Prologue

Just the start.

Prudence

December 28th, 1992

The room was cold. It wasn't just cold, but the air was stale. Clean and stale, something that itched your nose the wrong way. Boring could also be another word to describe this place of solitary. The walls a blank canvas, only two chairs and a table.

With only the clothes I had on my back when I came in here; a thin sweater and sweats, the air cut through the material very well and I shook in my seat. Whether I shook because of the interrogation or the fact I was cold, I had yet to decide.

The woman across from me sat with her hands folded neatly together. Wrinkles layered her face and the first thing I thought was ‘If she didn't have those coated on there, she'd be pretty.’ It was years of wear and tear of this job, interrogating crooks, that ruined her I suspected.

I bet a man was questioning Oliver by this point. He probably sat back in the chair, unfazed, not worried about anything. Oliver had that type of demeanor. He was rare when it came to the attitude he gave off and that's what I fell in love with.

We got caught. Only one year spent full of crimes and robberies and avoiding the police, we finally got arrested three years after. I was only lining twenty one, Oliver twenty three. Our lives barely beginning.

"Prudence, you know I have to know everything."

I nodded. I had seen the TV shows, although those were fake, I had an idea of how questioning worked.

"Well, if you know, then why won't you talk?"

With a shaky breath and a second of getting my s**t together, I finally say, "What do you want to know?"

"Why did you stick with him all those years?" she asks, pen in hand. Ready to write everything down. "If he was so insane, why did you continue to be with him?"

I had forgotten the things I shouted out after the arrest " blaming everything on Oliver’s mentality.

"Isn't it obvious? You put love first. Everyone always does. I always do. I'm in love with him."

"I heard you broke up for a year?"

"No," I shook my head. “It was a harder time between us; constant fighting and all, but we never once broke up. It was nothing. Who told you that?"

"Your step mom,"

"She knows nothing,"

"She knows that you threw your entire life away to be with a convict." the lady states. Funny thing was, she put down everything that was my life and I didn't even know her name.

I pursed my lips. The tears had stopped hours ago, but I felt the urge again. This was all a mess. When I was sixteen, I never would've suspected this was how my life was going to be. I was going to be in college by now.

"He wasn't a convict when I met him..." I whispered.

"You barely graduated, you didn't put yourself through college. You pursued a life of crime and drugs with this man. A man who refused to get married or have children, which you wanted dearly."

"If you could refrain from putting him down along with the rest my life, that'd be great."

"Prudence, tell me everything."

"Tell you what?" I asked. Stupid question. She wanted to know about the robberies, the crimes.

"The entire story. Why did you stay with him?”

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