Page 87 of Dear Debbie

“You know,” I say teasingly, “I don’t have to be at work for another hour. Just saying…”

“Don’t tempt me,” she retorts. “If I don’t go to the gym now, I’m never going to go.”

Since my former workout buddy Jesse is serving two life sentences for murder, I’ve joined Debbie a few times at Titan, but I don’t have time for that right now. “How about if I take you to dinner tonight? Izzy has that sleepover, right?”

She grins at me. “It’s a date.”

She comes over to give me a kiss before she leaves. A year ago, I thought I had lost her, but now it seems like we are closer than we have ever been. I hate all the pain that we have been through, but there’s a reason for everything.

In the end, it worked out for all of us.

JESSE

Nights in prison are the worst.

At home, I had a memory foam mattress with a pillow that contoured to the shape of my head and neck. I had a special hypoallergenic down comforter. I couldn’t sleep without it.

Now I am lying on a thin mattress that is probably an inch or two thick at most. I do have a pillow, but it definitely doesn’t contour to the shape of anything. Like my mattress, it feels more like a board than a pillow. And then there’s the scrawny blanket, which I think I’m allergic to, based on the bumpy rash that has sprung up on every part of my skin that has been touched by the thin material.

If I sleep, which I sometimes do out of sheer exhaustion, half the time I get wrenched out of my slumber by the sounds of the guy on the top bunk snoring like a chainsaw. I’ve never heard anyone snore that loud before. I’ve also never seen anyone with that many tattoos on his body.

There are four of us in this small cell. My bunkmate is called Geho, which I think is his last name. Nobody uses first names here. It’s like back in college, when everyone used to call me Hutch, except it’s not anything like college.

I was transferred to this maximum-security prison last week, which is where I will be spending the rest of my life. I shouldn’t be here. I really shouldn’t be here. Maximum-security prison is not for somebody like me. The other men here are hardened criminals like Geho—they are terrifying. Someone like me should be at one of those minimum-security prisons that looks more like a resort.

But really, I shouldn’t be here at all. Because I didn’t kill anyone.

I woke up at Harley’s apartment, not entirely sure how I got there, and she was dead on the floor from a bullet wound. The gun—my gun—was in my right hand, but I didn’t shoot her. Yes, I know how that sounds. And I know there was gunshot residue on my hand. But I didn’t want to kill Harley. Yes, I was looking to end our relationship, but I didn’t want her dead. I don’t even remember bringing my damn gun to her house. Why would I have done that?

I made a grave mistake though. When I woke up and found Harley murdered, I immediately tried to scrub down the apartment before leaving to get rid of any trace of my presence. The police caught me doing it, and it looked…bad. From that moment, I was their only suspect.

It didn’t help that I had no damn clue what happened. That sounded unbelievable to them. Saying it now, I understand why.

And then, to my complete shock, they accused me of killing Ken Bryant too. I thought it was a joke at first. I didn’t even know he was dead, and I certainly didn’t kill him. But the bullet in his head matched my gun. They found footage of me entering and leaving his house, even though I tried to tell them I was just watering the plants like he asked me to, although those text messages had mysteriously vanished from my phone. Then they said I stole money from him, and that was the last nail in the coffin.

They tried to offer me a deal for pleading guilty, and my lawyer encouraged me to take it. Second-degree murder charges for both Harley and Ken. It meant that I could be eligible for parole in thirty years. But what the hell good was that? I’m forty-seven years old. I decided to roll the dice with a trial, knowing that I was innocent.

I lost my gamble. I’m serving two consecutive life sentences, and I will die in prison. I’m just lucky they don’t have the death penalty in Massachusetts.

Geho shifts in the bunk above mine, and the springs let out a loud groan. As if the snoring wasn’t bad enough, every movement in the bed echoes through the cell. I feel like I’m losing my mind, and I’ve only been here for a week. The idea of spending the rest of my life here…

I don’t deserve any of this. My wife filed for divorce a few months after my arrest, which means she’s not going to be visiting me anytime soon. This was not my first affair, and she was not even the tiniest bit understanding. She wasn’t that amazing as a wife, which is why I was with Harley in the first place, but after a year without being close to a woman, I would give anything for a conjugal visit. My kids hate me too for what I did to the family. I’m alone.

It would be different if I were guilty, like the other men here. Geho actually brags about the guy he stabbed in the neck. But I’m not a bad guy. Yes, I cheated on my wife. A lot of guys have done that. It’s not a capital offense.

Admittedly, I did some things in college that were less than admirable. Sometimes at parties, I’d talk to a girl and offer to get her a drink. I had these ground-up sedatives, and I used to mix them into drinks—jungle juice, rum and Coke, it didn’t matter. Between that and the alcohol, they would be pretty out of it. Then I’d take them to my room, and they didn’t protest too much.

It wasn’t even a big deal though. Most of them barely remembered it. Or if they did, I bet they enjoyed it.

I finally start to drift off, but then I suddenly jolt awake. And when I do, I can’t believe my eyes. Geho and my other two cellmates are standing over me. Each of them has a sock gripped in one hand, with something weighing down the other end. A bar of soap? My stomach churns. The skeleton face etched on Geho’s bald skull is barely visible in the dim light of the cell.

“What’s going on?” I choke out.

“Keep your mouth shut,” Geho hisses at me, “and maybe you’ll get through this alive.”

Even though he gave me a warning, I sputter, “But what did I do?”

Geho responds with a swift punch to my mouth. Instantly, I taste blood. And then a moment later, I feel one of my teeth floating around my mouth.