by Ava Castle
“Fine. Becca. You look surprised.”
“I’m sure I do. That’s because I am.”
“And why is that?”
“It’s been a long time since anyone has come to see me. That’s all.”
The man in front of me nodded, like it was what he expected me to say. No, it was more than that. He nodded like it was what he wanted me to say. Like it was the exact thing he had been waiting for me to say. He was looking through a briefcase full of papers I couldn’t see and I started to wonder to myself if he might not be a lawyer or something. It would make sense, all of the fancy business attire and the I’m too important to live attitude. But ho in the hell would have sent me a lawyer? My court mandated guy hadn’t ever bothered to do much of anything for me, not that my case would have been a very easy one to argue. And my family? My family wasn’t an option. I didn’t even have a family anymore. All I had to do was think about the last visit I’d had, the visit from my sister, to remind myself of how terribly true that fact was.
“Shelly! Shelly, thank god. I’m so happy to see you! I’m going crazy in here!”
“Stop it, Becca. Just stop right there.”
It had only been a month or two after it had looked like I was going to be in prison for the long haul. It was difficult to remember with the way time passed in lock up. Everything was so much the same that time seemed almost not to matter anymore. My older sister Sheila, Shelly to the ones who knew her, had come to see me in a little room full of windows and grimy looking, sticky phones. I had been so overjoyed to see her when I’d plopped into the chair that I hadn’t noticed at first how pale she was. I hadn’t noticed the way her eyes burned, not with love or fear for her sister, but for hate. It was the sound of her voice that did it. That’s what it took to knock me out of my joy and force me to see what was really in front of me. Which was a sister who hated me with one hundred percent certainty.
“Shelly?”
“I want you to listen to me, Rebecca. I want you to listen very closely, so that I know that you understand. Got it?”
I nodded, not trusting myself to speak. She had called me Rebecca. She was four years older than me and had been the one to start calling me Becca in the first place. It had started because she couldn’t deal with the r’s in my name, but it had sort of taken on a life of its own with my parents and then eventually with my friends. Hearing her call me Rebecca felt like she had reached through the glass and slapped me in the face. It was the most efficient way she could have used to let me know that whatever relationship we’d had for the whole twenty-six years of my life had come to a close. I didn’t want to admit it to myself, almost couldn’t admit it to myself, but I knew it was true even before she said what she’d come to say.
“Fine. You don’t want to talk, that’s fine. I don’t care. I don’t want to hear what you have to say. I think I’ve heard plenty at this point, don’t you?”
I knew it was a rhetorical question, and luckily had the sense to keep my mouth shut. It was so bizarre, to look at her through that glass. She looked exactly like me, only a little bit older. There were the same small, doll-like features, the same black curls and large blue eyes. It was like looking into a mirror and finding that my reflection was angry with me and I hadn't even known it.
“I don’t know what you—”
“What I mean? Is that what you were going to say? Because if it is, you’ve got to be shitting me. I was there for your trial, Rebecca. I heard everything. You didn’t even try to deny it. You KILLED a man. You killed him and then sat there and watched our family get dragged through the mud. What do you want, sympathy? You ripped our family apart. You destroyed us, and as far as I can tell you don’t give one good god damn.”
What was I supposed to say? Did I ask her if she had listened to the parts of the trial where I actually spoke? Where I tried to explain myself? My lawyer had been god awful so my own words were about all I’d had, but they should have counted for something, right? At least with my family? Shelly wasn’t wrong. I had killed a man. But he had been at least as much a monster as he was a man, which was what I had tried to get across atop that witness stand. He had made me love him, and then he had tortured me. He had hurt me as badly as he could physically, emotionally, threatened to kill me a thousand times. He had done it for four years and then, after he finally pushed me further than I could go, I had fought back. The worst thing was, I hadn’t meant to kill him at all. I couldn’t even remember doing it. Everyone said that, but for me it was true. When I looked into my sister’s eyes, some recognition of those facts was what I was looking for. And what I saw? Nothing. I saw nothing even resembling compassion.
“No,” she finally said as much to herself as she did to me, “I’m not going to do this. I’m not going to let you do this to me. You already ruined so much. I won’t let you ruin the rest of me, too.”
“I’m sorry.”
“Are you? Are you really? Not as sorry as you should be. Mom’s dead, Rebecca. The cancer came back. Her body was so weak from worrying over you, from the humiliation, that it came back and ate her out from the inside in no time flat.”
Dead? But she couldn’t be! My mother couldn’t have died without me ever even getting to see her again, to tell her how sorry I was and to ask her for her forgiveness. It was such a selfish thought to have, but I just couldn’t fathom how she would go away and leave me like this, locked up and all alone despite the seemingly endless number of people around me. It felt like too much to take, and even then, my sister wasn’t done.
“You want to know the real kicker? This is where it gets really good, so get ready. This one's a doozy. Dad’s dead too.”
“What? No. No, he’s not. He can’t be. You’re-you’re trying to hurt me.”
