“What? Move on?No.”
“This is humiliating,” he seethed. “I hate you seeing me like this. I can’t fucking stand it, Shiloh. If I have to do this for ten years… Ifyouhave to do this shit for ten years… Metal detectors and collect calls and two-hour drives for thirty-minute visits…” He shook his head gravely. “I won’t do that to you. I can’t.”
“You can’t just…cut me off,” I said, disbelieving. “Youcan’t.”
“I have to,” Ronan said, his voice thick. “For your safety. They’ll keep going. Harassing you. I made it worse. I brought this to you.”
“No, Ronan.”
“Promise me, Shiloh. Promise me you’ll live your life. Don’t wait for me.”
“No, I’m not going to promise that. I can’t.”
“You have to.” He swallowed hard. “I’m letting you go, Shiloh. You have to let me go too.”
I stared, agony clawing at my heart. “No.No.I will not let you do this. I willnot…”
Right before my eyes, the love fell out of Ronan’s expression. Turned ice-cold. Stony. His gaze flattened; his tone emptied of humanity. “I did it. I beat up Frankie. I wanted to kill him for messing up your shop.”
I sat back, pushed by the sudden danger emanating from him. “You’re lying.”
“I’m going to take the plea deal.”
“No. You can’t. You’re just saying this to push me away. It won’t work.”
He rubbed his bruised knuckles as if drawing my attention to them. “I couldn’t protect my mother, Shiloh. I can protect you.” He tilted his chin up, the dead tone in his voice sending shivers down my spine. “Frankie won’t bother you again.”
“Ronan…”
A CO stopped behind him. “Time’s up, Wentz.”
“No, not yet,” I said, panic rising in me.
This cannot be how it ends. It cannot.
“Time’s up, Shiloh,” Ronan said gruffly, the emotion he’d been trying to hide seeping through the cracks. “End of the road.”
Quickly, he looked away and let himself be taken from me.
I sat, stunned and unable to move, a sick, heavy feeling settling over my chest—years of being without Ronan, pressing me down.
“No.”
It was a tiny whisper, lost in the muted conversations of the county jail visitors’ center that faded away to nothing.
***
The next day, I sat in a Santa Cruz Superior Courtroom, wedged between Bibi and Maryann Greer—one of Ronan’s tenants. They squeezed my hands, held me up as Ronan entered a plea of guilty. The judge’s words would jolt me from sleep in a cold sweat for a hundred nights after.
“Ronan August Wentz, for felony aggravated battery resulting in great physical injury and injuring with intent to cause grievous bodily harm, you are hereby sentenced to ten years at San Quentin State Prison.”
It was so simple. Over so quickly. With one slam of the gavel, the judge snatched ten years from Ronan’s life and ruined mine. Before I could even begin to process it, a guard was walking him out.
Ronan looked back at me, and for a split second, the hard exterior he’d shown me in the jail cracked. His eyes revealed everything—the agony in their smoky depths.
They said goodbye.
Someone let out a sob, and I realized it was me.