“I didn’t do it you know.” He’s sitting across from me, fingers locked as he gazes at the wall, unwilling to meet my eyes. “I didn’t kill that man.”

“Ok,” I reply, because when speaking to a man waiting to be executed, there isn’t another answer one can give.

“I know you don’t believe me...” he starts before I cut in.

“It isn’t my job to believe you. I’m here to listen to what you have to say. If what you want to say is that you’re innocent, then that’s your choice.”

He looks relieved, meeting my eyes for the first time since he entered the room. He smiles a bit, and for a second I’m taken aback by how it transforms his face. Smirking, he lets his eyes wander over my body, taking in the curve of my jaw, lingering on the freckles splayed across my cheekbones, traveling down my legs crossed under the table until they meet my eyes once more.

“I did it to protect her. My sister.”

“Ok,” I reply again, because if the man in front of me decides that he wants to completely contradict the statement that got him a seat in the electric chair, then there’s not much else I can do. My brow furrows when I think that this might be a last ditch effort to escape the inevitable, but I keep that inside, knowing that it is also not my job to pass judgement.

He notices the expression on my face and is quick to reassure me that he isn’t seeking a way out of his sentence.

“No, I’m still going to die. I just want make sure that the truth doesn’t die with me, that at least one person alive knows that I’m not a murderer.”

I nod my head, indicating that I’m willing to listen, and after a deep breath he continues.

“She was so sweet you know - innocent and pure and everything I wasn’t. A smile from her could light up anyone’s day no matter what had happened before.”

I smile faintly, because somewhere in the back of my mind I recognize that perhaps a smile from the man in front of me might not have been so bad either.

“She was smart too - too smart for that hellhole we were from, too beautiful, and much too kind. We didn’t deserve her.”

He tenses a little at the end, and for a second I can see where the story is going. The blood runs cold through my veins as I see a man willing to do anything for his family, and I look away, breaking the gaze we’ve held while he talks.

“It was miserable. All the time, except for when she was with me. Guess I wasn’t the only person who realized, because soon enough everyone on the block was lining up to try and get a date with her, to maybe win a smile and have their day become a little better too.”

This time its his turn to look away, and when he bites his bottom lip in an effort to stop it from quivering, I know that my heart is going to break when he dies.

“I tried to stop them, to be around when I knew they’d be knocking, to make sure they knew that I was packing, that they knew the consequences of breaking her heart.”

He snorts, and he doesn’t need to add that he wasn’t successful. He says it anyway.

“All it took was one guy. One guy to whisper sweet things in her ears, to tell her that he loved her, one guy to lie and leave her heart in a million pieces that I couldn’t fix. I tried, God I tried so hard, but she just kept fading in front of me, and there was nothing I could do to stop it.”

He’s crying now, a little tear escaping from the eyes rimmed in long lashes I had never noticed before, making its way down his cheek and falling on the tabletop separating us. His face crumples for a second, but just as fast smoothes into the mask I realize he’s been wearing the whole time.

I want to tell him that its alright, that everything will be okay, but the words get stuck in the lump in my throat when the truth hits me like the bullet he used to kill a man. Its not going to be alright, because something happened, and you’re going to be dead before the sun sets. I compromise by grabbing his hand for a second, giving him enough strength to clear his throat and finish.

“She was screaming, yelling as they held her against that wall. Apparently they didn’t like the new her and decided that if they couldn’t get a smile, then they’d settle for her virginity.”

I cringe, resisting the urge to cover my ears and run out the door I’d come through. The look on his face across the table makes me think that perhaps he might understand if I did. That look on his face steels me to lock eyes with him once more, and brace myself for what I knew was coming.

“They were going to rape her, and just as I was going to walk out she kicked the first one, grabbing the gun from the other and shot.”

I’m confused, because everything he’s just told me sounds like clear cut self defense. If this is what really happened, then I shouldn’t be having this conversation with a brother who’s hours away from sitting in a chair he’ll never get up from.

“The guy she killed, he was the son of the head of police,” he explains. “She never even had a chance. I took the gun, covered it in my prints, bought her some new clothes, bleached and torched the ones she was wearing, and smeared the ones I was wearing with his blood. The police were never going to look too closely after they had someone admit to the whole thing, so they took everything I offered in plastic baggies and used them as evidence in court.”

“And here you are.” I whisper, unable to tear my eyes from the man in front of me, unable to even comprehend the type of love he must have for his sister to be willing to die for her. Unable to appreciate the trust he has in me to be able to tell me the truth. Or perhaps its just his desperation to die as the honorable man he is, rather than the murderer he’s been convicted as.

“And here I am,” he agrees. There’s a thousand words I want to tell him, a thousand moments pass by as I look at him and wonder if would have been friends, if we hadn’t met for the first time while he waited to die. I look at his lips, his eyes sparkling with love and the truth that has set him free and decide that maybe we would have been more than friends. Maybe he would have taken me out on a date, holding my hand with one of the ones in handcuffs. Maybe we would have kissed, and he would’ve taken me to meet his sister, the one who’s smile lit up the sky.

