar II disorder diagnosis, Bray was put under suicide watch. It’s hard visiting her. As I sit with her across the tiny white plastic table every week I feel like she is slipping completely away from me.
“What’s on your mind?” I asked on my last visit. I reached across the table and held her hands. I smiled, trying to comfort her.
She smiled back, but I could sense that it was forced. “Just getting out of here,” she said. Her gaze drifted.
“Did you get my letter?” I had asked.
She nodded and raised her eyes to me again. The faint smile I saw resting at the corners of them wasn’t forced this time. “Every day but Sunday.”
I often wondered how much those letters helped keep her afloat. Well, I call them letters, but technically not all of them were. I wrote notes to her on everything. Anything that happened to be available wherever I was when I thought of something I needed to say.
On the back of a takeout menu from a nearby diner:
I was thinking about that day in tenth grade, the day the storm knocked the lights out in the school. You and Lissa snuck out to smoke cigarettes in the bathroom. Your hair smelled like an ashtray for a week after that. I was just wondering, did you actually wash your hair that week? I missed the smell of that strawberry shampoo you always used. I’d stand next to you at your locker just before lunch and I’d smell your hair. Creepy, I know. Deal with it. But that was a bad week for me. I think it threw me off my game. Anyway, I love and miss you.
Elias
On the back of a grocery store receipt:
I was sitting at a stoplight (the one that never changes down the road from your parents), and I just wanted to tell you that when you get home I’m going to do naughty things to you. Maybe even at this stoplight.
Elias
On a napkin at a Denny’s restaurant:
Bray,
I got a speeding ticket today. Fifty in a thirty-five. I was late for work. I guess I should tell you, I got a new job. Roofing. Hot as a bitch in the summertime, but it pays good money. I’m going to buy you something nice with my first check. Oh, and pay the parking ticket.
Love you,
Elias
On one of those blank pages they always add to printed books—ripped it out of an old book at the dentist’s office:
I’m getting a root canal today. You know how much I love going to the dentist. Remember in fourth grade? I know you do. I cried like a girl for an hour because my mom was taking me for a checkup. I don’t think I ever thanked you for not telling Mitchell about that. Thank you. Because I’d still hear about it today if you had. Which brings me to some news. Mitchell and I are talking again. He’s clean and doing much better. He’s his old self again for the most part. He wanted me to tell you that he’s sorry for what he did, and he can’t wait to see you when you come home. I know you’re pissed at him, but I thought I’d relay the message. But don’t worry, he’s definitely not living with me. I only have room for one other person, and I’m just waiting for her to come back.
I love you.
Elias
I’d tuck each one in an envelope, slap a stamp on it, and mail it the same day. I wanted to make sure she got something every single day she was there, at least on days that the mail ran.
She writes to me, too, though not every day, and while I’m OK with that, it has started to worry me. Her letters often feel distant, emotionless. Sometimes I’ll get a letter out of the blue riddled with the Bray I fell in love with, cracking jokes and being a pervert. She’ll talk about the things she wants to do with me when she gets out, the life she wants us to have. I’ll smile as I read it, feeling like she’s starting to come around and that things are looking up for her. But as I read on, the pessimist eventually comes out of her before I get to the end of each letter. I keep telling myself, The next one won’t be like this, Elias. It won’t end like this. But so far, every one of them has.
I know she’s getting help where she is, but that hasn’t stopped me from looking for the right psychiatrist for when she gets out. I’ve scoured the Internet and the phone book searching for the one. I want Bray to have the best, and I’ll do everything in my power to make sure that she does.
Three hundred and seventy-nine days Bray has spent behind bars, and in two weeks she will be released. I’m going to visit her today, and while this is supposed to be something for both of us to look forward to, I’m nervous. I’m nervous because of the last letter I got from her just five days ago. It wasn’t anything that she said in the letter, it was what she didn’t say.
Dear Elias,
I know you’ve never missed a visiting day, but I wanted to make sure you didn’t miss the next one. It’s very important that you be here.
Love,
Bray
I get out of my car and go through the front doors of the building and check in with the officer at the counter. Like I do every week, I count the lockers in the small room adjacent to the check-in area just after I secure my wallet, cell phone, and keys inside one. I don’t know why I count them. I just do. Maybe it’s out of nervousness, like how as I’m allowed past the heavy security door I always read the signs posted on the walls about firearms and visiting hours, and reminders about how it’s against the law to bring contraband in to the prisoners. I always read the signs. Sometimes more than once. And I always stop at that word prisoners and it hurts me, like someone is reaching inside my chest and folding a fist around my heart.
The long hallway is stark white, the tile floors and the white walls blending in with one another to appear seamless in my peripheral vision. The fluorescent lights shine overhead so brightly that I can almost see my reflection in the floor. I take my time, passing a few doors that lead to other strange rooms, and I have no interest in knowing what’s behind them. A fatherless family walks by: a woman with two small children, their hands clutched in hers. I wonder if they were here visiting their father. Bray doesn’t belong here. She’s no criminal. She didn’t murder anyone in cold blood or kill someone because she was under the influence of anything that impaired her judgment. She’s not a drug dealer or a thief or an abusive spouse. She doesn’t fucking belong here. I guess prison really doesn’t discriminate.
I turn the corner at the end of the long hall and enter a room. A guard points me to a table where I sit. And wait. There’s a clock high on the wall and to my left. Plain. Black and white and boring. There are several round, plastic, white tables positioned about the room. Eight families are already inside waiting at other tables. I realize as I glance around that I’m the only one here alone. I look down at the bright white table and trace my finger along an indentation that looks like it had been carved with something sharp, maybe a paperclip. It smells like bleach and Pine-Sol in here. The back of my nostrils begin to itch, and I take a deep breath, hoping to force back the brewing sneeze.
I look up at the clock. She should be coming in here any second now. I place my hand against my chest to feel my heart beating, because it’s beating too fast. Why was it so important that I make this visit? What is she going to tell me?
Just as I feel like my mind is going to come undone with the possibilities, bright orange moves against the stark white walls, and I look up to see Bray coming toward me wearing her usual orange jumpsuit, white socks, and thick plastic sandals that squeak against the floor.
I stand up.
I smile at her as she approaches and she smiles back, but I don’t feel like it’s real, and my heart twists in knots.
“Hi baby,” I say and hug her gently. Physical contact is limited here.
Her hug is tight and doesn’t at all reflect the smile she gave me, but that only makes me feel a fraction better. Her hair is pulled into a tight ponytail at the back of her head. She’s wearing no makeup, of course, and although she looks tired, physically and mentally, she’s still the most beautiful thing I’ve ever seen.
We sit down.
“Two weeks,” I say, smiling even brighter, trying to lighten the mood. “You’ll be back with me in no time.”
“Elias?” she says and my heart stops. I don’t know why, but I have a bad feeling. I swallow a knot in my throat, but another emerges behind it.
“What’s wrong?” I ask.
She inhales a deep breath into her lungs and then reaches up and wipes underneath her left eye with the edge of her finger.
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.”