I sat at the end of my bed staring blankly into the wall in front of me thinking why I am here. Natalie tugged on my hair and said “Stop moving so I can finish braiding your hair.” Natalie tugged fiercely on my hair pulling each strand one over the other leaving my scalp sore and tender. I liked my bunk-mate Natalie, she showed me all around the prison and gave me tips on how to ¨survive¨, but I reassured her I will be fine. Natalie was shorter and stockier with long black hair and a raspy voice as if she had smoked for 50 years, but she was only 19. I did not say one word the whole time Natalie showed me around, but she still kept talking anyway as if we were having a conversation. She liked to talk, and I’m pretty sure she liked to hear her own voice,  I did not like it there at all, but who would? It was prison.  I kept her head down as walked down the halls and in the bathroom not saying a word and avoiding eye contact with anyone, including  the guards. Another inmate had sat down directly across from me at dinner and just stared at me into my soul. She didn't say anything, just stared right at me for a good 10 minutes. I didn’t say a word or looked at her, hoping that it would make her go away. I wasn’t scared, more just annoyed if anything.
I still had my makeup on from the day before, and it still looked perfect as if I had just put it on. I enjoyed makeup, and I had a lot of it too. Probably $900 worth. My hair was still pulled tight into that braid as I walked down the hall, it brought back memories of soccer and how my teammates would braid my hair the same way before a game and by the time the game was done, my hair would be 75% out of the braid. The male guards looked at me and cat-called at me, I was used it because guys at my school or anywhere I went did the same thing. I never enlightened them.
The walls in our bunk were white and stained with dirt, what looked like some sort of mold, and lord knows what else the stains were from. There were two beds, one on each side of ¨room¨ that were made of aluminum and a mattress that was about only 4-5 inches thick and felt like a rock. There was also a small cabinet and the foot of each of our beds that was dented and rusty on the corners. It held all of our stuff such as toothpaste, hairbrush, and pictures from home; everything was neat and organized, at least in my cabinet. Natalie’s bed was unmade with the blanket just crinkled up onto the bed. The cabinet was wide open and was cluttered with what looked like a bunch of junk to me.
After breakfast everyday, I continued to read my Harry Potter books in my bunk and get completely wrapped up in it for a few hours so I didn’t have to deal with the horrors of prison.  I didn’t normally read before I came to prison, but it seemed to me that was all there was left to do. Everyday I would go to breakfast, read, and go take a shower. Surprisingly, I was okay with that. I took my braid out everyday and my  hair fell out in perfect waves on my back, that’s what I loved about braids. In the mirror in the bathroom one morning, I saw a figure that looked familiar, but it had been that creepy woman that sat across from me at the table at breakfast one day. I glared at her in the mirror for a few good seconds, scared of what and might happen. I turned around the face the woman. She woman was about 25-30 years old with wavy brown hair pulled up into a messy bun, she had old eyeliner/mascara under her eyes making her look somewhat resembling a raccoon, she had light green beady eyes that just glared at me with hatred and disgust. I asked, ¨Who are you?¨, but the woman just fled the bathroom and into the hall. I wondered the rest of the day who that woman was, and why she was following me and not saying anything.
Natalie came up to me with a mouth full of food saying “What’s up babe?” and put her arm around me, I was holding all of her body weight. I could tell something wasn’t right, her eyes were red and she was acting not like herself at all. I asked her, “What’s up with you today?” She replied with “Oh, I’m just happy, you know. Just in a really good mood.” and winked at me. I gave her a look, she knew I knew something was up, but we just played it off like nothing was wrong.
“I need more food ASAP.”
“What have you all had to eat today?”
“Oh just a few candy bars, a burger, and that girl’s lunch over there.”, said Natalie chuckling.
“Don’t you think that is enough for today?”
“There is no such thing as too much food sweetheart.” and Natalie walked away moving onto her next group of friends. I admired how social and bubbly she was. Everyone liked her, normally others talk badly about anyone that walks by. I’ve realized how mean girls really are here. Everywhere I went I could hear girls just bashing other girls about how they look and what not. It was much worse than high school, I wasn’t sure if it was just jealousy or these girls were filled with so much hatred towards other people they felt the need to point out what was wrong with them. As I walked by, I could hear them talk about me too, I didn’t pay attention to them. They don’t deserve the reaction.