He’s looking at me, and maybe he’s thinking the same thing. His eyes narrow a bit, and he speaks again.

“You know, despite everything, I can’t bring myself to regret any of this.”

“No?” I’m incredulous, because he’s about to die for a crime he didn’t commit.

“Nah, I might not have met you if all this hadn’t happened.” Ah. I guess I do know that he’s thinking the same thing. But because of the sheer absurdity of that last statement, I feel honor bound to try and strike some sense into him, aware of the futility of it all when he’s counting his breaths.

“You don’t think we’d have met outside of....outside of...”

“Death row? My last conversation?” he cuts in, taking pity on my inability to say the words that come so easily to him. “I think that outside we’re too different, and I don’t know about you, but I know I probably wouldn’t have noticed you if you were walking up my street. Actually, I probably would’ve.” His eyes take in my clothes, noting the fine cut and texture of my most expensive outfit. I blush under his gaze, but feel the need to justify my fashion choices.

“Well excuse me for wanting to present a pretty picture before you....” Again, I can’t bring myself to say the one word that shatters the brief illusion we’ve created here.

He lifts an eyebrow, smirking as he replies that he does indeed appreciate the gift I’ve given. He’s about to say something, when the door opens and the illusion burns away in the face of the reality we both face. He looks at me, face stoic and eyes wild as they will me to come with him on this last journey, the first and last one it seems that we will be taking together.

I think that if we had met somewhere else, I might have grown to love him. I know from the look he gives me, that he believes the same. I tell the guard that I’ll be accompanying the prisoner, and after giving me a look, the guard agrees.

I link my hand through his arms, closing my eyes as I try to imagine what taking a walk on our first date might have been like. I lean my head on his shoulders for a moment, but raise it quickly when the guard clears his throat. The way the shoulders I was resting on tense make me hope that he might have been imagining the same thing.

We get to the room, and he asks for a moment with me, without his handcuffs. The guard looks at me again, but after I look him straight in the eyes and insist that I will be perfectly fine, he unlocks the cuffs and walks out the door, warning both of us that he will be listening outside.

I touch the cheek of the man that I maybe could have loved, and smile when his fingers intertwine with mine as he declares that he loves me with all the assurance usually developed through years of being in a steady relationship. Or in this case, with the knowledge that in less than an hour he will be dead.

I whisper it back, and we both know I’m lying when he leans in for our first and last kiss, kissing away the tears from the both of us that have fallen on my cheeks.

“I don’t even know your name” he chuckles, voice rough.

“Mary. My name’s Mary.” Its almost ridiculous, how little but how much it seems like we know about each other. He smiles, eyes watery as I wonder if it will be his last.

“My name’s Jonathan. Nice to meet you Mary.” I test his name out, and decide that if we had met anywhere else I probably would’ve called him Jon.

The guard walks back in, accompanied by the people ready to witness Jonathan’s death. He looks at them, kisses me once more, whispering that since he’s going to die anyway......

I giggle, and suddenly its like we’ve been together for years. Suddenly the “if we had met” drops away and becomes “now we’ve met,” and I realize with a certainty that frightens as well as enthralls me that I love him. Maybe just for a second, but in this moment, I love him with everything I have, and can’t imagine the life I’ll have to live when I walk out of this room. I look at him, and realize that during my epiphany he’s taken a seat in the chair.

I panic, and shout that I love him. He stares at my face, looking for a sign of deception, that I’m only saying this because he’s never going to get out of the chair he’s strapped in. The smile on his face when he sees none is easily the most beautiful thing I’ve seen, and it hurts to think that I’ll never see it again.

He says that he loves me too, that he’s glad he met me, that maybe everything happened so that he could fall in love on the last day of his life, so that he could die with my image burnt behind his eyelids. The guards look at each other, unwilling to understand, but let us continue until the last possible moment.

I laugh when I realize that perhaps I might not regret anything either, because these last hours of being in love are worth the years before and after without it. I ask him for his sister’s name, wondering if maybe I can find the one person who won’t see the murderer when I say his name.

If its possible, the smile grows wider as he gives me her name and address, adding her phone number for good measure. Her name is Rose, named after his mother’s favorite flower. He’s rambling a little, as the technician finishes the preparations and the moments tick by.

He gathers himself together, and closes his eyes with a lazy smile that tells the tale of a man perfectly content with his lot in life. Tears run down my face as the eyes of everyone else turn to me, as I nod my head saying that it is time. I think to look away, but decide that if anyone deserves to have his end witnessed, it is the man in front of me. I call out one last time that I love him, and then he is Gone.

As I walk out of the room, I think about the people I have to contact, the police chief who must pay for the crime committed moments ago. There will be a pardon - I will see to that - because even if Jonathan accepted that he would die as a murderer, I am not so willing to see the name of the man I love slandered.

But first, I find the nearest payphone, and force my fingers to punch in a number I have already committed to memory, shaking as I wait for her to pick up.

“Hello?”

“Hi, this is Mary. I’m in love with your brother.”