Aaron | ON HOLD

18 ||

Chapter 18

       I didn't realise gardening was such a strenuous task when you were doing nothing. Just looking at Aaron was exhausting enough. I had to stop every muscle in my body from moving towards him and the will power it took to stop staring at him was unlike something else.

Come on, Chloe, I have a job to do.

Aaron, dressed in grey joggers and a grey sweatshirt, a typical inmate outfit, hadn't looked up once from the task before him. I watched him plant flowers, I watched him water seeds and cut the grass with precision. I didn't really know what he was doing or what the outcome would be, yet, it was enchanting.

Oddly, the thought of him gardening didn't seem to suit him, but watching it, it did. His big, strong body stood out as he sat cross legged on the floor. In the position, I saw the vulnerability in him, the innocence and the naivety. It made me believe every word he told me.

Could this man really be innocent? If that was so, was he ever going to try and plead his case?

With that, I thought about a world with Aaron in it. Not just Aaron in prison, but him in the real world. I imagined him taking me out for dinner, for a drink, back to his place. I longed for that. I couldn't even imagine what he felt about it.

I wanted to feel hopeful that maybe Aaron I could work on the outside. But I was getting ahead of myself. I didn't know what the next few years held but a part of me wanted him to fight for his innocence, I wanted him to try and get out so we could see what would happen with us.

I knew there was something there, something special, there had to have been. We were effected by each other and it wasn't easy to not feel.

I didn't want to be naive, though.

"Collins." My name was called out by a deep voice. I looked over at the inmate who called me. He had blonde hair, bright blue eyes and was of small build.

"Yes, Daniel?" I questioned. He looked at me with a wry smile.

"I need help." Was his response. He looked to the patch before him. "Do you know how to plant a flower?" He scratched the back of his neck as he looked back at me. He almost looked embarrassed.

Sometimes, this job was comical. A man with a life time of crimes was asking me to help him plant a flower. I could have laughed.

"Sure." I said. I went over to him to look at the damage he had already done. "Have you ever done this before?" It surely looked like he hadn't.

"No." He said. "But I wanted to do something outside." As Daniel was talking to me, I could feel the burning of eyes in to my back.

Really, Aaron? I mentally scolded him.

I bent down to grab the lone plant that needed to be resoiled. "You just need-" before I could speak, I was cut off.

"I'll help him." Aaron said, as his body got closer to ours.

"It's okay, King, Collins has got it."

"She hasn't." Aaron interjected. "She's doing it all wrong." He said as I began to lay the flower in to the hole.

"I am not doing it wrong." I snapped. "See?" I looked at the plant that was tilted almost 90 degrees. Maybe he was right.