Page 17 of Claim

Colin went quiet again.

We were on lockdown. Some scrap had kicked off at lunch, the usual territorial nonsense, and now the entire wing got punished for it. Six by six. Lights too bright. Air stale. Time dragging until someone decided it was night. Colin wasn’t coping. I could hear it in the way he breathed. Too fast. Too shallow. Panic disguised as politeness.

I told myself not to care.

Then after a minute, he said, “Do you ever get used to it?”

“No.” I turned a page. “You just learn what not to react to.”

That seemed to settle him. Or at least redirect the noise in his head. His breathing slowed. Not much, but enough so I could finish the chapter without sound effects at least. I didn’t look down at him. Didn’t soften my voice. Nor tell him it would be alright. But I didn’t tell him to shut up again either. That seemed to count for something because Colin slid out of his bunk, wiped his nose on his sleeve, and leant on the wall facing me as if trying to make himself smaller.

I pretended not to notice. Kept my eyes on the page.

Tried to, anyway.

I’d never been a swot. No bookworm, for sure. But there were only so many ways to fill time in a box, and this was one of the quieter ones. Somewhere along the line I’d stopped skimming and actually started reading. I was invested now. Not in whether Reacher won, because he always did, but in how. That was the point, wasn’t it? Not the outcome. The way you got there.

Christ. I’d turned poetic.

Four walls and too much time did that.

“I have a wife.” Colin bowed his head. “And kids.”

I inhaled slowly, chest rising. Then I turned the page but realised I hadn’t read the last paragraph properly. Turned it back.

“You got anyone on the outside?” Colin peered up at me.

Jesus. Effing. Christ.

“A wife?” he tried. “Girlfriend?”

“No.” That part was easy enough.

Colin nodded, as if he’d half-expected it. “Anyone you miss, then?”

I tried to keep reading.

Didn’t work.

Because he’d opened the door I’d spent eight weeks barricading. Of course, there were people I missed. Keeley. Maisie. Even Lennon, with his constant disappointment. Mum. At least the version of her that used to exist.

But the one I missed more than was sensible?

Yeah.

That was someone who didn’t fit neatly into any box Colin was offering. Not a name I could say in here. Not even a shape I wanted to give much air to. Thinking about him was dangerous. Like touching something hot just to prove it could still burn.

I turned another page, letting the silence do the work.

But I must have given myself away because my shoulders went tight, and the pause stretched half a beat too long. Colin caught it. I wondered, not for the first time, what he’d been on the outside. Counsellor, priest, someone used to holding silence without rushing to fill it. He let it sit. Let me wrestle with it.

“Eats at you, doesn’t it?” he sighed. “Not getting to explain.”

I glanced down at him then.

He wasn’t fishing. Wasn’t angling for gossip or leverage. Just naming something he already knew.

“Yeah,” I said. “It does.”