“Look at what me and Mommy did!” I yelled, holding both my arms out so everyone could see. Mom walked in behind me, holding the bottom of her shirt.
“Wow! Those are awesome. Can I see them?” Dad asked. I turned to Mom, and I told her he would be the first one to ask to see them.
“This one’s my favorite!” I told him, pointing to the heart.
“Oh, yeah. Let me see…” He froze, his mouth dropping open. He looked funny, like a cartoon character, as he looked from my arm to Mommy.
“Mom! Show him yours!” I yelled.So slow!Mom’s cheeks got really pink as she lifted up her shirt so everyone could see thattattoo on her belly.
“Congratulations!”
“Oh my god!”
Everyone was yelling and getting up from their seats. Before they could reach us, Dad was swooping me up in his arms and carrying me over to Mom.
“We’re having a baby?” he asked, his eyes looking weird and wet.
“Yep. Due in July,” Mom told him, and he smiled big before kissing her.
“Hey!” I yelled as they smashed me between them. They pulled apart only to attack me, pressing kisses to my cheek and neck until it was ticklish and I was laughing so hard my belly hurt.
“I can’t wait to meet my little brother or sister!” I told them. I didn’t remember what else happened that night. I did remember the day I became a big sister, though.
Two boys. See? My twin brothers like surprises, just like me. This is going to be fun.
Epilogue
Natalia
People always say prison changes a person. What they don’t understand is that it actually reveals the truest form of them. Locked away, stripped of identity and facades, something different and primal emerges. No longer a slave to the roles and rules ingrained in us out there. What came out was something raw, quick to react and engage. All nerves and bite, all fear and pain.
So no, my time in prison didn’t change me. It just showed me who I really was, and I wasn’t ashamed. I survived. I faced obstacles and situations others wouldn’t dream of. Cut off, isolated, everyone left me to rot in there, assuming I would fester. Like gonorrhea—painful and embarrassing, but forgotten after a strong course of antibiotics.
Hey, sweetie! I had a dream about you last night…
The words flowed easily from my pen, the thin notebook paper bowing under the weight of my hand.How many letters like this have I sent out now?Enough that I could do it without thinking, enough to make sure I always had money in my commissary and plenty of cigarettes to trade and buy favors.
At first, it was flattering, the number of men interested in a prison girlfriend. Letters led to phone calls, which sometimes led to visits, but only if they paid.How else would I have time to speak with them? How would I afford stamps?Whatever lies I fed them, they ate it up.
All over the country—even some abroad—men wrote to me based on some sleazy profile on prison pen pal websites. Notexactly the dark web, but not in the socially acceptable sphere, either; those pen pal sites had made for a much more comfortable stay than I had originally anticipated.
“Nat. Finish your Dear John note so we can get to rec early. It’s pizza day,” Dana, my current bunkmate, informed me.
If you showed an eighteen-year-old me where I was now, she wouldn’t believe it. Sometimes, it was still hard for me to accept. But the scars on my body, the missing teeth, and the new click to my jaw were constant reminders. My tits were still perky—thank you, Dr. W—and the weight I had gained from all the insubstantial meals there had only added to the curves of my hips and ass.
Everyone in there was overweight, bloated from the carb and starch-filled diet meant to make it seem like we were well fed but that actually had zero nutritional value. Grabbing a tray, I mindlessly joined the line, my thoughts both empty and aware. I had eyes on every corner, waiting for someone to jump at me. This wasn’t a place to make friends; it was a place for enemies and reluctant allies—mutually beneficial truces.
Sliding into my seat, I dug into the meal, barely tasting it as I swallowed. The sounds of scraping utensils, loud chewing, and varied conversations filled the air.
“So you really gonna get married?” Dana asked me, her tattooed eyebrows contrasted against her pale skin, making her perpetually angry expression even more severe.
“Why not? It looks good for the parole board. He’s got a good job, a house, some land. It means I got a place to go and someone to look after me when I get out.” I shrugged, pretending it was no big deal.
Emotionally, it wasn’t. I was numb inside. Love, excitement, hope…Those were useless to me now. Practical, realistic, pessimistic—those were my new best friends. I hugged them close at night, when the cries and screams kept me awake and all my sins came back to haunt me.
Sometimes, it felt like they lived in the shadows, waiting for me to fall asleep so they could slip into my head, fill my body with the dark smoke, rotting my insides until I woke up, chokingand panting.
There was no escape, no reprieve from the absolute nothingness of being trapped in the prison of self-reflection. Combing over every moment and redoing them in your head until you realized the outcome would always be the same.
