The Year I Stopped Being His novel Chapter 557

The heavy iron door on the opposite side clanged open.

Garrison was led out by a guard.

He had lost weight.

A lot of weight.

The grayish-blue prison uniform hung loosely on his frame, exposing sharp collarbones at the neckline. His hair had been buzzed extremely short, and a few stray white stubbles at his temples were starkly visible under the fluorescent lights.

His complexion was a sickly, ashen gray. His eye sockets were deeply sunken, making his cheekbones protrude sharply. His entire face looked as if someone had taken a knife and carved away every ounce of softness, leaving nothing but a skeletal frame.

There was a dried, dark red crust of blood at the corner of his mouth that clearly hadn't been wiped away yet.

Sloane took one look at Garrison, and her eyes instantly reddened.

She had a million things she wanted to say—she wanted to ask if he was doing okay in there, what he was eating, how he was sleeping. She wanted to know if anyone had hit him. But her throat felt entirely blocked, unable to push past a single syllable.

She just stared intensely at the dried blood on his lip, her fingers curling tightly against the glass.

Garrison sat down across from her.

He kept his eyes downcast at first, then looked up, meeting her gaze through the glass wall. A faint, barely-there smile touched the corners of his mouth. It looked as if he wanted to comfort her, but was afraid of pulling at the cut on his lip, retracting the smile halfway.

"I'm fine."

He said, his voice hoarse and low, yet unexpectedly steady. "I'm doing okay in here. I'm eating and sleeping. It's actually a more regular schedule than when I was pulling shifts at the hospital."