I sat slumped in a chair, staring at the food that had gone cold, at the birthday cake beside it.
The clock hand kept ticking. I was waiting for someone. Waiting for him to come home.
Until the sky turned a pale, sickly gray. Until something inside me dried up and died. Only then did I finally hear the lock turn.
The dream ended.
I came to slowly. Above me was a familiar bedroom ceiling, not the dim concrete of a prison cell.
It took a moment to register. I was out.
I was free.
Everything in that dream had actually happened.
That had been the last birthday I ever celebrated for Mason before I went to prison.
The last birthday I'd ever celebrate in my life.
I still remembered the gift I'd given him that year. It was the very thing that pushed me into the abyss.
I dragged my stiff legs off the bed and stood.
The living room was empty. I walked to the couch and pressed my hand against it. It still held a trace of warmth.
I stared blankly out the window at the open sky. Seven years locked away had severed every thread connecting me to the world outside.
Loneliness wrapped around me like a fist, squeezing until I couldn't breathe.