This story was inspired by the #Found/ I Found by Amber Run on the Fic Lab.
I should have known better. My mother and sister both would look at me with a mix of pity and fear telling me that I was crazy for getting involved with an inmate. I was worth so much more. My best friend always asked why I would waste my time, energy, and money supporting this man. I could do better. There were plenty of fish in the not-locked-up-behind-bars-for-life sea. Looking back, they were all right. It was a bad idea.
How I got myself into this mess was simple. I was lonely. Years of bad relationships had left me broke and brokenhearted. I felt like I could not trust myself anymore. So, when I read online that people can write to lonely, broken prisoners, I thought this could be it. I could find the companionship I longed for with no real commitment, no danger of getting beat up or getting my bank accounts drained. No way he could twist and manipulate my landlord to get me evicted while he stayed in my house, trashing it and running up huge utility bills. That ordeal ended up with me in court and him running to another state with another woman. Like I said, a bad track record.
I signed up on the prison pen pal website, and within a few minutes, I was given an inmate's name and number. Edward Cullen Inmate #12-987338. Jefferson Penitentiary. The website explained how I might need to provide the stamps and envelopes to my "pen pal." There were also rules, do not give the inmate personal information, and do not send cash through the mail. No nudes. I am sorry to admit I broke two of the three. I was smart enough not to send money in my letters.
The email also contained a small photo. I clicked it open, expecting to find a mugshot. I was surprised to see a shoulders-up picture. It looked like it was taken outside. He was in blue scrubs, not the black and white stripes I was expecting. He had sparkling blue eyes and a boyish smile. He didn't look like a hardened criminal. In fact, he looked a lot more clean-cut than the guys I usually dated. There was also a small bio.
Hello, my name is Edward. I am glad we have been paired together. I look forward to writing to you. I am new to the program, so please be patient with me. I grew up in the Midwest. I am ten years into serving a life sentence, so I decided to join the pen pal program. It can be very lonely here. Please write soon.
There was just something about his words that pulled at my heartstrings. I, too, grew up in the Midwest and was very familiar with loneliness. I was also curious to find out how he ended up in prison. I knew Jefferson Penitentiary was about a four-hour drive from my house. I wondered if I would be able to visit him someday. I immediately shut my laptop and went searching for a notebook. I decided I would hand write my letters, it would give them a more personal touch, and I knew he would be handwriting his.
My first letter was simple, a little about me, careful not to tell him too much. I told him that I, too, was lonely and was looking for companionship. I asked what had happened to land him in prison and if he felt comfortable talking about it. I let him know that I have made some awful mistakes in my life and that sometimes those mistakes came with dire consequences. I also asked him the best way to get him some money. I included several self-addressed stamped envelopes in hopes he would be able to write back quickly if he didn't have to wait to buy stamps.
I knew in my heart his incarceration had to be a misunderstanding. It had to have been an accident, or he was framed somehow. A victim of circumstance. His eyes were not the eyes of a killer.
A week later, his first letter showed up. He had beautiful penmanship. I tore the letter open and sat down in my favorite reading chair. He told me I could add money to his books by going on the provided website and putting in his inmate number. He was grateful for anything I could send as his family had turned their back on him when he had been incarcerated, and it was hard to get by on the few toiletries the prison provided. He told me he was appreciative of the envelopes and stamps as well. The prison did not provide them, and they were pricey at the commissary store. He promised to write soon and tell me the whole sordid tale.
When I got paid on Friday, I went to the website and added money to his account. A few days later, another letter.
Bella,
I will tell you what happened. The good, the bad, and the ugly. I was not blameless in the death of my wife, but I did not mean to kill her. It was an accident. A tragic accident.
If, after reading my letter, you do not want to continue our friendship, I understand. I did a terrible thing, but I hope that you will see that I am not a bad person, just a person that made an awful mistake.
My wife Amanda and I met in college. We had a volatile and violent relationship from the beginning. We got married because she told me she was pregnant, and once the ceremony was over, I found out she had lied to me. There was no baby.
I was heartbroken, but there was a part of me that truly loved her, and I meant what I had said at the altar, so I told her I was committed to our marriage if she was.
Around our first anniversary, her drinking was getting out of control. Our fights turned from spitting vile and vicious words at each other to physical violence. I never hit my wife, but I am sorry to admit that I put more than a few holes in our walls and threw my fair share of glassware and furniture.
The night she died, I had come home from work, and she was drinking her second bottle of wine. I entered the back door, and she started yelling at me and accusing me of cheating. I may not have been the best husband, but I was faithful to my wife until the end. I had my suspicions she was seeing someone behind my back, though, and when you are guilty, you see the guilt in others too.
