Letters From Cages

I got letters from Carter almost three times a week, none of which I opened. I’d just receive them in my mailbox, take them, and put them under my mattress. For some reason it felt sort of oddly good to just stuff them in there and sleep on them, it made me feel like I had control over at least one thing that was going on..

So, as I was laying on my bed, on top of those letters, staring up at my ceiling, the telephone rang again. I slowly slipped off of the now too-large bed and walked to the living room to pick it up.

“Hello?” I asked into it.

“How are you, Gwenith?” I heard my father’s voice on the other line speak. I cautiously smiled into the phone although he obviously couldn’t see me.

“I’m getting by, Dad,” I replied. “How are you and Grandmother Lyba?” I reached behind me and grabbed the edge of the counter and lifted myself up to sit on it. It reminded me of Carter and how he always felt the need to sit on counters.

“I think you should come home,” My father said quietly. “I mean, I understand how you and Carter thought moving into that apartment would be the best for you, but now… well, now under the circumstances, I just don’t think you living by yourself will be a good idea. Maybe you can come back and enroll back into college and just get your life together.”

At that moment, I wish I could have had some stubbornness instilled in me, but I had none, because I knew that he was right. I needed to get out of this apartment with his stuff sprawled out and where his scent still lingered. So I told my father that I’d begin packing tonight and I’d be out of here by tomorrow morning, although I wasn’t too sure that going back to the town where Carter and I shared so many memories was such a good idea either.



I remember the weeks after Carter and I ate watermelon in his mother’s garden. We were inseparable. I’d come over almost every day after school, when I didn’t have work and even when I did. I had only met his father once after that incident where I walked in on them arguing, and I couldn’t say that his father was too pleased with me taking up his son’s time. Carter had a “bright future” full of “promise” and “opportunities” and Mr. Wright didn’t want anything getting in the way of that. Carter’s father told him that if he wanted to continue to see me, he’d have to follow through with that internship.

“You know you don’t have to do that,” I told Carter as we were walking around his neighbordhood full of houses the size of small countries. “Honestly, we can always see each other at school. I understand how much you don’t want to take that internship.”

Carter turned to me and laughed.

“Are you kidding? Of course I’m going to take the internship. And that’s that,” He said and then swung his arm around me as we walked along. I smiled at him. I didn’t quite know what he saw in me or why I was special enough for him to endure an internship that he didn’t enjoy and a father down his throat, but I was, and I was elated.

Things continued on smoothly after that, Carter would attend his internship and keep his grades up and we had almost all the freedom we wanted when it came to spending time with one another. My father didn’t really mind, he was actually excited that I was getting acquainted with the new town and making friends. My grandma Lyba didn’t talk to me much, but when Carter would walk up to the door, she’d stare at him as if he was the devil. One night she pulled me aside before I was going to see a movie with him, and signaled for me to look at her more closely. I awkwardly moved my head closer to hers.

“The nice ones are always the ones you have to look out for,” She said and then nodded her head at me signaling she was finished. I looked at her, bewildered, and walked out the door.

I ignored that statement and continued spending all of my time with Carter. One night in particular while I was up in my room, I heard loud tapping on my window, and I looked out to see a blackened figure standing there. At first I had the urge to scream violently, until I realized it was him. I stepped inside and let him in and he stood there, smiling.

“You realize it’s about two in the morning and we have school in…” I checked my clock on the wall. “Oh, about five and a half hours.” I said. Carter wrapped his arms around me and buried his face in the crook of my neck.

“I don’t care,” He jumbled while tracing kiss after kiss against my neck. “I want to show you something.”

“Show me what?” I asked. Carter leaned back to look at me and then leaned forward again to kiss me gently. This was only the second time he had kissed me since a few days before when we were in his mother’s garden. It still felt foreign, and new, and exciting.

When he pulled away, he looked me in the eyes, and grabbed my hand, leading me out of my first story window and away from my house.

We arrived at a darkened dirt road in Carter’s car and pulled forward in front of an old looking gate. Carter beeped his horn twice and the gate gradually opened. Carter pulled in and his headlights shined on a mass of abandoned and scattered car parts.

“You’re taking me to a junk yard?” I asked skeptically while looking around, the moon was casting off an eerie blue tint in the coloring the sky and I just felt in the pit of my stomach like this place wasn’t a good place to be, but if it wasn’t, why would Carter take me here?

“Yes and no, I want you to meet some really cool people,” Carter replied.

“And you couldn’t do this when it wasn't two in the morning…” I retorted. Carter stopped the car, pulled the keys out of the ignition and flashed his smile, and right then I realized that he had a small dimple right below the corner of his lip.

“Nope,” He responded and got out of the car. He ran across the front and opened my door and I hesitantly got out and hugged my jacket closer to my body. Carter grabbed my hand and led me to a lit garage looking building in the middle of the junkyard and the closer we got to it, I noticed about three men sitting at a table, one had a carburetor in his hand and was assembling it.

“Hey guys, this is Gwenith,” Carter stated. All the guys looked up and smiled and I felt a sign of relief because they honestly did look friendly. One was bald and round, with a large and very defining reddish mustache that folded down to his chin in an upside down U formation. The other was a little bit younger, with copper hair and bright green eyes and crooked teeth. The other on the far right seemed to be about our age, if not a few years older. He was very good looking, and charismatic even just by sitting there. He had long dirty blonde hair that he swept back messily with his fingers and hazelnut eyes that were large and lazy.

“So this is the girl we’ve been hearing about!” The bald headed man said. He stood up and grabbed my hand and I politely smiled. “Welcome to my humble abode. I’m Charlie.”

“Hi, Charlie,” I replied. Charlie laughed a jolly laugh that seemed perfectly fitting for him and I looked over at Carter who looked honestly ecstatic that this whole thing was happening. I had no idea why.

“I’m Marco,” The copper haired boy said and reached out to shake my hand. I shook it back, “And that’s Jerry.” He stated while pointing down at the good looking blonde boy who was still seated. Jerry nodded his head with a faint smile on his face, and I realized I’d be the most uncomfortable around him.

“I met these guys down at the auto shop when I was getting my car fixed,” Carter explained. “When I can’t sleep or when I need to get out of the house, I come on over here and play poker with them or tune up cars."

“Or smash shit,” Marco stated. Carter laughed and nodded.

“That too,” He remarked.

I had never seen Carter so infatuated with any certain people since I had known him, and I honestly was beginning to think that there was something more to this group’s relationship than playing poker and tuning up cars.



“Does Carter know you’ve moved back in with us?” My father asked at the kitchen table the night I moved back in. I was picking at the spaghetti on my plate and looked up to meet my father’s face. He seemed to have aged a bit since I moved out of the house, but then again, the night I moved out wasn’t very pleasant. But he had forgiven me in time and I was thankful for it. Love truly can blind a person from everyone else’s feelings but theirs and their lover’s.

My dad ran his fingers through his thinning light brown almost gray hair and his green eyes that matched mine and even my mother’s looked at me, waiting for my answer. My grandmother said nothing.

“No, he doesn’t know,” I replied.

“Are you planning on telling him?” He asked back. I dropped my fork on my plate, causing a clinking sound and looked up at my dad and over to my grandmother who never spoke to me.

“I’m going to go to my room and finish unpacking,” I said while standing up. I walked forward and kissed my dad on the top of his head and just nodded at my grandmother before walking across the house and down the hallway to my old room. As I opened the door and saw my bed and saw the window that Carter used to sneak in, I felt a pang in my heart, and I knew that there will always be something missing no matter where I go. And that will be him.