Letters From Cages

Later on that day, after the sentencing, I opened up the door to our apartment and stepped in slowly. It felt so empty, so ominous, so… awful. I kept the lights off for a brief moment before reaching out to the right of me to flip them on. Our cat, Kyle, approached me and interweaved himself through my legs as I stood. I leaned down and picked him up and rested my chin against the top of his head while looking forward at our gloomily lit small one bedroom apartment that we both used to love and call home.

My phone rang suddenly, causing me to jump. I put Kyle down, fixed my paisley dress and walked towards it to pick it up.

“Hello?” I asked. There was a pause on the other line.

“They said I could have one call, how cliché,” Carter said.

I took a deep breath.

“Carter,” I said quietly, almost inaudibly. Silence filled the other line again before I heard Carter clear his throat and let out an exhausted sigh.

“Please,” He began. “Please, Gwen, you know I didn’t do it right?”



I remember showing up to my school, the Friday after meeting Carter for the first time feeling discomfited and quite embarrassed from the day previous. As I walked towards my first class of the day, Biology, I saw him. He was standing in front of his locker, with about 4 books balanced in one hand while his other hand was holding his own locker open.

I instantly put my head down as I passed, but had no luck when I heard the loud multiple bangs of books dropping on the floor. One of the books skidded and slid right to my feet. I bent down to pick it up and uncouthly stood as Carter grabbed the rest of his books and threw them in his locker exasperatingly and then walked over to me.

“Thanks,” He muttered while grabbing the book from my hand. “This will the last time I ever take two extra classes. What a joke.”

“You’re welcome,” I replied quietly and then looked back up at him. He awkwardly shifted on his feet and I had the sudden urge to speak, mainly because I didn’t want him to walk away. I wanted him to notice me more than the girl who delivered his groceries and picked up books he dropped on the floor. So as he was turning to walk away, the only thing I could think of was to introduce myself. “I’m Gwenith Hewlett,” I almost shouted. Carter turned his head around and a small smile grew at the corner of his lips. “From Wednesday, at your house,” I added.

“Yes, I know, I remember you,” He replied and paused. “Well... goodbye then.”

He turned back to his locker to put the last book in and closed it while I still stood there like some idiot. I didn’t want to move, I still wanted to bask in the glimpse of hope that maybe he’d still be interested in talking to me. But as he looked at me one last time, nodded and began to walk away, I realized that that just wasn’t going to be possible. I sighed, feeling defeated and walked away myself only to hear him call out my name.

“Gwen!” He shouted. I almost flinched at the automatic shortening he did of my name. My mother was the only one to call me Gwen. I turned around to see him walking towards me and my stomach felt like it was expanding and shrinking with every step he made. I didn’t understand this feeling, but I wasn’t about to just let it go.

“Yes?” I asked back.

“Would you like to do something after school?” He asked. I smiled but my shoulders quickly dropped.

“I have work,” I replied. “I’m sorry. I’d skip it if I hadn’t just started two days ago, and I promised my grandmother that I would work there and I don’t enjoy breaking promises to people, especially her and I’d just feel inappropriate calling into Percy and already telling him that I-”

“Cool, I’ll just order a watermelon from the store then, see you after school,” He interrupted and then walked off again, leaving me feeling once again completely staggered.

I arrived at Carter’s house later on that afternoon, while the sun was in mid-sky, with a slight smile on my face while holding the biggest watermelon we seemed to have in the store. I knocked on the door and Carter swung it open and grinned, and I almost dropped the watermelon out of nervousness.

“I asked Percy to have the largest watermelon delivered,” Carter remarked while letting me inside.

“Why a watermelon?” I asked. I was expecting Carter to lead me to the kitchen but instead he kept walking toward huge double doors at the back of the house with large olive colored curtains adorning them. He reached forward to grasp the handles to open the doors and I almost gasped at the sight that they opened to.

“My mom likes to plant… everything,” He stated as I looked around to see an amazing awestriking gigantic garden of colors, essentially. His backyard was basically a landscaper’s dream. It had plants of all kinds, bushes shaped into twirled masterpieces and flowers blooming everywhere, with paths of cobblestone and a small pond with lilypads off to the side. I felt like I was in some sort of fairy land. “It literally smells like every single flower imaginable out here, kind of overwhelming.”

“No, it’s not at all,” I replied. “It’s honestly beautiful.”

“Yeah, well,” He replied and grabbed the watermelon from my arms. “It’s what my mom works on when she’s not working on her patients. She has a broad range of interests, I guess.”

He began walking and I followed him. I tripped on nothing and lunged forward a bit, but he didn't notice.

“So you never answered my question,” I said. “Why did you want a watermelon?”

“Well, you see,” He replied and finally stopped at a bench that was surrounded by a bunch of daisies and sat down on it. I hesitantly did the same. “It’s actually a nice day out, which rarely happens in Oregon, actually it never happens in Oregon and watermelons just remind me of a summer day. This whole backyard reminds me of a summer day, like in California or something. I’ve always wanted to sit in the sun, and eat a watermelon in this backyard and today seemed like a good day to do it. And I didn’t want to do it alone, I suppose.”

“But I have to get back to Freigle’s Grocery in about fifteen minutes,” I remarked.

“Well,” Carter replied and then grabbed a knife from his back pocket that I didn’t even notice was there. He sawed the knife into the watermelon until it was deep enough where he could just pull the two pieces apart with his hands. “I guess we’ll just make the best of these fifteen minutes then, won’t we?”



I sat down on top of my counter and played with the curly-cue phone wire between my fingers. I didn’t respond to Carter’s question, instead I stayed quiet. I wasn’t going to lie and tell him that I believed he didn’t kill Daniel Cody when I wasn’t even sure what I believed. So many things were running through my mind about absolutely everything, and I couldn't put them all together at once, so I just stayed quiet.

“Alright, I guess I deserve this awful silence,” Carter muttered. “Listen, Gwen, I can’t call a lot, and I know you’re not going to want to drive 5 hours to see me every time you want to visit, so... I’m going to write you every day. Every single day. If not every day then as much as I can. I promise you. It’s so scary in here, Gwen, I need you. Please let me write.”

“Will that even make a difference, Carter?” I replied. “Will anything make a difference? What am I supposed to do now?”

There was a long pause on the other line that seemed to last forever, I almost checked to see if we got disconnected until I heard Carter’s deep voice speak up on the other line.

“Stay with me?” He asked.

And right after he spoke those words, a tear fell down my face and I hung up.