“Oh, that’s right, because it’s all about you, Rebecca, right? God forbid, I forget that. Everything, right? Absolutely everything is about you. But actually, no. I’m not trying to hurt you. I came to tell you because some part of me still feels like I owe you that much. And I’m not making it up. He did it to himself. He couldn’t take it, mom dying and you being...this. He got in his car, closed himself in the garage, and let the engine run. They’re gone, and I’m an orphan. I don’t have a single person left in the world.”
“You have me, Shelly. Please, tell me that you still have me.”
“Here’s the thing, Rebecca,” she spoke with a coldness in her eyes I had never seen before, “I don’t want you anymore. I don’t want anything to do with you. You’ve done quite enough. You’re dead to me. When I walk out of that door, you won’t ever see me again. And you can count on that.”
With the most perfect timing in the world, as if she’d rehearsed this speech over and over again in her mirror, she stood and turned her back on me. It felt like a bad dream. I wanted to pick up the chair and throw it through the window, to slam my fists against the glass until she couldn’t deny me any longer. I wanted to make her take it all back, the part about me not being her sister and the part about my parents being dead. I wanted to do a hell of a lot of things, but what I really did was sit there and watch her walk out the door. I sat there for a long time, just staring at the space where she had been. I sat there until the guard called gruffly that it was time for me to go. She hadn’t been lying, either. I’d never seen her again. I’d never seen any kind of friendly face again.
“Miss Cross? I’m sorry, but are you still with me? I need to know that you’re listening to me. It’s an important part of what we need to do.”
What we needed to do. It was such a strange thing to hear coming out of the mouth of a man I did not know at all. It was especially strange as it had sliced through my recollections of my sister’s disowning of me. For a moment, I was caught somewhere between the past and the present, which made me feel like I didn’t really belong anywhere at all.
“Miss Cross.”
“Yes. Yes, I’m sorry. I was just reminded of something.”
“Let me guess,” more rattli
ng of papers, looking through his documents intently, “that would be the last visit you had, I presume. The visit from your… sister. One Sheila Cross. Am I correct in my assumption?”
“Wait a minute. How do you know that? You shouldn’t know that.”
“I’ll take that as a yes. That is correct.”
“Who are you? I don’t think you ever said. Can you tell me what’s going on please? I don’t think I like this anymore. I don’t want to do this. Guard?”
I was looking around, wanting to get the attention of the big guy who’d told me where to go, but it appeared that the strange man before me had gotten to him first. Before I could even get a grasp on what was going on, I felt strong hands looping themselves underneath my arms and leading me away from my chair. Absurdly, I tried to hook my feet around the chair’s legs, as if that might be enough to keep me in place. Only seconds ago all I had wanted to do was get away from that chair, and now it felt as if it was my last lifeline in the world. It wasn’t enough, of course, and I was being hauled away. I wanted to cry out, to shout that they weren’t supposed to put their hands on me like this, but I couldn’t make a sound. It was like I had gone spontaneously mute.
It stayed that way as I was half carried, half walked through a series of corridors I did not recognize before finally being deposited in a private room. The cuffs remained on, but the door shut without any officer following me inside. For a moment, I just peered at the door in confusion. I couldn’t remember the last time I had been in a closed off room without somebody standing over me to make sure I didn’t do something wrong. I had no idea what the hell was going on, but I did know that it felt pretty fucking good to actually be alone for once.
“Miss Cross. I apologize for all of the fanfare, but I thought it best to speak in a more private place. What we have to discuss is not for just any pair of ears. And the walls in this shitheap are full of many pairs of eager ears, as I’m sure you well know.”
I spun around to find that the man in the fancy suit had somehow found his way to what I had thought was a private room before me. So then not alone, after all. He was seated at a metal table, hands clasped in front of him as if he were waiting for a date who was running late instead of a convicted murderer. His face still wore that same impassive look, a look that said he didn’t have a care in the world. What kind of man wore an expression like that? Not a lawyer. I was pretty much sure of that now. This guy was a totally different animal.
“Please, have a seat, Miss Cross. I really would like to get down to business. If everything goes well, we won’t be in here for long.”
“I’m not going to sit.”
“Really,” the man sighed, the perfect picture of a man going to great lengths to keep things running smoothly and getting virtually nothing for his efforts in return, “and why is that?”
“I’m not going to sit until you tell me who you are. I think that’s fair, don’t you? Some man shows up out of the blue, when I don’t have a single person on my visitor’s list at all, and I want to know who he is. I think if you were in my position, you would want the same thing. Don’t you?”
The man sighed again, making me feel like I was the most absurd woman in the world. I was starting to form an opinion about this man, and it wasn’t necessarily a good one. He was definitely not the most likable man in the world. I wasn’t sure why he was there to visit me or what it was he wanted, but I was sure that I wasn’t a fan.
“Miss Cross, you really don’t need to fight me here. I’m not your enemy, alright? I’m not the one you need to be fighting.”
“Is that so? And who is it exactly that is my enemy?”
“Time,” he answered quickly, as if this were the exact question he had been anticipated, “your enemy is time. I suppose that’s true for all of us, but for a woman in your circumstances, it’s all the more applicable. Don’t you think?”
“I don’t know. I guess so.”
“So are you going to sit?”
