I let out a breath that might’ve been a laugh if it didn’t hurt so much. “Yeah. It feels great.”
He left. The door shut behind him with that same dead sound, and a guard came to walk me back to the block. Now it’s just me and the cell and the buzzing light and the echo of her scream lodged behind my ribs.
That Night, I Lie On The Cot, Staring Up At The Cracked Ceiling While Snow Continues To Fall Outside The Tiny,Barred Window. I can’t see it from where I am, but I know the sound. That muffled hush when the world’s getting buried.
It’s almost Christmas. That used to mean something. Lights. Music. My little brother waited up to catch Santa when we were kids. Cody would set an alarm for midnight and make it fifteen minutes past before falling asleep on the couch, cookie crumbs on his face. My mom pretended she hadn’t eaten half the biscuits we left out. My old man pretending he hadn’t cried during some sappy holiday film.
It used to mean smells, pine and cinnamon and whatever cheap aftershave my dad wore when he went to midnight mass to “keep your mother happy.” It used to mean warmth. I never realized how much until it was gone.
Now?Now Christmas means cold food and cold nights and colder company. It means tinsel taped half-heartedly around the guard station window and a paper snowflake someone stuck to the TV screen for a joke. It means the kitchen serves“special”turkey slices that taste the same as the regular processed stuff, just saltier. Sometimes it means carols sung out of tune by guys who barely remember the words, echoing down the corridors in a way that makes your chest hurt.
I close my eyes, and the memories fight with the present: Cody’s laugh against the clank of doors, my mom’s humming against the buzz of the fluorescent, twinkling lights overlaid with the harsh glare of security lights.
Still, I keep seeing her face. Not in a fantasy way. Not like some kind of hero dream where I get the girl and ride off into a sunset that smells like redemption. Just… human. A person. Like a thread tied around my wrist, tugging, reminding me that something real happened out there. That the world isn’t just this block of concrete and regret. That maybe, for a second, I wasn’t just drifting. Maybe I mattered.
I roll onto my side, wince as my ribs complain, and stare at the tiny rectangle of window set high above the bed. It shows nothing but a slice of grey and the occasional flicker of white when the snow swirls past at the right angle. Footsteps echo down the corridor. A guard making rounds. Keys jangling at his hip, footsteps steady, unhurried. The sound is as much a part of the place as the walls.
He passes one cell, then another. The light outside my door shifts as he steps in front of it. I hear the scrape of paper against metal, the soft thud of something being pushed through the slot in the bars.
“Mail,” he says, voice bored.
I look up. Mail? I push myself up on one elbow, heart giving a weird little kick. It’s stupid. No one writes to me. Not on the outside. Not in here. The few people who might’ve cared burned that bridge a long time ago. The guard’s shadow moves on.
I swing my legs off the cot and stand, the floor cold even through the thin soles of my county-issue shoes. My ribs twinge with each movement, but curiosity trumps pain for once. I cross the short distance to the door and look down. There’s an envelope on the floor.
For a second, something like hope flares. I bend down, pick it up, and flip it over. It’s not addressed to me. The name on the front is the guy two cells down, some older dude who spends his rec time doing crosswords and pretending he doesn’t know all the answers immediately. The paper flutters a little in my hand.
“Wrong cell,” I call, holding it up.
The guard glances back over his shoulder, expression flat. “Pass it down, Ward.”
I do, sliding my arm between the bars and stretching to hand it off. The older guy nods, mutters something like“cheers,”and retreats back into his own four concrete walls. I stand there for asecond, fingers still curved around nothing, feeling like an idiot.Of course, it’s not for you. Who would it be from?
With nothing left to focus on, I lie back down and stare at the ceiling again. But something tells me,maybe tomorrow.
Maybe she heard what happened.
Maybe she called.
Maybe someone will put two and two together and realize the man they dragged into an ambulance wasn’t the only one in that story.
Maybe she’ll write. Maybe she won’t.
Maybe this is just another thing I did that only I will ever know about.
Still. For the first time since the cell door closed, I feel the edge of something that isn’t anger or resignation. Something lighter. Fragile. If a letter shows up with my name on it, I’ll know I wasn’t the only one there that night who remembers what actually happened. And if it doesn’t? Well. Then it’s just me and the ghosts again.
I pull the thin blanket up to my chest, roll onto my less-bruised side, and close my eyes. Snow keeps falling outside the window, quiet and steady. And somewhere in the silence between my heartbeat and the buzz of the light, a thought settles in:
Maybe tomorrow.
Maybe I’ll have something worth reading again.
Six~Ink and Nerves
Mara
Irewrote the letter four times. Four entire drafts, start to finish, each one scratched out with growing frustration and a kind of trembling I couldn’t get under control, no matter how many breaths I took or mugs of tea I made.