Anyway, she was screaming and yelling, and the fight escalated from there. I will spare you the details, but suffice it to say, after hours of fighting, I had finally had enough. I packed an overnight back and stomped through the kitchen and out the back door.
She followed me down the back steps bawling and begging me to stay in one breath and damning me to hell in the next.
I unlocked my car and tried to leave when she started pulling on my arm to stay. She would break things off with the guy at work, and she would go to rehab. All the promises I had heard before. When I told her I would be back in the morning when she was sober, and we were both rested and thinking more clearly, that is when she attacked. She started slapping and scratching me and howling that I was hurting her. I grabbed her by the arms and told her to shut up. The neighbors would call the cops, and one of us would spend the night in jail.
I gently led her back toward the house. I put her hand on the back stair railing so she would keep her balance. When my back was turned, she spit at me. I kept walking, but I said something awful under my breath. She heard what I called her. I will not repeat it as I am ashamed. I have never before called any woman the name I called her, but I was exhausted and angry, and I let that anger get the best of me. Bella, I swear to you, if I could go back, I would have kept my mouth shut.
What happened next makes me sick to my stomach, and I have relived this moment every night in my nightmares. Amanda let out a loud growl and charged at me with her arms out, ready to strangle me. I took several steps back, and she lunged at me. I reached out to catch her to first keep her from falling and second to keep her hands from getting around my neck. She managed to catch my shirt in her fists, and it knocked me off balance. To keep us both from crashing into the gravel driveway, I leaned forward to counter our weight.
I underestimated how unsteady she was, though, and she was not able to catch her balance. We both fell. Her backward and me on top of her. That is when she hit her head on the bottom step that led into our house. I heard the crack of her skull, and suddenly a massive puddle of blood pooled under her head and dripped on the driveway. I immediately went to her and checked for a pulse. She was gone. I called 9-1-1 and told them about the accident.
I had to put the letter down. My hands were trembling. He killed his wife. It was an accident, but he had killed his wife. I finished the letter. It was filled with pleas of not giving up on him. He looked forward to my letters. He was so lonely and, for the first time since he got locked up, felt connected to another person. It took me a few weeks to decide to write to him again.
At first, the letters were innocent enough. I trusted him, he had poured his heart out to me, and even though my gut told me not to say too much to him about myself, I would quiet the nagging because he was never getting out. He said so in his bio. He was doing life. I began to fill him in on the details of my past with my exes. He comforted me, telling me that I deserved better and that even though we may never meet in real life, he would be the best man he could be to me from behind bars.
As we grew closer, he asked if he could add me to his call list. He said he longed to hear my voice. Of course, I said yes and promised him he would always have phone minutes. When my phone would ring, I would scramble to grab it hoping it was him. And when I would answer it and hear the recorded voice say, 'This is a call from an inmate at Jefferson Penitentiary' a giant smile would break out on my face, and my heart would flutter. I loved talking to him after months of imagining what his voice sounded like.
The letters continued, as he was only given a few minutes of phone time each week, and I wanted to know everything about him, and he said the same to me. At his urging, I told my best friend first about him. I played it down. No, he was not my boyfriend, no, I was not in love with him, but it was all lies. I started to imagine what our life could be like. I researched the laws on federal inmates getting married. I looked for jobs closer to the prison.
After a year and a half of calls and letters, I wanted to visit him. That's when my mom and sister found out. They could not understand why I was so hung up on this criminal they called him. He killed his wife. They sounded like a broken record. It didn't matter how often I told them it was a freak accident. They wouldn't listen.
I took some vacation days from work, got a hotel room close to the prison, and made it to every visitation time for a week. We weren't allowed to touch each other, but I could see him and look into his eyes. He told me he wanted to get married. He loved me more than anything. I promised to visit more. Before I left, he asked me to send some less-than-appropriate pictures. I made him promise no one would ever see them. As soon as I got home, I took several shots and sent them with a naughty letter.
I guess that is when things changed. He started demanding more money, more photos, and more lewd letters. I justified all of it because he was in prison, and he had so little to look forward to. And I was head over heels in love. Love makes you do some foolish things.
We had been together for five years when my life was turned upside down. It was a rainy Friday night. We were supposed to have a phone date, but I knew nothing was guaranteed. Missed phone dates were something I was used to. The first time he missed our date, I was sure there was a prison riot and he was dead. To me, that was the only logical explanation. It took everything in me not to get in the car and drive to the prison. I worried myself sick for days. When he finally called, I found out there had been a minor scuffle in the cafeteria that he had nothing to do with, but the Warden had suspended all phones for three days. He apologized and apologized. I told him I wasn't mad at him. It wasn't his fault. Another time a guard decided to take Edward's phone privileges for no reason. Edward said the guy was a jerk and jealous that he had such a hot girlfriend and that guard had a fat ugly wife at home. Over time I learned not to panic when he didn't call when he said he would.
