My lips peel back. “Careful,” I warn.
Chuckling, he walks the two steps to the opposite bunk and pulls himself onto the top one. “Two more months, and I’ll be back on my shit. I ain’t never seeing the inside of this place again.”
Over two years and nine months away from Bella almost killed me. I’ve memorized every inch of this place. I can’t count how many times I’ve thought about breaking out of here. I even planned it all out in my head. I have studied the delivery trucks, the laundry rotation, and when the lazy guards are scheduled.
But each time I’m about to act on it, I stop. I have a higher chance of staying here longer than I do of getting out. No one has escaped this place in over fifty years. I’m cocky, but I don’t know if I’m delusional enough to think I could pull off a prison break. In fact, I’ve been on my best goddamn behavior, which is so unlike me. Bella would be shocked.
I’ve been practicing what the Shrink Arthur calls ‘flat hands.’ It’s where I use my palms, not my knuckles. The only time my fingers curl into fists is when it’s wrapped around a dumbbell or a bar of weights to channel my energy.
It’s some hippy-dippy bullshit, if you ask me. But it fucking works—sort of.
How many fights have I gotten into?
Six.
How many do the higher-ups know about?
One—but I proved I wasn’t at fault.
I’m a pillar in this community, an example to the other inmates of what a great prisoner looks like. I took English lit classes—not containing the dirty types of books that Bella reads, obviously—and I even had Arthur convinced I was interested in religion. Not like it was much of a choice. I was bored out of my mind and couldn’t use my arms while I was healing, so I had to pick something that made it seem like I was a half-decent person. Once I had full mobility, I flashed my finger at the man upstairs and started breaking my back at the garage they have here.
My religion starts with “Isa” and ends with “Bella,” and I’d worship at her altar every night. Blessed be the meal I’m about to eat and all that.
But Arthur buys the whole ‘reformed bad boy’ thing. He thinks I have “genuine guilt” over assaulting the twins.
Gullible idiot.
The only thing I’m guilty of is getting caught.
And shot.
Getting shot really sucked.
Both during and after sucks more than anyone warns you about.
The bullet was millimeters away from my heart. The doctors weren’t convinced I was going to make it, apparently. And the fact I didn’t have my Minnie to nurse me back to health was the final nail in the coffin.
The good news? Thanks to the helmet, I didn’t have a concussion to go with the life-threatening injury. Silver-fucking-linings.
From the hospital, I was moved to the prison med bay for even longer. I was ready to murder old-man Phil in the bed next to me. It came to the point that if the doctors weren’t going to remove his adenoids, I’d remove them for him. I couldn’t get a wink of sleep because of the human diesel power generator.
To top it off, I was furious. I am furious. Not once did she check in on me while I was in the hospital. After the hell I went through, from recovery to pleading guilty for a lesser sentence, I finally had the chance to call her, and the line wouldn’t go through.
She’s deactivated her fucking number.
That’s not even the worst part.
She hasn’t responded to a single one of my letters.
Not a single one.
The only thing that pulled me through was the thought of hearing the sound of her voice again. It was the only reason I did every single ridiculous exercise the doctors told me to. Still, she doesn’t answer. I have no idea what she’s been doing or where she lives now.
The twins had no reason to suspect I attacked them because of what they did to Bella because I never got to tell them to leave her alone, after I beat them black and blue. It wouldn’t have been on the news, because shit like that happens all the time. Plus, my registered emergency contact is Margaret, the child psychologist. Margaret probably didn’t pick up either.
Not once did I mention Bella’s name. It was a conscious decision at the time that I didn’t think would have these types of consequences. Having cops come in to interrogate her would only stress her out. So, I told the shrink and the police I had a bad day at work, saw the twins, then got triggered. Arthur slapped my case with an “anger management” label.
Have I learned my lesson? Yes.
Will I stop using my fists? No.
But will I handle all witnesses and look around for police first? Yes.
That still doesn’t explain why she hasn’t replied to my letters. Unless she moved houses…
Joel scoffs from the bunk below Rico’s. “I give you both a month before you’re back in here.”
Joel’s been in the can for twenty years or some shit. In here for organized crime and conspiracy to murder or whatever. Something boring and disproportionate to the sentence time. He’s kept being in prison interesting for himself by adding more time to his sentence.
The first year he was here, he murdered a rapist right in front of the guards, then again five years ago. I think he doesn’t like his original crime’s ‘conspiracy’ label.
“Old man’s already dead. Can’t die twice.” On the other hand, Rico came in here at eighteen without any label other than manslaughter in the third degree. Eight years for killing his father, of all people. “What about you, Tao? You placin’ bets or what?”
The bunk creaks as Tao Yang Junior shifts before the sound of his Rubix cube starts back up. “Two grand on fourteen months. The court system is slow.”
It’s my turn to chuckle. Out of all of us, he’s the one who will never learn. I can guarantee the second he’s out of here, he’ll go back to gambling, embezzlement, and money laundering. The only difference is that he’ll move back to China and get away with it from now on.
His wife did him dirty during the divorce, and Tao Yang Senior dropped over a million on lawyers to get him out of criminal charges.
It obviously didn’t do much.
I’m glad he’s here, though. Not because I like him or anything. He gets on my nerves with the Rubix cube, and he’s constantly droning on and on about stocks. Every other person in this cell loves him because he’s an absolute fucking idiot who has no idea how to manage his finances. Which, lucky for me, means that there’s an extra ten grand sitting in my bank account, courtesy of the Yang family and Junior’s shitty bets.
“This pretty face will never see the inside of a cell ever again.” Rico’s legs dangle over the side of the bed as he shadow punches the air quickly. “I’m too fast; they’ll never catch me.”
Joel shakes his head and mutters something along the lines of, “I’m too old for this shit.”