Chapter 5: The Jailhouse Visit
The drive to the county lockup was made in near silence, the weight of the interrupted moment in the garage still pressing between them in the cab of Jeremy’s truck. He drove with one hand on the wheel, the other rubbing his temple. The radio was off.
“You don’t have to come in,” he said, not for the first time. His voice was gravelly.
“I know,” she said, staring out at the sleeping town. The streetlights painted everything in orange intervals of light and shadow.
“It’s not a nice place.”
“I’m not a nice girl,” she replied, the old defense mechanism clicking into place. He glanced at her, a ghost of a smile touching his mouth before it vanished.
The sheriff’s department was a squat, brick building with fluorescent lights burning relentlessly behind blinds. A buzzer let them into a lobby that smelled of industrial cleaner and stale coffee. A bored-looking deputy at the desk nodded Jeremy toward a heavy door. “He’s in the visitor tank. Fifteen minutes.”
They were led down a short, echoey corridor to a room divided by a thick plexiglass window, scratched and cloudy. A row of black phones was mounted on either side. Jeremy pointed Alana to a plastic chair in the corner. “Just… stay there. Please.”
She sat, folding her hands in her lap, feeling like an intruder. A door clicked open on the other side of the glass, and Mikey shuffled in, wearing an orange jumpsuit that swallowed his lanky frame. He was younger than Jeremy by four years but looked harder, his face pale and pinched, his eyes darting and bloodshot. He slumped into the seat opposite Jeremy and picked up the phone.
Jeremy did the same. Alana could hear the low rumble of his voice, but not the words. His body was a tense line of frustration and concern. He listened, his head dipping, then he spoke sharply, his free hand gesturing in a cutting motion. Stop. Enough.
Mikey’s shoulders hunched. He argued back, his face contorting. Then his gaze, wandering the room in defeat, landed on Alana in the corner. He froze. His eyes widened, then narrowed in a look of pure, startling recognition. A slow, ugly smirk spread across his face. He said something into the phone, his eyes locked on her.
Jeremy’s head snapped around to look at her, then back at Mikey. His knuckles went white around the phone receiver. He spoke, low and fierce.
Mikey just kept smirking. He raised his voice, just enough for it to carry faintly through the glass. “No, I see her! That’s her, right? The redhead from your phone?” He leaned into the glass, his breath fogging it. “You’re the one who got away.”
Alana felt the words like a physical touch, unsettling and intimate.
Jeremy was on his feet, his chair scraping loudly. A deputy by the door took a step forward. Jeremy sat back down, slowly, his expression thunderous. He spoke into the phone again, his voice a barely-controlled vibration Alana could feel from six feet away.
Mikey leaned back, chastised, but the smirk didn’t fully disappear. He shot Alana one last look—a mix of curiosity and a strange, grudging respect—before his expression crumpled back into sullen exhaustion. The rest of the visit passed in muted, grim conversation. When the deputy signaled time, Mikey hung up the phone without looking at his brother and was led away.
Jeremy sat for a moment, the dead phone still to his ear. He carefully placed it back in its cradle. The action was precise, like screwing a cap back on a grenade. He stood, walked to Alana, and just jerked his head toward the door. “Let’s go.”
The air outside was cool and clean, a relief after the sterile staleness inside. They climbed into the truck. Jeremy gripped the steering wheel, staring straight ahead at the brick wall. The engine turned over.
“He’s an idiot,” Jeremy finally said, his voice tight. “A talented, self-destructive idiot.”
“He looks up to you,” Alana said quietly.
Jeremy let out a harsh breath that wasn’t a laugh. “Yeah. Worst role model ever.” He put the truck in gear. “What he said… in there…”
“Forget it.”
“I can’t.” The words were ripped out of him. He pulled out of the lot, but instead of turning toward town, he took a left onto the old service road that led to the river overlook. It was a dead end, a gravel pull-off where kids went to drink and couples went to be alone. The town lights glittered faintly in the distance below.
He parked and killed the lights. The darkness was immense, broken only by the glow of the dashboard and the pinpricks of stars between racing clouds.
“He wasn’t lying,” Jeremy said, not looking at her. “I never shut up about you. It drove him crazy. Drove everyone crazy. For years. It was pathetic.” He finally turned his head. In the dim light, his eyes were black pools, full of a pain so raw it stripped her breath away. “You asked for proof. That’s the proof. A jealous, screwed-up kid in a jail jumpsuit who’s listened to me talk about the same woman since he was a teenager.”
Alana couldn’t move. She could only hold his gaze, feeling the last of her carefully constructed walls crumble into dust, leaving nothing but a raw, trembling vulnerability.
He saw it. He saw the surrender. With a soft, ragged sound, he unbuckled his seatbelt and hers in one fluid motion. His hands came up, cradling her face, his thumbs brushing her cheekbones. There was no hesitation, no gentle questioning. His mouth found hers in the dark.
It was nothing like the careful kiss from the wedding. This was five years of regret, of fury, of longing, distilled into a single, furious connection. It was heat and demand and a desperate, aching apology. His lips were insistent, his tongue tracing the seam of her mouth until she opened for him with a gasp. The taste of him—coffee and mint and him—flooded her senses. One of his hands slid into her hair, tangling in the red waves, angling her head to deepen the kiss. The other arm wrapped around her waist, pulling her halfway across the console, the gearshift digging into her side. She didn’t care.
She kissed him back with equal fervor, her hands fisting in his shirt, pulling him closer. Every rational thought, every warning bell, was drowned out by the roar of blood in her ears and the sheer, shocking rightness of his mouth on hers. This was the Jeremy she remembered—the one who took, who consumed—but it was different now. The hunger was tempered by a devastating tenderness, a reverence in the way his fingers trembled against her scalp.
When they finally broke apart, they were both breathing like they’d run a marathon. Foreheads touching, sharing the same charged air.
“I love you,” he whispered, the words a warm vibration against her lips. “I never stopped. Not for one single day. I don’t expect you to say it back. I just need you to know it. It’s the truest thing about me.”
Alana pulled back, just enough to see his face. Her heart was a wild, wounded thing in her chest. She touched his jaw, rough with stubble, tracing the line of it as if memorizing him. The words were there, a parallel truth in her own throat. I never stopped either.
But they stuck, held back by the ghost of the girl he’d broken, who was still huddled inside her.
“I believe you,” she said, her voice unsteady. “And it terrifies me.”
She saw the hope in his eyes flicker, but he didn’t push. He just nodded, absorbing the blow.
“I need to think,” she said. “I need… air. And not this kind.” She gestured at the enclosed cab, thick with the aftermath of their kiss.
“Okay.” He released her slowly, helping her back into her seat. He restarted the truck, but left it in park. The headlights stayed off. They sat in the dark, watching the eastern horizon begin to soften from black to a deep, bruised blue.
The night was over. A new day was coming, whether they were ready for it or not.