This is my first foray into 'Loving Annabelle' fanfic, and just a thought I had whilst watching the movie. I hope you enjoy :)

It happened such a long time ago now, but that day remains in the forefront of my memory as if it were only yesterday. I can still feel her touch; taste her slick lip-gloss on my lips. My stomach still flutters when I think of her. Often, I will lay awake and wonder if she still feels the same way about me. Annabelle will turn twenty-three this year. She will have graduated college... if she attended. She may well not even live on this continent anymore - she has such a free spirit and a searching soul that it wouldn't surprise me if she was now in Cambodia or France, or somewhere equally exotic.

If we had been more careful. If we hadn't have shut off the alarm clock groggily that last morning... we would still be together. Or I'd like to think we would, anyway. I'd like to think that Annabelle felt the same way I felt about her. I've been inside this cell for nearly four years now, and I expect nothing less than for her to be in a loving relationship. Who is going to wait for four years for someone to be released from prison? No. When I leave this fortress of solitude, I am simply going to transfer from one isolated place to another. I will return to my beach house, and resume my life; but not from where I left off. I'll start to rebuild relationships, pleasantries with passing people on the streets. Quick nods and short hellos as I pass unfamiliar faces. Perhaps I will see Annabelle again. Maybe she will be as happy as I will to see her face again. Or maybe she will look at me with sympathy, and apologise for what happened. Not that I'd want her to apologise, we did nothing wrong. We were two people in love. I am still in love with her. It has been only her that has kept me going whilst I've been in jail. Her face etched into my memory, the first thing I think of in the morning when I wake, and the last thing I picture as I close my eyes and fall asleep.

I replay those twenty-four hours over and over again in my head, each time with the same outcome as I wrap those red prayer beads around my fingers. I have said many prayers over the years that have passed. Mostly for Annabelle, that she has a good life. Prosperity. Wealth. Health. Luck. And love. Above all things I wish her love. The love she never had from her parents. I will her to feel my love. That she has moved on and found love. And then sometimes I will be selfish, and hope that she will still be there, waiting for my return. I allow myself to smile when I think of that, my heart warms and I begin to hope. When I walk through those gates on Friday morning, I will blink as I enter into the sunlight and inhale deeply as I step out into the world, hoping to be able to love Annabelle again.