Be Mine, Always

chapter twenty four

Xander’s POV~ Two Months Ago

        “Xander, it’s your time buddy,” the guard outside my cell said. 

        My chest swelled as I stood up from my desk in my tiny cell, a stack of envelopes in one hand. It was the day I had been waiting for for six years. I spent the last three and a half years making sure the other inmates were afraid of me. I made friends with the guards and during my free time I worked out. There isn’t much to do in a cell except to stare at the wall or do push ups. 

        I was no longer the scrawny seventeen year old boy who was sentenced to three years in prison for a crime I didn’t commit. I was a twenty three year old man who spent six years in prison, no matter the fact I was never guilty. 

        I followed the guard out and he gave me a change of clothes, and it took hours to fill out release forms. A few of the staff looked wary of me. They had been skittish ever since the FBI agents showed up three years ago. They knew I held power, I knew how they ran this place and I had connections. Connections that could ruin them. 

        Marty, the security guard, stood by the door and grinned as I stood in the doorway, looking out. Once I crossed that threshold I would be free. “What are goin’ to do first, my boy?” He asked, thumbs hooked into the belt loops of his pants.

        “I’m going to find her,” I replied without hesitation. I had waited three and a half years for this. There was nothing stopping me now. 

        “Ah, the young girl who used to see you. Whatever happened to her?” He tilted his head to the side, thoughtfully. 

        My jaw clenched at the crisp white letter on top of the others, feeling rough unlike the others, smooth with time. “She couldn’t wait anymore.” 

        Marty nodded and clapped me on the back. “Happens to a lot of the boys in here, their girls can’t deal. Especially if they get an extra sentence.” He sighed and rubbed the back of his neck. “It's probably best if you move on, Xander,” he said. How many men had he said the same thing to?

        I shook my head and took one step forward, turning to meet his eye. “She’s mine, Marty. I’ll make her remember that.” 

        Without waiting for a reply, I set off to find my girl. 

        It shouldn’t have come as a shock, but somehow it did. It didn’t take long to find her, she still lived in the same town I grew up in except she lived in a trailer park and not a suburb. She looked different, her curves were more womanly. Her breasts had filled out, her thighs had taken on a thicker shape, and her hips flared ever so slightly. That wasn’t the shock. I expected her to look a bit different, we were after all children when I was sentenced. 

        However, the boy on her arm was a shock. He was scrawny but tall with a riotous head full of red curls. He was lean but not muscular, he looked decent enough, he wore slacks and a collared shirt and he was smooth shaven. My gut churned as I saw him approach Melody and wrap her up in a tight hug. 

        The smile she gave him was radiant and she looked content. They were meeting for lunch it seemed and even though from the looks of it one could assume they were just friends, I heard from a few people around town they were dating. 

        Melody moved on. 

        It shouldn’t have come as a surprise, really, it had been three fucking years, why wouldn’t she have moved on? But it boiled my blood to see her with another male. Someone who wasn’t fucking me. For years I had thought about her, I never seriously considered she’d be with someone else. Every time I pictured our reunion she was happy to see me, she had spent years heartbroken and pining after me and what we had, just like me.