I guess hoping they’d forget about the unpaid balance was too much to ask.
My chewing slowed as I fixated on a different, unassuming and unfamiliar envelope that caught my attention. Hadn’t I seen one of these before?
Holding the peanut butter toast between my teeth, I brushed the crumbs off my hands and snatched the envelope from underneath.
It couldn’t be…
My eyes widened slightly as I traced the scrawled lines on the front before flicking to the printed text in the top corner.
Blackwood Correctional Facility
Georgia
Well, fuck me sideways. I didn’t think he’d write back.
Surprisingly enough, I detected a faint flutter of excitement inside me. Was receiving a letter from a convicted felon really the most exciting thing to happen to me all week?
Probably.
Good thing there was no one around to judge me, because I tore into the envelope like a toddler with zero fine motor skills on Christmas morning.
Realizing what I was doing, I slowed my movements deliberately and placed the open envelope on the counter.
Finish eating first, then you can read the letter.
I’d probably forget to eat again otherwise. Munching on the rest of my snack — I couldn’t really call it a meal — I stared at the letter, sitting innocently on the counter.
What would I find inside?
My pen pal had been randomly assigned to me, and all I’d received in advance was the most basic information.From his profile, I knew he was twenty-eight, serving a life sentence, and of Russian descent, but I had no idea what he actually looked like. It didn’t matter to me, of course, but I was a Nosy Nancy.
Who was I kidding? I absolutely wanted to fucking know what he looked like.
Carefully, I picked up the envelope and held it in my hands, trying to demonstrate some kind of restraint.
His name sounded kind of hot.
Sasha.
Very moanable.
Of course, I’d never dream of moaning his name — the idea alone was ridiculous.
Good lord, the intrusive thoughts were getting out of hand.
What if he’s as hot as his name?The pesky voice inside my head piped up. I hadn’t Googled him — yet. As weird as it may have sounded, I wanted to think of him as a person first and foremost, rather than the perpetrator of the crime he would be inevitably linked to by Googling him.
I groaned and shook my head as if to clear my thoughts. The last thing I needed in my dumpster fire of a life was getting the hots for aconvicted felon.
And yet … the flutter of excitement wouldn’t piss off.
I set the letter down again. Maybe itwasn’ta good idea to open it after all. Community service or not, perhaps I was the wrong kind of person for this kind of thing.
But I doubted Judge Thompson would care about how I felt. He assigned me this specific service because, as he put it, if I liked writing so much, I could at least put it to good use.
I stared at the envelope for a minute, biting the inside of my cheek. It stared back.
I picked it up, only to immediately set it back down again like it had burned me.