“So where does that leave us?” I ask, desperate for answers from anyone.
“Mya, don’t focus on that right now. You are in a little shock and the last few weeks have been one fucked up intense rollercoaster. Right now, just try to let everything sink in before you worry it to death.”
My brother knows me well. He knows this is eating at me. “I love you, Cal,” I say, hoping he knows how much.
“I know, My. I love you, too. You aren’t alone in this,” he squeezes my other hand and kisses me on the head.
Then why do I feel like I am?
Chapter Twenty-One
Goodbyes are like a roulette wheel, never know where their gonna land
First your spinning then you’re standing still, left holding a losing hand
But one day you’re gonna find someone, and right away you’ll know it’s true
That all of your seeking’s done, its just a part of the passing through
And right there in that moment, you’ll finally understand
I was better as a memory than as your man
Sully
I have been prisoner 4875123SS for two weeks now. I don’t have a list of complaints like I thought it would. This place is mellow and a little better than jail. I am rarely cuffed and room with four men per cell. On my first day, I was met with two men dressed in khakis, black boots and white t-shirts who asked to see my paperwork.
I knew what they wanted. I had to prove I wasn’t they most hated criminal of all prison systems. Child predators, rapists, and snitches are targets. Even in a mellow minimum-security prison like Olympic is.
Within a day, I was respected. I could have told you it would go that way. The world may never admit it, but who I killed was something damn near any father would do. It also turned out my case was widely televised, and the inmates here knew damn well who I was.
Cove, one of my four cellies, was trying to get me work by making me some shitty tattoo machine, but I refused and did my best to stay to myself. After he made sure his point was made by breaking my jaw, I accepted the second time he asked.
It was then I knew how the hierarchy in prison went. I agreed to tattoo, but on the condition he ever sucker punched me again I would make him pay. I hate being forced to do anything, but here, it is a requirement to do as told. Inmates run the system, the guards babysit.
“Inmate 4875123, Sullivan, you have a visitor,” One of the guards yelled into the main room.
“Who is it?” I ask knowing if it’s Mya I need to refuse. I want nothing more than to see her perfection, but she deserves a man who can touch her, fuck her… fuck, seeing her and not being allowed to touch her is what torture sounds like.
“Amiyah Dorian,” He says, his eyes searching for the answer I choke on.
“I refuse,” I say, and turn my attention back to the drawing I am working on. It is her, all of them are. I draw other things when I need to tattoo, but in my free time I draw her, us… it is her face I see.
“You sure?” He asks me, and I don’t know why he gives a fuck. He and I are enemies as far as the system is concerned.
I nod, saying nothing as I trace her face again.
“You got two years at the most. You really want to destroy the one thing you have going for you?” He says it as matter of fact, like he knows…. Maybe he does. Mya, like everyone, else was all over the news on my case.
“She has more going for her than I ever did. She needs to remember that,” I don’t look at him as I speak the truth, whether I like it or not.
“Can I say something off the record?”
I look at him then, shocked any guard would want to talk off the record. I also know to be careful because the guards can be just as vengeful as the inmates. “Sure.”
I return to my drawing like I don’t care what he has to say.
“I don’t think you are a killer or a vigilante. I read the case like everyone else and I have three daughters myself. I took an oath and I still would do the same. I think if you know people are on your side then maybe, just maybe, you won’t fuck up too much.”
“Duly noted. The answer is still no,” I don’t even look up as he accepts it and leaves. I want to see her, fuck yes, I do. I refuse because I must leave her. She needs to follow her dreams and go off with some guy who will give her babies and a life I never will.
I started getting mail last week and I don’t read her letters either, though I keep them when they come. I was in the jail for a few weeks before solitary here while everything was processed. She wrote me a ton in that time too and I didn’t get the letters until I was placed in the unit.
What would I tell her? The food is shitty, the people are dirty, and the fucking place is loud twenty-four-seven? It would be apologies and complaints. I won’t write her letters confessing my undying love and loyalty. I will always love her yes, but she can’t know that.
Weeks go by with the same, until it is a month, then two. My parole date came and went with me refusing to admit guilt for Tenpenner. I sit here in this prison, working for four dollars and eighteen cents, picking grapes for a vineyard. I read or draw at night, and do my best to keep to myself.
