I pull it out, along with the battered prison handbook they give everyone on intake. Rules. Schedules. A list of things you’re not allowed to do, touch, say, or be. I flip to the back and tear out a blank page. It’s cheap paper. Thin. Smudges if you lean too hard or press too angry. But I don’t care.
My hand hovers over it, uncertain.
What do you say to someone who thinks you’re worth writing to?
Who thinks you’re worth saving in their own way?
I’ve only got one sentence in me right now. But it’s a start. I press the pencil down and let it move.
M,
I didn’t expect a letter. Didn’t think I’d hear from you again, not after the way that night ended.
I’m glad you’re safe.
That’s all I ever cared about.
– J.W.
I stare at the four lines. There’s more I could say. About how her words punched a hole through the grey haze I’ve been living in. About how hearing that she went home and then picked up the phone means more to me than any plea deal ever could. But I don’t want to scare her off by unloading all that. She kept it simple. I can do the same. I don’t sign my full name either. Just initials. If she wants to know more, she’ll ask. If not… at least I said something. At least she doesn’t have to lie awake wondering if I hate her for running. For leaving. For doing exactly what she was supposed to do.
A guard walks past the cell a few minutes later, jangling keys, doing his usual half-interested glance inside.
“Mail going out?” he grunts when he sees the paper in my hand.
“Yeah,” I say, pushing myself up. My knees crack. I step to the bars and pass the folded page through.
He takes it without comment, just tucks it into the stack in his hand with the rest. Bills, legal notices, letters from mothers andgirlfriends, and kids drawing wobbly hearts. I know it’ll take a few days to get back to her. The prison mail system isn’t built for speed. It’s built for control. Everything opened, read, held, and delayed. Time stretches differently between walls like these.
But somehow, I already feel like I’m waiting. Like I’m hoping. For more. For the next piece of paper with my name on it in that careful handwriting. For another reminder that out there, beyond the fences and gates and searches, there’s someone who knows I’m more than just the worst things I’ve done. Someone who saw me at my angriest and still thinks I matter.
I sit back down on the cot, lean my head against the wall, and close my eyes. The letter rests under my hand, edges warm from where my skin has been pressed to it.
Maybe this is nothing.
Maybe it’s just a few exchanges and then silence.
But for the first time in a long time, the future doesn’t look like an endless stretch of road. I'm just drifting down alone. It looks like black ink on white paper. And a girl who signs her name with just one letter.
Eight~His Handwriting
Mara
IChecked The Mailbox Three Times Before It Came. Ridiculous, I Know. But once you send something that personal, something that raw, you start imagining all the ways it might go unanswered, like the universe misfiles you.
The first time, it was barely noon the day after I posted the letter. I knew, knew it was too soon, but I had to walk past the boxes on my way up the stairs, and my hand moved on its own, key slipping into the metal like it had rehearsed this already. Empty. Just the cool smell of dust and old paper and nothing.
The second time, it was the following morning. I was on my way out, tote bag over my shoulder, heading to the library. I tried to be nonchalant about it, like I was just grabbing pizza flyers or a missed parcel note. Still nothing. I shut the little door gently, biting the inside of my cheek.
Maybe he wouldn’t write back.
Maybe the guards never gave it to him.
Maybe it was stupid to think a man like that, a stranger who bled in the snow, would bother writing to a woman whose name he didn’t even know.
Maybe…. I cut myself off before I could spiral.
The third time, it was late afternoon. The sky was that washed-out blue it gets just before it gives up and turns to evening. My fingers were stiff from the cold. I’d gone grocery shopping, and the plastic bag handles were cutting into my palms. I told myself I wasjust checking. The mailbox door stuck a little, as if it too thought I was being dramatic.
