Convict

11.

I sighed deep and ran my freehand over the top of my hair, the whole while he told me what happened I observed him. He remained motionless, there was no fidgeting and no pause, no break in his story, I could see the agony on his face as he recited it to me.

"I believe you" I whispered

He looked up at me as soon as I said this "you do?"

I nodded "Your story isn't too fluent, you don't fidget, you didn't pause too many times... You already said yourself I have that diploma"

"I wish they had you during all the interviews, the court summons... Everything. They had it in for me the second they found my prints. I had no hope as soon as they had that on me" He sighed, I watched as a tear fell down his cheek.

I felt my heart ache for him, I took his face in my hand and made him look at me again "I wish I could stop this"

"I've come to terms with it" He shrugged "I mean; I have accepted the fact that it's going to happen"

I felt a tear roll down my own face as he said this "But you shouldn't have to. You shouldn't be here at all"

He laughed softly and wiped the tear off my cheek "But like you said, all things happen for a reason. If I wasn't here we would never have met. I would never be able to do this"

He leant forward and kissed me, electricity surged through my body once more. I kissed him back before pulling away and looked at his face, he rest his forehead on mine and sighed deep "How I wish things were different"

He seemed to say this more to himself rather than to me, he brought his hands to cup my face and looked at me "You are so amazing, so beautiful and if I had my way..." He trailed off

"Don't" I held a finger to his lips "Everything happens for a reason... Remember"

He nodded and sat back down beside me, we sat in silence. I kept thinking about what he told me, how he got here. I wished I could help him, I wished I could change the fact that he really has been framed and now an innocent man is going to be put to death. He was sat in this cell everyday waiting for that dreaded day in may; waiting for his death.

"I just wish" He whispered "I wish I had done more to save him"

"They would've done the same thing to you" I squeezed his hand

He laughed cruelly and pulled his hand back suddenly "And that's any better. No matter which way you look at it, I die!"

"Oliver I'm sorry, I- "

"You didn't think" He shouted "Either way, whether I saved him or not I end up dead somewhere along the line!"

Tears had started to fall down his face, I could see the pain, the fear and the sadness in his features as he looked at me "I wish I had never got involved! Maybe my Mom and Dad were right, the only correct way in life if to live like them"

"You don't mean that!" I stood "You are so much better than them, you don't see the world in a money orientated way! You care about things much more powerful than money"

He scoffed "Yet my family's tax's pay for me to sit here, pay for my death!"

I shook my head at him, angry tears ran don my face "Can we appeal this again? Surly we can make them see that you're innocent, extra prints on the weapon, sizing the strangulation marks on the neck?"

"No" He said softly "They got my prints on the forefront of the weapon... The last person to touch it, that makes me the murderer"

This wasn't right, how could the system fail him so cruelly. How could they not go to extra lengths to listen to what he was saying and run extra searches. There had to be something that unlinked him from the death, anything that could potentially save him.