Page 84 of The Inmate
Life in prison.
Life in prison.
Ferguson starts talking about the bail hearing on Monday, but I can barely focus on what he is saying.Life in prison.Those three words keep repeating in my head over and over. If this goes badly, I could be living in a cell until the day I die. Behind bars. That’s even worse than a cubicle.
Life in prison.
I can’t let that happen to me. Ican’t.
If it looks like I’m going down for this, if it looks like I might spend the rest of my life in prison, I’m going to end it all. I’ll drive back out to Wollaston Beach, and I’ll throw myself off the pier in the middle of the night at high tide. Nobody will be able to save me.
But I hope it doesn’t come to that. There was a girl in my high school who died by suicide, and it was so incredibly tragic—something I couldn’t stop thinking about for years to come. Except now I get it. I finally understand the hopelessness that girl must have felt when she took her own life. The feeling that it would be better to be swallowed up into the abyss than continue to live life as you know it.
I can’t let that happen to me. Ican’t.
ChapterForty-Nine
DAWN
Turtles have interesting mating habits.The male turtle often follows the female around, sniffing near their cloacal opening before starting a courtship ritual. While the male and the female are going at it, they twist their tails together as the semen passes from the male to the female. But the female doesn’t have to lay her eggs right away. She can hold on to the sperm for several years before laying her eggs, if she so desires.
Caleb always gets sleepy after we have sex. Do all human men do that? I’m not sure. Caleb is the only man I’ve ever been with. I’m sure he’s the only man I ever will be with. If not for him, I would almost certainly still be a virgin. I wouldn’t have lost it to a turtle, as Natalie helpfully pointed out.
I am watching more videos on his phone, my head propped up with the pillow, and he’s lying next to me, his arm slung across my chest. When he first came here, it seemed like it was urgent that we get out of this motel, but now he says we've already paid up for the rest of the evening, so we don't have to rush. I suppose with Natalie in jail, things are at a standstill.
“Do you want to watch it too?” I ask him, tilting the phone in his direction.
He yawns. “That’s okay. I was there, remember?”
He squeezes me with his arm, cuddling closer to me. I reconnected with Caleb about a year after Mia died. I came to see her parents, and he was there. I knew Caleb from when we were younger, but I never paid much attention to my friend’s big brother back then—although I always liked him because I knew he was protective of Mia. When I saw him all those years later, I was taken aback by how tall and cute he was. I got crushes on boys sometimes, but I had learned to ignore them. I knew by now that none of the boys would ever like me back.
Caleb is Mia’shalf-brother. His father died when he was young, and his mother remarried. That’s why they had different last names. He adored his baby sister, and he had spent the last year blaming himself for letting this happen to her. He didn’t even know about Natalie—not all of it anyway. Not until I filled him in.
He was beyond furious. When I went back to college, we vowed to keep in touch. Mostly, we talked about Natalie—I blamed Tara far less as Natalie was the clear ringleader. We discussed what Natalie had done to Mia, and how to get her to pay. We never had any concrete ideas though. Well, I suggested cornering her in a dark alley, but Caleb wouldn’t go along with that idea. He was adamant about not wanting to hurt anyone physically, and that limited our options. Mostly, it was just fantasies.
We can’t just let her get away with it,Caleb would say.It’s not right.
I can’t remember exactly when it seemed like our friendship was evolving into something different. We never had the same sort of friendship that Mia and I had—I never expected that—but I noticed he was looking at me in a different way than most people. I didn’t quite understand it.
Three years from the time of Mia’s death, Caleb and I were at a restaurant together and having quite a nice evening. For once, the silverware was clean and the glasses didn’t have any smudges on them that required them to be replaced. When the check arrived, Caleb grabbed for it.
No,I protested,it’s my turn to pay.Caleb and I always took turns covering the check when we went out. If there was a significant discrepancy between that evening’s check and the last time, I would offer him money to cover the difference.
I want to pay,he told me as he tugged the bill out of my fingers. When I started to protest, he added,I got a raise at work.
All right,I finally agreed, albeit reluctantly,but let me at least make sure it’s correct.
I looked over the numbers, and sure enough, there was a major error. They charged us for two beers, but only Caleb had ordered one.I saved you six dollars,I told him, rather proudly.What would you do without me?
You’re right,he agreed.I don’t know what I’d do without you.
And then I noticed he was looking at me with a lopsided smile on his face. I didn’t quite know what he was thinking until he blurted out,Dawn, would it be okayif I kissed you?
I was stunned. I noticed he had been treating me differently, but this was something entirely unexpected. Nobody had ever kissed me before. And yet, I was oddly touched that he asked permission, which was what inspired me to say yes.
It was my first kiss. And it was so much better than I ever imagined it would be. It was the first of many, and it wasn’t until we had kissed at least a dozen times that he stopped asking permission.
And then I somehow fell in love with him.
