Chapter 21

When I was seeing Max, he used to text me late at night and ask, You up? A phrase, when translated, that meant "Are you willing to debase yourself enough to leave your apartment at this late hour and fuck me?" I always wanted to leave him hanging, but every sexual encounter carried with it the possibility of being the one that would make him love me, and there wasn't enough willpower within my bones to give that up, so I went every time he asked.

William couldn't text me. Whatever contraband may or may not have existed in the jail where he was being held, a cell phone wasn't part of it. And yet, he still managed to interfere with my sleep. I didn't know how to love a man without giving up at least one of my basic needs.

I spread the letters out in front of me on the bed, arranging them in the order that they had been written. It was like having a husband away at war who'd finally returned to the base.

Dearest Hannah... The mere sight of my boyfriend's handwriting sent a shiver down my spine.

You once described depression to me as a feeling of isolation even when surrounded by a crowd. That's how it felt to walk into that courtroom today. There was so much hatred in the air that I could taste it. And then I saw you, Hannah. You're even prettier in person than you are in photographs. I know that you gave up a lot in order to be here for me and I cannot express how much I appreciate it. Just knowing that you're there helps me get through the day.

My bad mood dissipated with every word. It was silly of me to be mad at William for his poor communication when he had so little control over any facet of his life. In truth, he was more reliable than most people that I'd dated. At the very least, I got to see a glimpse of him five days out of every week.

I continued reading as William described how despite the hatred, it was nice to get out of jail and put on real clothes. I don't feel like myself without my clothes, he said. I'm glad that I get to look nice for you. They do their best to denigrate you in every way possible in jail, and one of those ways is by taking away everything that ever made you feel good about yourself.

William didn't say much about the actual testimony, which was a disappointment, though I knew that his lawyers had advised him to say as little as possible. There was no such thing as private correspondence when a person was accused of serial murder and I didn't want the prosecution to be able to use the words he'd written me against him. Admittedly, I liked the idea of testifying and spent much of my time during the trial imagining what I'd say if they called me up as a witness.

Sometimes I imagined scenarios where I pleaded his innocence.

"Please," I would say on the stand. "This man asked me to be his girlfriend. How could someone like that be a killer?"

Other times, I contributed to his guilt.

"This man asked me to be his girlfriend. How could he be anything other than a serial murderer?"

Though cameras weren't allowed in the courtroom, in my fantasies, each of these statements was followed by the clicking of dozens of old-fashioned cameras, the people desperate to capture the face of William Thompson's girlfriend.

In reality, I knew that I couldn't take the stand because no matter what I said it would be a betrayal to somebody.

There were two points about the trial that William repeatedly circled back to in between anecdotes about the food he was provided for lunch and summaries of the books that he was reading.

The first was in reference to the comment that the prosecution had made about his so-called violent past.

The prosecutors love to talk about my "violent past." Does the phrase imply violence inflicted by the person or violence inflicted upon the person by those surrounding him? I don't want to suggest that I've had more harm done to me than most people, as certainly there are a number of ways, namely financial, in which I am more privileged than the average person, but I do think that I experienced things in my youth that no child should be asked to experience.

I don't think that any of us arrive at adulthood fully intact. At least now I don't have to pretend that I'm not broken.

In another letter, he wrote, I like to think that if people knew me, really knew me, then they would have more empathy for my situation, but I worry that it would only make them condemn me further. I struggle to pinpoint what exactly I deserve.

The second and perhaps related topic that he ruminated on was his family's physical proximity in the courtroom.

I wish that I could invite you to sit closer to me,he said. The lawyers are friends with my father, as seemingly everyone is friends with my father, and thus, he's granted access to me that nobody ever asked if I wanted. I'd rather have you there instead.

This trial has hurt them. They remind me of that constantly. My father is obsessed with the Thompson family name. "It's all we have," he likes to say, as though he doesn't also have a plethora of material possessions. I can tell that he hasn't stopped to consider the ways in which his own actions have brought us here. Sometimes I get so angry at him that I start to shake. In those cases, I think about you, Hannah. You're my only light in the darkest of worlds.

I alternated between being frustrated by the vagueness of William's statements and delighted by his love for me. Something, or a multitude of somethings, had happened in William's childhood; that much was clear. I wished he would tell me what it was so that I could reassure him that I would love him regardless or, alternatively, decide that it was enough, that I couldn't love him at all.

I struggled to reconcile the Thompson family as they were depicted in William's letters with the family that I'd spied on as they ate dinner earlier in the evening. People weren't always who they portrayed themselves as being in public. As a woman, I knew that well enough. It was one of the reasons why people struggled to believe the claims of women who accused their charming abusers. Surely, they said, if that person was a monster, then we would know.

I thought of the way that people treated Mark Thompson in the courtroom, almost like he was the family member of one of the victims rather than the father of an accused killer. If he was a monster, it didn't show on the skin.

As per my custom, I wrote William back immediately. I made no mention of following his family to their rental, or to the steak house, or about the mediocre salad that I'd eaten. I only said, Being in the same room as you is the greatest gift. I'm glad that I can be there to support you.