I went to the yard, it was sunny outside and it was about 75 degrees give or take. I had been laying in the grass and my arms started to itch from the grass irritating it. I could feel the sun beating on my face and clothes turning warm. I could feel my cheeks tusiderning red and the freckles forming on my cheeks and nose. Natalie had been laying next to me, but when I opened my eyes she was gone. I wasn’t too concerned about it, I liked being alone lately. I took my braid out and tightly pulled my hair back into a high ponytail. I sat there for a while and looked around at everyone. I watched all the different groups and cliques of girls. They were all different groups, but each group acted the exact same as one another. As if all the girls were clones of eachother. I saw the creepy, breakfast, bathroom girl across the yard. She was staring at me, go figure. I walked over to her and approached her because she was giving me a weird look again with those familiar green eyes.
“Why do you just stare at me all the time? Then approach me and walk away?”
“Do you not remember?” said the woman with a confused face.
“Remember what?” I scolded with frustration.
“Do you not remember the night mom and dad turn me in?
She walked away angrily from me and went back inside. It all came back to me in that moment. I stared blankly into the air and couldn't believe what just had happened. My sister was here too, and I am too in the same boat as her. Natalie walked in front of me and started waving her hand in my face asking, “Hello? Are you okay?”, but all I could do was just stare into the sky.
“Yeah yeah, I'm fine. I'm just not feeling too good. I think I'm going to go lay down in my bunk.”, I said snapping out of my disbelief.
“Alright, you go do you.”
As I walked back inside, a guard was looking at me and eyeballing me. It seemed like he thought I was either up to something or I was mesmerizing, he had always looked at me funny. All the other guards call him “Gomez”. I'm guessing that's his last name, they don't call him anything else nor have I heard them call him by his first name. He was younger and attractive and still pretty new at the job, inmates would mess with him and flirt with him trying to get him in trouble. He was probably around my age it looked like. I asked him, “Where can I find Taylor King?”
“I saw her walk back to her bunk. First one on the left.”
I walked into her bunk and she was laying face down on her bed.
“What do you want?” Taylor scolded.
“I wanted to come talk to you about what happened in the yard.” I said twiddling my thumbs.
“That night I was arrested, you just stood there and watched mom and dad call the cops. They asked you if you knew anything about what I was doing and you told them the truth. YOU are the reason I'm here. You should've just kept your mouth shut and neither of us would've been here.”
“How do you know how I got here?” I said with confusion.
“My friends told me. I would've made sure you would've stayed out of trouble if I were around you growing up.”
“I'm sorry I didn't know what to do, I didn't want to get in trouble too.”
“It's okay, you got what you had coming for ya. I'm going to bed now”
I walked out of her bunk feeling even more worse than I did before. I saw that guard Gomez again the next day.
“Hey have you seen Taylor?” I said anxiously.
Gomez replied, “Oh she got released a few hours ago, but hey when you get released let me take you on date. Ok?”
“Yeah sure whatever.”
My heart sank. I tried calling her and writing to her, but never got a reply. Or heard from her. Months went on and I did the same thing everyday. Sleep, eat, read, and repeat. I probably read that Harry Potter series 15 times, I knew it like the back of my hand. It became my best friend. Nobody visited me during my sentence, or called, or wrote. Gomez never looked at me again after he asked me on that date. My day had come to be released, I wasn't excited. I didn't feel excited, more just “Eh whatever. I'm out.” I had realized who really cared about me and who didn't care while I was in prison. Gomez came up to me for the first time in months and said, “So, how bout that date?” with a cheesy smile leaning up against the wall trying too hard to be cute.
“Haha okay, I'll go with you” I said chuckling.
As I walked out the doors into the outside world, Gomez handed me a few bags of papers.
“These are letters from Taylor that never got delivered for some reason.”
She had wrote to me every single day since she was released. Over a hundred letters were shoved into a bag. Gomez handed me a $100 bill and said, “Go buy something nice to wear tonight, I'll pick you up at 7.”