“Are you going to tell me your name?”
“Fine. If that’s what you need. It’s Walters. Agent Walters. Do you think you can sit now? Could you be comfortable with that now?”
“Um, yes and no, I guess. I don’t know that anyone feels a whole lot more comfortable learning that they’re talking to someone who prefaces his name with ‘agent.’ But I guess it helps to have a name.”
He gave me a smile, a look that appeared to be more genuine than any of the others I had seen from him so far. He seemed to have relaxed some, now that I looked like I was probably going to do what he wanted me to. Which I was. I saw no reason not to sit down at this point. To be honest, I wasn’t really sure why I had been holding out to begin with. I was in prison after all. It wasn’t like I could exactly get up and run away, even if the guy never told me who he was. I didn’t need to try the door handle of the little box of a room to know that it had been locked from the outside. I wouldn’t be going anywhere. I wasn’t ever going to be going anywhere. With no other real options, I sat down.
The chair in this room was more comfortable than the one in the little visitation booth had been. The lighting was better too. Come to think of it, pretty much everything in this room was nicer. It was cozier, like it was more intended to be a break room than an interrogation room. As I watched, the man going by the name of Agent Walters bent to pick something up from the floor. Once he had righted himself again, I realized what it was. It was a large cup of Starbucks coffee. I could smell its richness wafting across the table towards me. My mouth began to water immediately. I couldn’t even remember the last time I’d had an honest to god cup of coffee! Just seeing something as simple as the iconic logo, such a reminder of the everyday niceties of the outside world most people took for granted, made my eyes water with longing and regret.
“Coffee?” He asked briskly, as if it were the most mundane thing in the world. I nodded, not trusting myself to speak. No way was I going to lose my shit in front of this guy, especially not over a large cup of dark roast.
“Good. Now, Miss Cross, would you like to know why I’ve come to see you?”
“I think it would be nice, yes.”
“I’m sure. I’m sure you do. Well, I’m happy to tell you, I’m here to change your life.”
“Is that so? And just how do you propose to do that?”
“By giving you an out. I’m here to offer you a way out of this place.”
Chapter Three
Becca Cross
“This is crazy, right? I mean, it’s totally nuts. Shit like this doesn’t happen.”
“I’m sorry?” It was like I had just come to, but I realized I’d been sitting in this bare, featureless, almost square room for some time. I didn’t recognize the room. At first I assumed it was just another holding cell at the prison, but when I looked at the other women around me, I noticed they weren’t all from my cell block. I felt like I vaguely remembered being moved to another facility at some point, but my memory was fuzzy at best.
One of the other girls was shouting about something, obviously upset about something that had happened to all of us, something I had missed. When I spoke up, she turned her furious attention towards me.
She quickly stepped across the room to where I had been sitting on the floor. I didn’t know if I had been knocked out or just in a daze ever since my conversation with the strange man who had visited me. It was the last thing I remembered.
The angry girl grabbed me by the color of my prison jumpsuit and lifted me up from the floor. She was as strong as a man with a wild look in her eyes. Her oily blonde hair was a mess. She looked like she was ready to bash someone’s head in, and I got the feeling mine had just got her attention.
“Wake up, girlie! I know you’re feeling a little stunned, that’s clear just by looking at your face, but you’ve got to wake the fuck up. This is some serious shit we’ve got ourselves into. That’s all I’m trying to say, see? What’s happening right now–it’s crazy.”
I nodded, trying
hard to focus on the words being spoken to me. It was far more difficult than it should have been. I was a smart girl. I had always done really well in school and had never gotten into any kind of trouble a day in my life, until I snapped and made the mistake of defending myself, that was. So, if I was so smart, why couldn’t I understand what this girl was trying to say to me? Why did it feel like she was speaking a foreign language?
“Get a load of this, Lecia, she’s gone batshit or something. Little mouse ain’t looking so hot.”
“Let her be, why don’t you? Obviously, she’s struggling with this. Why do you want to make it worse for her?”
“Shit, I was just messing with her. What the hell are you, anyway? Her mother?”
“No, but I’ll say what I like. Right now, what I want is for you to stop acting like such a cunt. You have a problem with that, Christine?”
The one who had been talking to me, the one whose name was apparently Christine, let loose a string of profanity that would have made a sailor blush, but made no move to continue her argument. Instead she dropped me back onto the floor and made her way across the almost clinically sterile room to talk to another little cluster of women, some of whom I recognized from my prison and some of whom I was almost positive had come from somewhere else. The girl who had come to my rescue, a woman from my prison by the name of Alecia Banks, slid her chair closer to me, a sad little smile on her face.
“Sorry about that. She really can be a cunt. Not a bad chick to have on your side, though, so there’s that. What’s your name?”
“Becca. I mean, it’s Rebecca, but nobody calls me that. I hate that name. Everyone just calls me Becca.”
“Alright, alright, I can dig it. Then Becca you shall be. No more little mouse for you, huh?”
“So you heard that nickname.”
“I did. Not that it matters. We were all someone else before we got locked up, and now we’re someone else again. Now that we’re here. That’s the way things go, you know? That’s just life.”