I tattoo only what I want and after the first few guys wanted gang shit or swastikas, I made it clear I only tattoo my designs, or I am willing to fight. I haven’t been sucker punched again and after a few heated moments, they started to see I meant business.
I stare at the letters that pile up. All from Mya, meant to destroy me if I start from the first one. I need to tell her to stop and move on. I reach for the last few she has sent. I took a visit from Noah and Jen a few weeks back and made it clear I want to be left alone until I am free. I had hoped they got that point across to Mya. I see the pink envelopes and perfect penmanship, proof she doesn’t give a shit about my wishes.
There’s only one-way people learn, and it is the hard way. What I am about to do is just one more in my long list of regrets… I have nothing left to give her and once she realizes that, she will thank me.
Epilogue
Arms wide open, stand alone
I’m no hero and I’m not made of stone
Right or wrong, I can hardly tell
I’m on the wrong side of heaven and the righteous side of hell
3 months since court
Sam,
Why won’t you respond to my letters? I have sent one a day for three weeks. I spoke with Poet and she explained that you would be in a locked down unit while they got you situated within the prison so I am hoping to hear from you soon. She also told me that you would need cash on your books and stamps? I don’t know something about stamps being the same as cash in a prison.
I applied five hundred dollars to your books. You should be able to buy phone time and any food, or books, or whatever. With your parole hearing coming soon, I doubt you will need that much. I also asked Poet to find out if I could send you some art supplies. If it is allowed, I will send you some immediately.
Before I end this I wanted you to know I went to see Kace today. I left a small bouquet of tea roses in the brightest colors I could find. I told her you miss her and that she would always be your favorite color… I wonder if you are still mine? I am so lost without you, Crow. Please call or write me back, and let me know you are okay.
I love you, Sam Sullivan,
4-ever
Mya
*
4 months since court
Sam,
I had a dream about you last night. We were in my studio, just like the night we went to the Sue. You kissed me in my dream and told me not to let you push me away. I promised you that months ago and I promised it in my dream. Why do you push me away? Why aren’t you responding? I know you are doing well, I ask Frank and Noah all the time.
They told me you refused to adhere to the requirements of the parole hearing. What the fuck, Sam? Why? You don’t belong in there longer than you need to be. You are a good man. Jen and Noah both have been to see you, and Jen said you told her t
hat you don’t want visitors any more. Why? You are so loved, Sam. We all want to be here for you. Please let us, let me.
I can’t sleep because I miss you so much. A phone call or a letter would ease my fears, these terrible fears that you have let me go.
Please tell me you haven’t…
I love you, Sam Sullivan,
4-ever
Mya
*
6 months since court
Sam,
Am I a fool? Don’t answer that. Not like you would anyway. I want to say something because I can’t do this to myself anymore. I am waiting on a dream, not a man and even then, it doesn’t lessen my love for you. Even in times like now, when I swear I hate you.
For whatever reason you have chosen to let me go. No word, no warning. You made this decision without once giving me a chance. The minute they took you from that courtroom you became vapor, smoke in the wind. You were gone and no attempt on my part has woken you up.
I am left with no choice, but to move forward. I need to open my studio and start working. I need to go out with my friends and be a normal twenty-two-year-old on the town. I need this because for the last six months I haven’t left my phone. I don’t go out. I have stopped the grand opening all because I wait on a call that will never come. A call that says, ‘I am sorry Mya, I need you.’
You don’t though. I know that. I didn’t believe it at first. I thought no way after everything we shared. After I held your hand through your worst moment. It was me you crashed into, Sam. Me who you ‘rage fucked’ your pain away with.
It was me, there in my bed the night you told me I was your favorite color. It was me you loved more than tattooing or Jeopardy… that I was a need. I was none of it. Need means it is essential to one’s survival. You are surviving fine. I am the one who can’t breathe. I devoted myself to you before our world fell apart, and even then, I was there fighting for you.
I don’t know what made you change, but understand I didn’t. Had the judge served you with a hard eight years, I would have stayed and waited, faithfully. I gave you parts of myself that I can never get back, but only relive. I don’t know where we will be down the road when you are free. All I know is I believe I will always wait for you, but with as angry as I am, I can’t promise it.
