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“County. County jail?” I asked. “I don’t… I don’t even know what that means,” I admitted.
“You’ll learn soon enough. Van should come before noon,” she told me, glancing out the cell door to the clock on the wall. “Just a big ol’ room full of other women and bunks. They got cells, of course, but we got an overcrowding problem,” she explained. “So all the new girls sleep in the common room in bunks.”
“But… But… what about… the bathrooms?” I asked. If there was one thing I knew about jail, it was that there was a toilet in your cell. And you were expected to use it even if your cellmate was in the room with you.
“There’s a room with three toilets and half walls between ‘em. You’re gonna be over your insecurity after the strip search,” she told me, making my stomach plummet.
Strip search?
How utterly… dehumanizing.
“Shit. Okay. Relax. They don’t use ‘em all the time. Not anymore,” she tried to comfort me. “The law got stricter on them the past few years. You might not have to do one. They don’t touch you anyway. Just make you lift your titties and bend over. That’s it.”
“That’s…it?” I choked out, feeling nauseated.
I didn’t get naked in front of people. I mean, I barely felt comfortable being naked with a boyfriend. I had kinda always been a ‘let’s do it in the dark’ kind of girl.
“Listen,” this woman said, acting like a mother figure to a poor, scared child. “These women, they’ve seen a million sets of titties and coochies and asses. Trust me, they ain’t thinking about yours during or after.”
“Right,” I agreed, but that somehow didn’t make it any better.
“What’s your name, hon?” she asked.
“Everleigh,” I said.
“Everleigh. I’m Della. I’ll be there for ya, okay? Been to County more times than you can imagine,” she said. “They know me there. I’ll look out for you. But it’s not like how it is when you see prison shows. The girls… they tend to be calmer. You’re not gonna get shanked in the showers,” she added.
And that somehow didn’t make things any better. Because the mention of showers made me once again realize that I would be naked where other people could see me.
This couldn’t be happening.
It just couldnotbe happening.
“Two days, