Tuesday 31st October 2023
Leo
The walk back from the visiting room, that day, seemed far longer than it ever had. And yet, when it was over, he couldn’t even remember doing it. He was back in his cell as if he’d teleported there, leaning on the empty bunk bed with a thudding heart. Where was Cliff? Had he said something about putting his name down for the gym? Leo was convinced that if he let go of the bedpost he would sink right down to the floor.
‘Fuck,’ he murmured to himself, amid flashes of panic. ‘Fuck.’
He hadn’t expected her today. Hadn’t expected her any day, despite approving her out-of-the-blue request to be added to his list. He’d been confused, thought twice about approving it – especially so near the end of his time – but he hadn’t imagined she’d actually come. Seeing her sitting there, hands clasped on the table, he’d almost turned around and walked out. Because it couldn’t be good, could it? Whyever she was there, surely it would only mess with his head.
If he’d known just how much, maybe he would’ve walked away.
He replayed the conversation in his mind, trying to tell himself it wasn’t such a big deal. It didn’t mean what he was making it mean, didn’t capsize everything. But the truth was like a hammer inside his brain, hitting again and again.
I didn’t come here to do this, she’d said. But now that I’m here, looking at you …
Disgust in her eyes, or pity, or something else?
And now it was all awake and writhing inside him, everything he’d processed while he’d been inside, everything he’d come to terms with about himself and what he’d done. Because he’d processed it all wrong. He let out a moan and banged his forehead against the hard bedframe.
‘Leo?’
Groggily, he raised his head, expecting to see Cliff. But in the doorway to his cell, there was Frank. His eyes ran over Leo’s half-folded-up body, his fingers white-knuckled around the bedpost.
‘What’s happened, Cromley?’ He stepped inside the cell. ‘It’s not your parole, is it? Those fuckers haven’t changed their minds?’
Leo shook his head. He almost wished they would now.
‘Then tell me.’ Frank grabbed his shoulder, gave him a little shake. ‘Don’t hold out on me, Cromley. What’s wrong?’
Leo looked at him and began to cry. Somewhere in his rational mind there was a distant awareness that he shouldn’t break down in front of Frank, shouldn’t make himself vulnerable, expose too much. But he was desperate, bursting with it, and when Frank held out his arms he slumped into them.
‘I got it wrong,’ Leo said. ‘I was wrong. I am wrong.’
Frank was solid and calm and he smelled like roll-ups and he didn’t care what shitty things Leo had done in his life. So Leo started to talk. All of it. The whole fucking mess of it. It came out in a confusing order and he had to keep looping back and explaining who people were but it was out there, purged, confessed. Another thing he couldn’t take back.