That night I was on my couch reading when I heard a knock on my door. I wasn't expecting anyone, so I was scared to open the door. I flipped on the porch light and asked who it was. A familiar voice called back, "It's me, baby."
I opened the door to find Edward standing there. He was in street clothes, soaking wet from the pouring rain. I stepped back and let him in the house, unsure what else to do.
He settled on the couch, and I sat on the coffee table, our knees touching. He explained to me that he was out on parole. Due to overcrowding, good behavior, and serving 15 of his 25 years, they let him out. Parole. My heart started pounding in my chest. He was supposed to be in for life. I stood up and asked him to please leave. I wasn't prepared for the company. My brain worked overtime to come up with excuses. I needed to clean the house and go to the grocery store. If he could give me a day or two….but he cut me off. He told me he couldn't leave. He used my address on his parole paperwork. If the cops or his PO came looking for him and he wasn't here, he would be hauled back to prison to finish his sentence.
I stood up and started to pace around the living room, trying to breathe normally and remember everything that made me fall in love with him. He wasn't dangerous, I reasoned with myself. It was an accident. I asked him why he told me he was serving a life sentence. He said he had been convicted of second-degree murder and was sentenced to 25 years with a possibility of early parole. He explained that when he first went in, he could not think about parole. 25 years felt like life, and he never dreamed he would even live to finish his sentence. He had shared with me about his first few years inside. Prison life was a huge adjustment. He didn't know how to act and who to trust. He had been beaten badly by his first cellmate and spent several weeks in the infirmary. He would have pain and joint issues for the rest of his life.
He called my name, and I turned to look at him. He patted the couch next to him, inviting me to sit down. When I did, he moved his hand to my thigh and leaned in to kiss me. I pulled back. He jumped off the couch, and started yelling in my face. He was so close I could feel his hot breath. He accused me of acting nervous. He demanded to know why I was trying to push him out of his own house. When I couldn't answer, he jerked me up by my ponytail. He said was here so we could start our lives together. Didn't I understand that? I had promised him we would get married. Why would I lie like that?
I managed to free my hair from his grip. I stumbled and tripped around the coffee table, trying to get some space between us. He started to come around the table to the left. I moved right. Then he changed his course. He caught me around the waist knocking me to the ground. I was trapped between the couch and the coffee table. I tried to scream, but no sound came out. The fall had knocked the wind out of me. In what felt like an eternity and a split second all at once, his hands were around my throat. He straddled me, holding my arms down with his knees while he knocked my head into the floor until I saw stars then everything went black.
Sometime later that night, Edward took what little cash I had in my wallet and stole my car. He stopped at a liquor store on the outskirts of town and grabbed a fifth of Jim Beam. He had crashed a few miles outside of Somerville and was sitting in the Franklin County Jail on a DWI charge.
The police would come by on a welfare check Sunday. My mom had been so worried that when I didn't pick up my phone, she called the local police and got on a plane to find me. She was pulling up in front of my house as the Medical Examiner wheeled my body out in a black bag. I heard her scream and saw her collapse onto the sidewalk. The detective had found Edward's letters. I kept them by my bed to read every night. They knew exactly who my killer was.
As the days passed, I saw my mom, sister, and best friend clean out my house. I heard them telling stories about me. I saw them laugh and cry. They all wished they had asked more questions about Edward. They all wondered what they could have done or said to convince me to stop contact with him.
My sister, being an armchair, discovered the accurate details of the crime that killed his wife. She had fallen and hit her head. That was true, but when the cops and paramedics got to the house, it was clear the body had been moved. They found her lying on her back on the bottom step, but her face showed signs of blunt force trauma and many bruises and abrasions in several stages of healing. Blood and hair were found on the top step leading into the house. The autopsy showed no alcohol in her system at the time of death. He had pushed her. According to the court records, they had been fighting in the driveway. She had begged him not to leave because he was so drunk he could barely stand. After he hit her several times in the face, she screamed he could leave for good. She was tired of his abuse and drinking and wanted him gone. She turned to go back into the house, and according to the across-the-street neighbor, Edward jumped out of the car and charged after Amanda. The neighbor could not see what happened next because of a large tree in her yard, but things got quiet, and she thought the drama across the street was over. A few minutes later she heard his tires peel out of the driveway. Two hours later, she took her dog out for the night and saw the porch light and back door of their house open. That's when she went back into her house and called the police. Since there were no eyewitnesses, Edward convinced the jury of his sob story, just like he convinced me. That's why he wasn't locked up for life.
I have had a lot of time to think about what happened to me. If I can tell you anything, it's this, trust your gut. It's never wrong. And no matter how lonely you may feel, no matter how desperate, no love is worth dying for.