I won’t write you again. I open the studio on Monday and have planned out my every minute for the next six months. I will get over you. I will never drink Patron again. I will cover my Sully original and erase what I can from my memory. I hate that you would leave me in this place so lost and not leave a light on or a bread crumb. I will, however, remember our best moments because you are unforgettable to me. My love will never change because love choses, not me. My heart chose you, my soul agreed. You are the one for me Sam, but I will force myself to move on even if it is with second best. That is my fate, courtesy of you, and for that, I will never forgive you.
Good luck, Sam Sullivan,
Amyah Dorian
*
7 months since court
Mya,
You need to promise what was in that letter was true. Move on, build a life, and have babies. I have taken a life and when the anger is gone, and I am left looking at this cell that has become my home? Well… You deserve more than a felon. That is what I am and will always be labeled as.
It is so loud here all the time. It is never quiet or peaceful, and in a rare moment; I can relax, I draw your face, and remember that once, briefly you were mine.
It ends there. It ends there because we both deserve peace. I know you won’t see my reasoning, but it is there in bright neon hidden under your pain. You deserve a man to worship you. One who will kill to see you smile. I am a fucked-up mess, so fucked up I can’t even see tomorrow.
I feel like a strand of Christmas lights that sat in the attic for years, tangled and broken, and you keep trying to fix them, get them in a straight line and see them shine again. They won’t, Pet. They will never work again because some things need to be thrown away.
You won’t throw me away, I know that… so I have to be the one to leave. I have seventeen months left and so much can happen in that time. Let it happen to you, Mya. Live, fall in love, and dream so fucking big that you laugh at the absurdity of it, then make it come true. Make the mistakes we all do in our twenties, they will help you grow in your thirties. Go sit in the spotlight for just once with Lex and Cal. Let the world see you and all your glory. You think you live in their shadow, but Pet, you are the sun, and the shadows will never touch you. Believe me on that.
Be someone’s favorite color, just as you were mine once. Stop wondering what went wrong, because it was my world that affected yours. I left my daughter and in it I lost her. I killed the man that took her from me and his death has left its mark on me. Simply put, some wounds will never heal.
Seventeen months is a lifetime at twenty-two… If we cross paths when I am out know that my smile will be genuine. Understand I will leave you every time. No matter what, I will always walk away from you, because you deserve it.
Know I will always regret leaving my shop that night as much as I regret allowing you to love me. There is something unique that happens when you lose someone you love as much as I did Kace. I stopped letting anything touch me and created this shield that is so effective that I no longer let myself feel anything. I am numb and it is better than the hell I live in without her.
Move on, Pet, for both of us.
All letters will be rejected from here out and the time you have wasted on me is over. I refuse to let you fall deeper in my hole. Live, Mya. Live, butterfly.
Sully
Sully’s final words to Kace (left in her casket)
There is no goodbye for us,
There is only see you soon
You’ll be there to get me
When I journey to the moon.
I see your colors everywhere
Each one a brilliant shade
In such a small time in my life
What an impact you had made
I missed your final moments
Though I was with you in despair
If I had known the outcome
I swear I would have stayed there.
But, this is where its ending,
You have to leave me behind
Just know you will always be the first and last
Thought to cross my mind.
Love just isn’t a strong enough word,
There really isn’t another
For you mean more to me than love,
You are my favorite color.
~Daddy
Playlist for 5 words
We are messengers * I’ll think about you
Shinedown * The crow and the butterfly
FFDP * Blue on black
NF * If you want love
Martin Garrix feat Khalid *Ocean
Bad wolves * Here me now
Susie Suh * All I want
Breaking Benjamin * Torn in two acapella
SYML * Body
Nothing for chapter Ten
Breaking Benjamin * Ashes of Eden
The Offspring * Gone Away
Disturbed * The sounds of Silence
Meg Myers * Desire
Pearl Jam * Just breathe
Linkin Park * One more light
Shinedown * Sound of madness
Godsmack * Bad Religion
FFDP * I refuse
Rage against the machine * Killing in the name of
Kenney Chesney * Better as a Memory
Epilogue doesn’t have a song but Kenney Chesney ‘Who you’d be today’ was what I listened too for inspiration.
I am is usually busy mommying, drinking coffee or living in lala land.
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Melanie walker, 5 Words: Paradox Ink Trilogy
5 Words: Paradox Ink Trilogy Page 14