Chapter 7 - THE PRISON VISIT
~1,100 words
The visiting room at Rikers Island smelled of floor wax, industrial disinfectant, and trapped despair.
Through the thick, scratched Plexiglas partition, the harsh fluorescent lights bounced off the institutional green walls, casting a sickly green pallor over everything in the room.
I sat in the metal chair on the visitor’s side, my hands resting calmly on the laminate table.
A heavy metal door at the back of the secure enclosure clicked open, and two guards escorted Garrett Sterling into the room.
He looked unrecognizable. The immaculate blonde hair was unwashed and messy; the custom Brioni suit had been replaced by a coarse orange jumpsuit that hung loosely over his shoulders. His eyes were bloodshot, dark circles carved deep beneath them from sleepless nights on a steel cot.
When he saw me sitting on the other side of the glass, he froze for a second, then hurried forward with desperate, shuffling steps.
He grabbed the black plastic telephone handset mounted to the wall, and I slowly picked up mine.
“Chloe!” Garrett gasped, his voice cracking through the tiny speaker with frantic urgency. “Chloe, thank God! Thank God you came!”
I didn't smile. I didn't frown. I simply looked at him through the scuffed Plexiglas.
“Garrett,” I said, my voice coming through his earpiece, calm and completely detached.
“Listen to me—please, Chloe, you have to drop the charges,” Garrett pleaded, pressing his palm flat against the glass as if he could reach through it. “My lawyer says if you cooperate with the district attorney, we can plead it down to a misdemeanor reckless endangerment. We can go away—leave the city, start over somewhere new. Just... drop the foreclosure proceedings on the hotel. It’s my family’s legacy!”
“Your family’s legacy,” I repeated quietly. “Is that what you call a lifetime of financial bullying and corporate extortion?”
Garrett’s expression twisted from desperate pleading into sudden, jagged anger.
“You tricked me!” he shouted, the sound muffled slightly by the glass. “You let me believe you were nobody! You watched me stress over the loans, you watched me try to save the company, and all the while you were just waiting to stick a knife in my back!”
“I didn't trick you, Garrett,” I said, my tone remaining entirely level. “You spent six months talking about your status, your money, your pedigree, and your superiority over everyone around you. You never once asked me who I was, what I cared about, or what my family did. You were so blinded by your own arrogance that you couldn't see the ground you were standing on.”
Garrett gripped the handset so tightly his knuckles turned white.
“Your father destroyed my entire life!” he hissed, spittle hitting the glass. “He ruined my mother, he foreclosed on our home, and he put me in a cage!”
“No, Garrett,” I corrected gently. “Your mother blinded me with industrial disinfectant while you held my shoulders down so I couldn't escape. My father just made sure you finally had to pay the bill for what you did.”
He stared at me through the glass, his chest heaving as the crushing reality of his situation finally settled deep into his bones. The anger drained out of him as quickly as it had arrived, leaving behind a pathetic, broken shell of the man who had once stood at the head of a Manhattan boardroom.
“Are we... are we still married?” he whispered, his voice trembling on the edge of tears.
I reached into my handbag, pulled out a thick, legal envelope, and pressed it flat against the inside of the glass partition so he could read the bold black letters printed across the front.
PETITION FOR ANNULMENT AND DISSOLUTION OF MARRIAGE ON THE GROUNDS OF FRAUD AND FELONY ASSAULT.
“My attorney filed the papers this morning,” I said softly. “By the time your criminal trial begins next month, you won't be my husband anymore, Garrett. You’ll just be another inmate.”
He stared at the paper through the scratched plastic, his lips parting in silent horror.
“Please, Chloe...” he choked out, a tear finally cutting a clean track down his dusty cheek. “Don't do this. I’m sorry. I was stupid. I was weak.”
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“You weren't weak, Garrett,” I said, laying the phone down slowly onto its cradle. “You were cruel. And cruelty always has a price.”
I stood up, smoothed the front of my dress, and turned away from the booth without looking back.
