Page 105 of The Inmate
Caleb is right by my side. Even though his legs are so much longer than mine and he could have been done with this 5K ten minutes ago, we ran the whole thing together. He cheered me on.
Mia would have been so proud of us.
“Great job, Dawn!” Caleb holds up his hand so I can high-five him. “You okay?”
I nod, still trying to catch my breath. “That was awesome.”
“Wasn’t it?” He grins at me. “I told you.”
My heart swells as I look up at Caleb, even though he is just as sweaty and disheveled as I feel. When Caleb held me in his arms that night at the pier, when I nearly killed myself, I realized at that moment how stupid I was to be jealous of Natalie.
He loves me. He will always love me.
I still had my reservations about saddling him with me for the rest of his life, even though he has assured me that’s what he wants. We’ve been taking some baby steps to move our relationship forward. We moved in together a couple of months ago. I had to spend several days rearranging all his furniture to my liking as well as the contents of all the cabinets in his kitchen (he had three different colors of plates, all stacked haphazardly—it was awful). But after some growing pains, it seems to be going well. Still, I’ve been hesitant to talk about the next step after that. Marriage. That’s a big one.
Although more and more, I’m beginning to actually believe it might work out.
Natalie waves to me from the registration desk. She looks beautiful as always today, in her 5K T-shirt and skin-tight running pants. I still remember the way the color drained out of her face when she found out the dead body in the woods belonged to Tara Wilkes. When she realized what I had done.
I wasn’t certain if she would keep her mouth shut. I was ready to do whatever it took to silence her, but as it turned out, she is good at keeping secrets. Which is fortunate for her, because I know a lot of secrets about her too.
For starters, Natalie went along with the story that I told to Detective Santoro, that the ceramic turtle accidentally fell on my head and I spent several days disoriented and wandered away from home. That I hadn’t the slightest idea that half the South Shore was searching for me.
And she never told the police about our link to Tara. Nobody looked into it, and I was very good at covering my tracks. Her murder is still unsolved. I was fortunate that she had grown up to be a miserable human being, who had isolated herself from most of her family and had few close friends, so nobody was pushing too hard for answers.
Then a few months ago, Natalie asked if I would be interested in helping her organize the 5K this year. Both Caleb and I quit Vixed a long time ago—it would have been far too awkward to keep working there—but the idea of helping to raise money for a charity that Mia would have really cared about was appealing to me.
With Natalie’s blessing, we made the race even more about Mia this year. I even went on podcasts and talked about her. It was cathartic. I talked about some of the struggles she went through with her mobility, and how important this money would be. Natalie said donations broke all records this year.
Right next to the registration desk, there’s a huge poster of Mia made from an old photo Caleb dug up. I miss her so much, and just looking at that poster makes me feel happier.
“Mia would be proud of you too,” Caleb says as if reading my mind. I don’t know how he does that. “For sure.”
Miawouldbe proud of me. She’d be proud that I avenged her death by killing Tara Wilkes. I let her down with Natalie though. But I didn’t have a choice—Caleb and I barely talked about Tara, but he would never have let me kill Natalie. He was somaddeninglyagainst violence. It got to the point where I was sorry I told him anything in the first place.
Caleb believes I’m a better person than I am. He can never know the truth.
I lay my head against his shoulder. “What do you think she would think about the two of us being together?”
“Her brother and her best friend? Are you kidding me? She’d be over the moon.”
He’s probably right. It’s exactly something that Mia would’ve gotten a huge kick out of. I wonder what kind of man she would have ended up with. She was so great. It would’ve had to be someone really special.
“Wherever she is right now,” Caleb says. “She’s rooting for us to end up together.”
“Do you think we will?”
Caleb gives me a funny look. I’ve gotten better at reading his facial expressions, but I can’t read this one. I don’t know what he’s thinking. Does he think we won’t end up together? Because I’ve been thinking more and more that I can’t imagine any sort of life without him. And even though he would be better off without me, I selfishly still want him.
“What?” I say.
Caleb doesn’t answer me. Instead, he drops down onto one knee. I stare at him and clasp a hand over my mouth.
“Dawn.” He fishes around in the pocket of his running shorts and comes up with a blue velvet box. He must have been holding onto that for a whole year. Waiting for the right moment. “Dawn, I love you so much.”
I can’t even speak. I don’t cry easily, but I feel tears gathering in my eyes.
A crowd is forming around us, now that people realize what’s happening. He opens up the blue velvet box. I let out a gasp at the ring inside. Instead of a diamond, he got me an emerald. It’s green. Like a turtle.
