Every day when he woke up, Ryan had 90 seconds to look forward to, and that was it. 3 chances, 30 seconds each.
The other 23 hours, 58 and a half minutes, were uninteresting. Get up, stand there for count, kill time until it was time to head to the kitchen, prepare the food, stand in the line, shovel spoonfuls onto trays until every inmate was seated, and then start preparing the trays for the separate cell blocks – death row, solitary, protective custody, psych, the Hole, and the hospital. It was up to him whether he ate before or after delivering the trays – he usually chose to wait. It got him to her faster, and if he didn’t get to see her, it was as good a consolation prize as he was likely to get in this shithole.
Watch the others eat. Wait until enough time had passed that he could start collecting trays with minimal bitching. Direct the others, supervise the clean-up, wait until everyone had exited the mess hall to shut everything down and get the hack on duty to lock the gates. Then he would be off with his pushcart and the pre-made meals, his feet getting lighter with every step he took.
It was boring, boring, boring but he just held her face in his mind the whole time. Worked out what he was going to say. Tried to figure out how she would react. It was different every day.
He would get death row out of the way first. Cyril’s ghost haunted every inch of Oz, but here it was the strongest. He zipped through as fast as possible, making it into a game with himself, counting in his head how many seconds it took him to hand out the trays to the sad fucks residing there, avoiding looking into Cyril’s (not Cyril’s, just another) cell.
Then it was solitary, and the screams and moans followed him down the hall, and he whistled loudly and yelled back where necessary. If he let his guard down, he would hear his name being repeatedly whined behind the door at the end of the hall, but Ryan O’Reily never let his guard down, and solitary passed just as smoothly as death row.
Protective custody was next. Then psych. Who cares. He never actually approached the Hole, the hacks would take the trays off him as soon as they saw him. This, too, became a game – how close he could get to that slot in the dirty metal door at the end of the tunnel.
Then he was headed to her, and he would forget everything else, becoming singularly focused on the door to the hospital, speeding up as fast as he could without running, the trays rattling on the cart.
Once the door opened, though, he was underwater – trudging through invisible slime to get to each bed. He would stop and have a chat wherever a guy was conscious, his eyes darting around the room, waiting to catch a glimpse of her.
Sometimes, he was disappointed. Sometimes, she wasn’t there, and once he clocked it he would resume his normal pace, finish up, and leave. There was no point hanging around, the hospital smelled like shit and antiseptic and death. Every once in a blue moon he would see her in the hall as he left, but that was no good – she refused to acknowledge him outside of the confines of her domain. It was worth it to see her, obviously, but it was only the few seconds, and the other 27 would evaporate as he watched her pass him by.
Today was one of those days. Even knowing the outcome, he flashed her a smile. “Hey, Gloria.”
Her face remained stone as she brushed past.
It sucked. But it didn’t matter.
2 more chances. 60 more seconds.
---
During lunch, he didn’t even see her in passing. Another 30 seconds gone. It didn’t matter. Day wasn’t over. But shit, the dinner service was fucking far away.
People didn’t like it when he paced, or even walked too fast through Em City. It made them nervous. He’d done too good of a job establishing a reputation, and people kept an eye on him now. Moving with a purpose was seen as a threat, even when the purpose was just to kill time, burn energy. It was good. It was annoying.
So he’d blow off steam in the gym. Take a couple showers. Read his books, sometimes, if he wasn’t too keyed up. Sit in front of the TV and watch Miss Sally exercise, tapping his foot impatiently until someone told him to knock it off. Play a game of cards with Beecher until he lost too many times and got too frustrated to continue. Think about buying some tits. Decide not to buy some tits, for now. Think about her over and over again, check the time over and over again, as the clock hands slowed further and further until he wanted to throw something or punch someone or scream, anything to break the spell. Then it was time, and he could relax, regain direction. 1 more chance, 30 final seconds, and he sped through the dinner service in record time, and he didn’t care who called him an asshole, and when he finally saw her his body melted with relief.
She was tidying up some papers on the desk, her coat on, and seemed surprised (unhappy? anxious?) to see him. “Ryan,” she said, and just hearing his name in her mouth sent a shiver down his spine.
“Missed me?” he asked, and left the pushcart where it was, pulling her into an embrace. She resisted, turned her face away and he paused, froze, didn’t let go.
“Ryan, there’s something I need to tell you.”
He waited. She didn’t continue. “Yeah?” he prompted.
“I’m transferring to another prison.”
The words hung in the air for a moment, then fell to the floor, shattering like glass. He licked his lips.
“When?” he asked.
“Tomorrow. Tomorrow morning.”
“Uh huh.” He let go of her, turned around, took a few steps, turned around again. “When were you gonna tell me?”
She looked uneasy. “I’m telling you now.”
Ryan shook his head. “No.” He shook it again, harder. “No, you didn’t – you didn’t think I was gonna be here. I was early. You –” He exhaled hard. “You were just gonna leave.”
He felt her take a step toward him, and he took an uncertain step back, forward again. Couldn’t look at her. Couldn’t look anywhere. The whole world was spinning. “Ryan,” she said again, and this time it made him coil up like a spring, ready to release, fly off in any direction, it didn’t matter which. “I didn’t want this to be hard,” and her voice was so quiet it was almost a whisper, and he looked at her then, anchored himself to the pain in her eyes, reflecting 1/1000th of his own.
“You can’t leave,” he said, and it’s like hearing someone else talk, a machine, a ghost, a hollow man from another dimension. “I love you.”
“I know,” she said. “That’s why I have to.”
“That’s bullshit,” he muttered, and suddenly kicked the cart, sending the few remaining trays to the floor. Her body jolted, but she didn’t step away.
“You know I’m right, deep down,” she continued. “We have no future, Ryan. This isn’t going to go anywhere.”
“Who’s we?” he snarled. “You mean me, right? I’ve got no fucking future. So you’re just going to leave me here. To die. Alone.”
She didn’t respond, except to step closer, her hand reaching out to caress his face. He flinched involuntarily, then relaxed into her touch, leaned in to kiss her. She let him for a moment, then pulled away – at first gently, but then, as he refused to break way, with force, hand traveling from his cheek to push at his chest, fingers grazing his surgery scar.
“I’m sorry,” she said, and before he could think of anything else to say, strode out of the room.
And that was it. The last 30 seconds of happiness he would ever get.