Hollywood Lied

Chapter 17: Marjorie & Orion

It had been a solid year since I was sentenced. Halfway there I thought.

Marjorie popped by one Sunday afternoon, and she wasn’t alone. In her arms was a grey‑and‑white tabby cat, blinking slow and sweet like it owned the place. How she managed to get a cat past prison security was beyond me—either the guards were asleep at the wheel, or she’d charmed the hell out of them. Probably the latter.

But I wasn’t about to complain. Not when I got to see her—my beautiful, soon‑to‑be wife. Every time she walked through those gates, some part of me believed in the future again.

I could finally imagine growing old with her. Maybe even raising a child or two. I’d always held onto the thought of a son named Jacob, or a daughter named Emily. The names lived in my head long before I earned the right to hope for them.

And our kids? They’d be stunning. I could already picture it—her hazel eyes shining through them, mixed with my stubborn streak and that relentless curiosity I was never able to turn off.

For a moment, with that little tabby purring in her arms, it felt like the world outside was finally finding its way in.

“I named him Orion,” she giggled, eyes sparkling with mischief and warmth.

“What a beautiful name,” I whispered, leaning in to press my nose against hers in a soft eskimo kiss, letting the small, quiet moment stretch between us like it could last forever.

“I have to go soon,” she murmured, reminding me of the wall between our worlds—of the clock constantly ticking above us, slicing our time into thin, cruel portions. A part of me wanted to stand up, shove past the guards, and demand more minutes with her. But that was just fantasy… a desperate, impossible wish.

So I swallowed it and held her close, kissing her one last time before the moment slipped away.

“I love you forever,” I whispered into her ear.

“Forever ever?” she breathed back, soft as a secret.

“And whatever comes after that,” I managed, a couple of tears escaping despite my best efforts.

The beds in this place were nothing like ours at home. Back there, I could bury my face in the sheets and breathe her in—warm, sweet, familiar. Here, all I could smell was the stale bite of old sweat.

Not exactly the same thing.

I paused, letting the silence stretch for a moment, thinking about what to do next. That’s when Ryland leaned over and offered me a Lucky Strike.

I couldn’t resist—there was something about the crisp, familiar burn of a high‑quality cigarette that called to me. I handed him a dollar for that first one, then—impulse taking over—threw him nineteen more to buy the rest of the pack.

He raised an eyebrow, clearly surprised at how much I smoked. But for me, it wasn’t unusual. It was just second nature. Nothing new.

“How long ya been smoking?” he asked casually, like it was the most ordinary question in the world.

I shrugged and said, “Since 10.”

His eyes practically popped out of his head, wide as dinner plates.

“Holy f**k, man! You must have had one seriously screwed up childhood,” he muttered, shaking his head in disbelief.

“Oh, that’s not even the worst part,” I said, letting out a hollow little laugh that didn’t reach anywhere near my eyes. “I tried heroin at sixteen. I loved the warm feeling spreading through my body.”

I shook my head at the memory, the kind that sits in your bones no matter how far you think you’ve come.

“But I didn’t inject it. I hate needles. So I smoked it instead.”

The laugh that followed was thin and painful, more confession than humor.

“Does your wife smoke it too?” he asked, curiosity slipping into his voice.

“Once,” I said, the memory dragging a dry laugh out of me. “She almost passed out from her first puff.”

“Oh, and we;re not married. Yet,” I corrected him.

“I see… Damn, she a real lightweight then?”

“I guess so,” I chuckled, shaking my head as I brought the cigarette to my lips.

The flame caught, the paper crackled, and I drew in that familiar burn. Out here, in this concrete hellhole, it was one of the very few things keeping me from losing my mind altogether.

“So, what was your life like before you ended up in this shithole?” I asked, rubbing my temples. I didn’t want to pile more stress onto him—Bartooth had already done enough damage to his nerves—so I phrased the question gently, letting it hang there without pressure.

He let out a long, exhausted sigh, the kind that comes from somewhere deep in the ribs, where old memories still bruise.

Then he began to speak.

“Man… everything was different,” he said quietly. “Before all this, I had a job, a real place, people I cared about. Nothing perfect, but… it was mine.”

His gaze drifted toward the far wall as though he could see the past painted there.

“I used to work construction. Hard work, yeah, but honest. Paid the bills, kept me busy, kept me outta trouble. Had a girl too—Marlene. Sweet as honey but sharp enough to keep me in line.”

His jaw tightened; the next part hurt.

“We were planning on moving in together. Then the DUI happened. Lost my license. Lost my job. Lost Marlene.”

He shook his head slowly.

“After that… it all just spiraled. One wrong crowd, one wrong night, one wrong decision. And now here I am.”

He rubbed a hand over his face, suddenly looking older than he was.

“Feels like another life.”

“What was she like?” I asked softly, careful not to prod too deep. The man had already walked through fire—no point in handing him more flames. I might’ve been a mess in plenty of ways, but hurting someone just to watch them bleed wasn’t in my nature.

He drew in a slow breath, eyes lowering as if her memory lived somewhere in the cracks of the floor.

“Marlene…” he murmured, almost tasting the name. “She was… damn, she was something else.”

He gave a faint, bittersweet smile.

“Smart. Real smart. The kind of woman who could fix your mistakes before you even realized you made ’em.” He chuckled under his breath, the sound lined with grief. “She had this way of lookin’ at you like she saw straight through every lie you told yourself… but she loved you anyway.”

His voice thinned, like he was holding back a storm.

“She smelled like vanilla and coffee. I used to tease her about that—told her she smelled like a bakery. She’d just shove me and roll her eyes.”

He paused, swallowing hard.

“I messed it all up. Not her. She deserved better.”

He wiped at his cheek, quick and subtle, pretending it was just an itch.

I leaned a little closer, lowering my voice so it landed gently rather than pressing.

“I hope you know that she loved you deep down,” I told him. “She might not always have admitted it, but she did.”

He froze for a moment, like the words hit somewhere he wasn’t expecting. His jaw trembled—not enough for most people to notice, but enough for someone who’d learned to read pain like a second language.

A long breath escaped him.

“You really think so?” he asked quietly, almost afraid of the answer.

I nodded.

“Yeah. I do.”

He looked away, blinking rapidly, and for the first time since I’d met him, the tough exterior cracked just a little—not from weakness, but from remembering what it felt like to be loved.

“When you aren’t loved, it breaks you down as a person,” I said, letting the truth settle between us. There was no judgment in my voice—just the weight of experience.

“A wise man once said, ‘Only the broken resent the angels for flying.’”

I shrugged slightly. “Don’t ask me who that man was, because I don’t even remember myself. Just know that he said it.”

The line lingered in the stale air, heavier than the cigarette smoke curling above us. It wasn’t poetry for the sake of sounding clever. It was the kind of thing someone only learns after being dragged through the mud long enough to understand why some people stop believing they can ever leave it.

Ryland didn’t speak right away. He just stared ahead, absorbing the words like they were something he’d been needing but never knew how to ask for.

“Good night,” he said suddenly, pulling me out of my thoughts. I hadn’t even realized the light outside had faded—the sky had slipped into darkness without either of us noticing. We must’ve been talking for hours.

“Good night, Ryland,” I replied.

Not long after, the exhaustion caught up to both of us. We slept like logs, the kind of deep, heavy sleep that only comes after spilling more truth than you meant to.

And in my dreams, I saw Marjorie’s wedding dress—soft, shining, perfect. I saw the moment when everything would finally fall into place, when the chaos would quiet and the future would stop feeling like a fantasy.

I couldn’t wait.