ONE YEAR LATER
COOPER
I'm making breakfast this morning.
It's nothing special. Just a couple of pieces of toast smeared with jam, paired with a bowl of cereal. I'm eating Debbie's fiber cereal, because it's actually sort of grown on me, believe it or not.
I would say my newfound love of fiber cereal is probably the thing that has changed least about our lives in the last year.
For starters, after Ken's murder, I founded my own accounting firm, and it has flourished.
I've now got a staff of half a dozen people, and we even got a favorable write-up in the Boston Globe.
I never thought of myself as much of a businessman, but apparently, I'm better at it than I thought. I guess Debbie was right.
I still can't believe Ken was murdered. Even worse, that my friend Jesse was the one who killed him. I refused to believe it at first, but the evidence kept mounting to the point where it was undeniable. Jesse stole money from the company, and when Ken found out, Jesse shot him.
And that's not even the worst of it.
Jesse was having an affair with this trainer from the gym named Harley.
I had seen her around several times before and remembered the pink streak in her hair.
Debbie was friendly with her too, although I hadn't really realized it at the time.
I had seen Jesse talking to Harley a few times, and I had to admit, I did notice the low voices they used when they talked.
But I never really thought he was having an affair, and with everything else going on in my life, I didn't give it another thought.
I mean, yes, I'm aware that plenty of men have affairs, but to me, it's unthinkable.
Apparently, Harley was putting pressure on Jesse to leave his wife. She was threatening to rat him out if he didn't do what she wanted. So he went to her house with the same gun he used to shoot Ken, and he killed her.
I later discovered that random address where I found Debbie was Harley's apartment. Debbie explained to me that when she went over there to see Harley, she didn't answer the door. Because, as it turned out, she was dead.
Debbie was the one who finally called the police, saying she was concerned about Harley's boyfriend, although she had never met him before. The police arrived at Harley's apartment and caught Jesse trying to scrub the place of his fingerprints while Harley lay dead on the living room floor.
He was arrested immediately.
The evidence was overwhelming, and he was essentially caught in the act.
His trial took place last month, and when he asked me to be a character witness, I had to decline.
Jesse was my friend, but there was no doubt in my mind that he killed our boss and his mistress.
The jury agreed. He was found guilty of two counts of first-degree murder and received two consecutive life sentences.
He'll spend the rest of his life in prison.
But other than the nasty business with the trial, our lives have been great.
Lexi and Debbie became a lot closer after that whole business with Zane, and it seems like a bit of a miracle that they don't fight anymore the way they used to.
Debbie cried for a week after Lexi moved out to go to college, even though she stayed local and has already been home to do laundry.
She got into a great school, by the way.
I don't want to brag or anything, but it rhymes with Schmarvard.
Debbie's just happy that Lexi has nothing to do with her old boyfriend, Zane.
After his accident, I heard about charges against him—something to do with illegal photos he was passing around—and now that he's out of the hospital, he may be in serious legal trouble.
I saw him just once, at the grocery store with his mother, using a wheelchair that he operated with his mouth. I didn't say hello.
And Izzy is kicking ass on the soccer team. As usual. Debbie and I attended every game last year.
Debbie is having some of her own career success too, and I'm really freaking proud of her.
She's been writing all these apps for her phone that we have been using for years, and one of them really blew up.
It's called Punish Your Husband, where a wife can assign some potential punishments (the most popular being cleaning the bathroom) to her husband for misdeeds like forgetting a birthday or anniversary.
Wives apparently find it hilarious to come up with more and more creative punishments.
A couple of months ago, Debbie sold Punish Your Husband. I'm not gonna say how much it sold for, but it's enough to pay for Lexi's entire tuition at Schmarvard. Debbie has been working on some new projects, and she seems a lot happier overall.
Debbie explained to me that the file of threatening advice on her computer was a way for her to deal with the trauma of what happened to her.
Now that she's in therapy to help her deal with it, she revisited all those emails and rewrote her advice.
