Page 11 of Pen Pal

You're smart, so I know you won't pretend this is an accident. You wouldn't just stop writing unless you wanted to. Did I scare you? Did you wake up one morning and decide I wasn't worth the effort?

Or—tell me, Amara—did someone make that decision for you? Because if that's the case… if someone is standing between me and you, keeping my words from reaching you— I will find out. And I will handle it.

You once asked me what I'd do if I had the chance to rewrite my life. A clean slate. I told you men like me don't get clean slates. That regret is just an anchor we drag behind us.

But maybe I was wrong. Maybe this was supposed to be my shot. You were supposed to be my shot. And now, I don't know what's worse—losing you before I ever really had you… or the fact that I'm starting not to care who I have to hurt to get you back.

Fix this. Write me back. Or I'll find another way to reach you.

-Enzo

The deputies walked past my cell every day, never delivering mail. Even Vitali received a few letters from his lawyer, but I got nothing.

As other inmates' letters piled high and mine remained empty, rage clawed in my gut. How dare Amara make me open up only to abandon me? Was this some kind of sick, malicious game she played? Was she undercover for the prosecutor, determined to make me snap and prove that I was guilty?

I sat at my desk, furiously scribbling on the shitty lined paper every prisoner got for writing letters.

Amara,

I don't know why I'm writing this. Maybe because I'm not ready to accept the truth. Maybe because some pathetic part of me still thinks you'll write back. Maybe because I need to get these words out before they rot inside me.

It's been six weeks. Forty-four days since your last letter. Over a thousand hours since I last sawyour handwriting, since I last had proof that you still existed in my world.

I told myself to be patient. Maybe you got busy. Maybe you just didn't know what to say. But I'm done lying to myself.

You gave up on me. You told me I could be more. That I could change. But tell me, Amara, how the hell is a man supposed to change when the only person who believed in him decides he isn't worth the effort anymore?

You were the only thing keeping me human, and now I don't know what's left of me. I've seen men break in here and lose what little sanity they had left. I used to think I was stronger than that and that nothing could break me. Turns out, I was wrong. It wasn't the fights or the sentence, not even the thought of dying in this cage.

It was you. Or rather, the absence of you.

I hope you read this. I hope it makes you feel something—guilt, regret, fear, I don't care. Just something. Because you? You made me feel everything.

Now I feel nothing.

Don't bother writing back. I won'tread it.

-Enzo

I stormed over to the large mailbox where every inmate dropped their letters to be sent off to the outside world. I slammed the letter inside and stomped back to my cell, gritting my teeth in barely restrained rage.

"Get Russo," I snapped to Vitali. "I need to see why this bitch stopped writing me."

Vitali whistled. "She better be dead if she knows what's good for her," he exclaimed. He knew I was a ticking time bomb, ready to explode.

When he returned with Russo, we had a plan. Vitali jumped me, shanking me where Russo called for a lockdown. He rushed me to medical, and in a blur, I was in an ambulance, headed to the hospital.

But when we arrived, and those doors opened, I slipped from my loose cuffs, knocked everyone out, and ran.

There was no one awake who could stop me.

The night air tasted like freedom, but it felt false when I knew it wouldn't last. I knew I'd get caught and get sent back to prison eventually.

Over these last weeks, I had my men on the outside look up Amara Branson. They gave me her home address, and that's where I ran to now. I hotwired a car and drove, pulling a stolen sweatshirt over my head. Her house wasn't far from the prisonor the hospital. She was just out of my reach, but not right now.

Now she couldn't run from me.

I parked a block away, observing my surroundings. There was a small forest in front of Amara's house, and I blended in with the darkness across the street, crouching behind a tree.

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