I would never tell her, but her visits kept me breathing, yet they also stole my courage to keep going. She was so vibrant—so passionate in her fight to free me. So full of trust when before she’d been so riddled with doubt.
Two weeks ago, she broke the rules and hugged me in the common hall just because she couldn’t be close and not touch. She risked a visitation ban when she kissed me last week to catcalls of other inmates. Promising me that we would find a way to get me free while being so goddamn sexy, I struggled not to come just from inhaling her perfume.
She gave me life, and she took my life. I hated that she was out there, working so fucking hard on my behalf when all I could do was sit on my ass and count the seconds as they evolved into minutes.
She didn’t notice my slowly dwindling enthusiasm or my wavering belief that I’d be acquitted soon.
I smiled, I teased, I lusted.
But behind that, I slowly became lost. I reverted to the homeless kid who had nothing but a pillow and a blanket surrounded by thieves. I struggled to maintain my humanity when all I wanted to do was kill the motherfucker who put me here.
Arnold Twig shared my mind almost as much as Elle did.
My hate festered, making me snap at those I cared about when really I should grovel on my knees for all they’d done.
Larry kept pushing for a trial date and kept being told everything was going as fast as it could. No matter who he called or threatened, nothing progressed.
And through it all, I slowly shut down. I packed away my need for Elle, my love for Stewie, my friendship with Gio, and my gratitude to Larry. Piece by piece, I systematically placed each person I cared about into boxes and sealed them tight.
I placed them in the basement below my heart and locked the door.
Because part of me believed the worst.
I was in here now.
And no matter what we tried, I wasn’t getting out.
Chapter Twenty-Nine
Elle
“SOMETHING’S WRONG, LARRY. I can feel it.”
I pressed my cell-phone hard against my ear as I paced my office. Sage trotted after me with every beeline from my desk to the door. The same door where Penn made me drop to my knees for him. Where he made me come just by pressing against me. Where he’d come the first time and showed me there wouldn’t be any bullshit between us when it came to how much we wanted each other.
Those first weeks of our relationship seemed shallow now—all based on sex and no emotion. I’d allowed him to entrap me in orgasms and pleasure, keeping his truth hidden because I didn’t have the courage to poke behind his lies.
But that was all over now.
Now, I only needed to look at Penn to know how he was feeling. His dark coffee eyes were so expressive; I doubted how I ever listened to his fibs in the first place. The way he held his stress like a boulder across his shoulders, how his jaw never fully relaxed, how his nostrils flared when he answered questions he didn’t like, how his voice pitched into gravel whenever he told me how much he missed me.
His face was an encyclopedia into his heart. It had dictionary references and thesaurus connotations, revealing what an arched eyebrow meant compared to a tongue flicking over his bottom lip.
He’d never come out and said it, but I knew he loved me. I knew it in the way he whispered his thumb over my pinky when the guards weren’t looking. I trusted it in the way he looked into my eyes, so deep, so pure. Whatever words he’d spoken were irrelevant because ultimately, all he’d been saying was I love you.
His face could even swear eloquently. A tip of his chin or scowl of his forehead was the perfect fuck you to the guards who broke us apart.
All this I knew now.
There was nothing shallow about falling head over heels for a man incarcerated where privacy was a none-given luxury, and physical intimacy was denied at all times.
Penn loved me. I loved him.
And that was why I knew something was terribly, terribly wrong.
Larry yawned, causing me to look at my watch. “What’s up, Elle? What’s wrong?”
It was almost midnight, and I still hadn’t left the office. I couldn’t. I was too wired, researching bits and pieces Larry had tasked me with, putting together a well-thought-out and correctly edited document to read in court if and when Penn was given a date.
I quit my pacing, forcing my heart rate to return to sane rather than crazy. “Penn isn’t doing so well.”
That was an understatement.
How could I expect him to be happy and thrive in a place where violence and misdemeanors were the only forms of conversation and habit?
He pretended otherwise, but each time I saw him, he seemed a little more...empty. As if he’d stuffed every feeling he’d had, every love and goodness, and buried it so deep, he was vacant inside.
“You noticed too, huh?” Larry cleared his throat, giving me his full attention. “He’s losing hope.”
“But he can’t lose hope. He has to stay strong.” Tears sprang to my eyes. My emotions these days were haywire—completely uncontrollable. Most likely from lack of sleep, too many things to juggle, the stress of Dad’s frustration and Penn’s distancing, and my own belief that I should be able to fix this and couldn’t.
I’d tried calling the penitentiary where Greg was being held to ask again if he would revoke his statement—but he refused to take my calls. I requested visitation—he denied my name on his list of approved visitors. He blocked me from finding any relief or answers to ‘will he or won’t he’ try to bury Penn alive?