Even though she's no longer Dear Debbie, she answered every single one of those emails, and she's been counseling a lot of women with their problems. What can I say? My wife gives great advice.
As for me and Debbie, that's a complicated one.
We've been seeing a couples therapist. Obviously.
We have both been keeping huge secrets from each other, and I feel simultaneously guilty that I didn't tell her mine and guilty that she didn't feel comfortable telling me hers.
Debbie was sexually assaulted. The thought of it makes me so angry, I can't even think straight.
How could somebody do that to her? To anyone?
I'm glad she doesn't know the name of the guy who did it, because if she did, I would be tempted to find him and beat him to death with my bare hands.
But we're going to have an empty nest in only two years, and I want to make sure Debbie and I are okay. So every two weeks, we've been seeing the couples therapist. We never skip, no matter what. Nothing is more important than working on our marriage.
Just as I am popping my whole wheat bread out of the toaster, Debbie comes into our kitchen, dressed in her gym clothes. Our therapist said we need to get better at saying what we're thinking, so I decide to practice that right now.
"Hey," I say, "you look really sexy in those leggings."
Debbie rolls her eyes, but she smiles. "You don't look so bad yourself, Mullen." Her gaze flicks over my chest. "You even tied your own tie perfectly."
"I watched a video online," I say proudly.
"You? Watched a video online?"
I laugh because she has a point. It doesn't sound like something I would do.
But I've actually been spending a little bit more time on the internet, building our business.
I've built up my company's website, including putting my picture on it.
I discovered that Jesse had been telling Harley that he was me to hide his identity, and he could only do that because there were zero pictures of me anywhere on the internet.
"You know," I say teasingly, "I don't have to be at work for another hour. Just saying…"
"Don't tempt me," she retorts. "If I don't go to the gym now, I'm never going to go."
Since my former workout buddy Jesse is serving two life sentences for murder, I've joined Debbie a few times at Titan, but I don't have time for that right now. "How about if I take you to dinner tonight? Izzy has that sleepover, right?"
She grins at me. "It's a date."
She comes over to give me a kiss before she leaves. A year ago, I thought I had lost her, but now it seems like we are closer than we have ever been. I hate all the pain that we have been through, but there's a reason for everything.
In the end, it worked out for all of us.
JESSE
Nights in prison are the worst.
At home, I had a memory foam mattress with a pillow that contoured to the shape of my head and neck. I had a special hypoallergenic down comforter. I couldn't sleep without it.
Now I am lying on a thin mattress that is probably an inch or two thick at most. I do have a pillow, but it definitely doesn't contour to the shape of anything.
Like my mattress, it feels more like a board than a pillow.
And then there's the scrawny blanket, which I think I'm allergic to, based on the bumpy rash that has sprung up on every part of my skin that has been touched by the thin material.
If I sleep, which I sometimes do out of sheer exhaustion, half the time I get wrenched out of my slumber by the sounds of the guy on the top bunk snoring like a chainsaw. I've never heard anyone snore that loud before. I've also never seen anyone with that many tattoos on his body.
There are four of us in this small cell. My bunkmate is called Geho, which I think is his last name. Nobody uses first names here. It's like back in college, when everyone used to call me Hutch, except it's not anything like college.
I was transferred to this maximum-security prison last week, which is where I will be spending the rest of my life.
I shouldn't be here. I really shouldn't be here.
Maximum-security prison is not for somebody like me.
The other men here are hardened criminals like Geho—they are terrifying.
Someone like me should be at one of those minimum-security prisons that looks more like a resort.
But really, I shouldn't be here at all. Because I didn't kill anyone.
I woke up at Harley's apartment, not entirely sure how I got there, and she was dead on the floor from a bullet wound.
The gun—my gun—was in my right hand, but I didn't shoot her.
Yes, I know how that sounds. And I know there was gunshot residue on my hand.
But I didn't want to kill Harley. Yes, I was looking to end our relationship, but I didn't want her dead.
I don't even remember bringing my damn gun to her house. Why would I have done that?