Every month, I would drive down to the women’s penitentiary in Montgomery, Alabama. Each time, I would contemplate bringing something inside. A gun, a knife, perhaps some gasoline to pour over the object of my visits. So many times, I wanted to smash my way through the multi-layered plexiglass, put my hands around her neck and just squeeze until I could see the life drains from eyes.

No, no, I wanted to break her out of that prison, drive to the gulf and throw her off a balcony. It wouldn’t matter what building it was, but it had to be over ten stories in height, enough to make her think about her past decisions. Although, through all of the previous visits, she seldom looked at me, but when she would it would be with eyes that stared back in dark coldness. Not of someone who felt any remorse. Not of someone who was crazy—as she was in the prison’s psych ward—but of someone who knew she got away with it. She got away with it and enjoyed flaunting it back at me…and like the definition of insanity, I kept coming back, expecting a different result.

My visits were out of pure hate, but to the guards I was family; and to the demon within I was a pathetic shell of a man, screaming for the justice I knew would never be passed.

I walked down the hall of the prison visiting area, speaking only when asked. I kept my eyes focused on the large metal doors at the end of the corridor that housed a small room with a lone phone on the wall. I sat down in front of the clear plastic and waited for her to walk into the other room. I closed my eyes and relived the days when I first met her family. The fleeting week that it was and the dreams that I wanted to have come true.

She walked in, her hair was a dark black, fittingly, I thought. She avoided eye contact as she sat down. She had the ability to look through me and never at me…and that infuriated me.

She picked up the phone and I followed suit.

“Nice to see you again, Spencer.”

“I can’t say the same, Katie.”

“I’ve spent the last few weeks thinking.”

“About?”

“I’ve been wondering, what were you going to do after that week? You painted this water-colored future. You thought up a perfect life, like the ones in your books.”

The thought that Katie had read any of my books filled me with a desire to jab a pen into her neck.

“I read ‘A Sweet Summer Song’, very nice,” she replied as she she held the receiver up between her face and gave a slow clap. “Except the ending. It wasn’t true to life. And, let’s face it, you so did that one character so wrong. She was right. Everything she said was right and there you went, spouting-off platitudes and scenes of rainbows and white weddings. I’m hoping the next book comes back into some form of reality.

“It was real,” I whispered. “It was real and. You. Ruined. It.”

“I solved a problem.”

“I wish you were the one who was dead,” I said through gritted teeth.

“I wish you were as well, Spencer. And judging by the scars on your wrists, you’ve tried to. Bravo. Another problem resolves itself.”
It was true. Less than a month after her funeral I tried to kill myself but failed miserably and ended up with marks that had to be covered-up as my book tour started. I didn’t want to talk with anyone or sign books but there was a night when I woke up and looked out over the balcony over-looking the ocean and I could see her looking up at me with a smile on her face waving to me.

“Skylar…”