October 11, 2012

• Companion – Part Four

  A loooong time in the comming here is another part of a story thats gotten much longer than I thought it ever would.

  It really needs a good deal of editing I can see now :/ but for what it’s worth here are the previous bits:

  Part 1 – Part 2 – Part 3

  Part one is still the best, I usually have a pretty good grasp of one concept or idea and can do much better at writing that one bit than I do with follow ups…but I’m on the verge of being hunted down by Nadia @xXxlovelylollipop if I don’t get round to at least some more writing so here is Part 4.

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  “This has got to be a first.”

  Grace said in a dead pan voice as Nate slumped into the plastic chair opposite her.

   

  “I’m probably the only girl to be stood up by a maximum security inmate.”

  Although she was genuinely annoyed at having been left to wait for almost an hour her tone was more joking than serious.

  “You told me to come back…” She started but Nate cut her off.

  “Why did you come here?” He looked across at her intensely. He was angry but he didn’t know at whom if anyone.

   

  “You know right after you took me, and let me go. Those first few weeks, maybe even a couple months to a year. All I wanted to do was to find you again…and give you a big hug.” She looked away at the thin barred window and smiled to her self.

   

  “My parents paid so much attention to me, I was in heaven. I’d gone from practically invisible to the centre of their world, overnight.” She looked back at Nate, whose face had softened. But his eyes still burnt with a harsh intensity.

   

  “Hell I was young and had spent a long time alone, I didn’t really get the whole situation other than I met you and then my parents loved me again. But as I got older things changed.” She looked back at him. Nate was watching her silently and intently, his face was soft now, like he’d looked back then.

   

  “My parents’ love transformed into fear, fear for me, fear of random events…fear of everything. By the time I was 14, 15. I was just about driven crazy. I couldn’t go out. I had to check in all the time I didn’t have any friends who weren’t vetted by my mom. I’d basically lost all my freedom bit by bit until I didn’t have any left.”

   

  She paused for a moment again, but Nate could see she wasn’t finished so stayed silent.

  “I wanted to be someone else, to just leave and forget everything. Sometimes I blamed you…other times all I could do was think about you.“ She sighed and looked away again. This time Nate could see tears making her eyes shine in the sunlight.

   

  “So where are you now?” Nate asked trying to sound cold and move the focus away from what had made her cry.

  “Do you want to hug me…or do you blame me” He spoke as if to himself. If he was honest he knew he didn’t really want an answer.

   

  Grace made a half choked humourless laugh and turned her shining eyes to him.

  “I don’t know. I guess we can find out in what…another 10 years?”

   

  “I might be up for Parole in a couple years” Nate responded looking away from her face and down at his hands that rested in his lap.

   

  The two fell into silence again. It was a shared comfort in things not said, that they both used to hide in when words failed them.

  The minuets passed mercifully slowly, the large blank room filled with low conversations spoken quietly, sometimes broken by quavering voices or long sighs.

   

  “Five more minutes gents” The large Hispanic guard standing closest to Nate and Grace eventually announced to the room, lazily pointing his night stick at the white clock hanging on the wall. Mutters and groans greeted him in response and then the murmuring conversations began again this time with a pressured haste.

   

  A large pale man with a shaven head who had been sitting alone a few tables behind Nate got up loudly. “Fuck it man, I don’t have to be here another fucking minuet”

   

  “Just sidown and wait five more Rames” The guard said anger already making his voice sharp and commanding. “You waited all this time and NOW you want to call it a day. Park it and zip it!”

   

  “Fuck you! I ain’t doin’ nothing wrong bitch. Just getting to the head of the queue” The bald man got up and flipped his middle finger at the guard as he made his way through the chairs and tables towards the gated doors back into the main prison.

  The guards jaw clenched but he stood his ground merely resting his hand on the hilt of his nightstick and touching just below his eye with the tips of his other hands fingers before pointing at Rames as he crossed the room.

   

  “Hey, hey Nate. What do we have here bay-be.” Rames spoke as he walked by their table, his eyes locked on Grace. “I can’t tell if this is your daughter or your sweetheart man…either way she’s VERY fuckable! Hehe” He licked the tips of his fingers and slid them over his eyebrow as he leered and winked at Grace while punching Nate gently in the shoulder.  “Mmmm she’s finnnee”

   

  Nate didn’t respond other than to look up at the man as he walked by. When he turned back to Grace the look in his eye sent a shiver down her back. He wasn’t angry there wasn’t even the same intensity she’d seen before. Instead there was a deep coldness, a dark endless night filled with bitter lifeless ice, no remorse, no care, no humanity.

  Then it faded as his face once again softened and he looked hunted and alone.

   

  “Will you be here for long?” Nate asked, he broke off as if he was going to say something else.

   

  “Yeah…” Grace responded similarly unable to say more.

   

  Grace spent the rest of that day in the desert. Not far from the Prison there was a large open area where somekind of motel or service station had once been planned but was never completed. It was quiet and apart form the sound of distant traffic felt empty and abandoned.

   

  She called her mom but only half listened as she lay on the bonnet of her car and stared up into the vast blue sky that faded from shining white blue at the horizons to a heavy dark velvet above her.

   

  • 4:01 pm
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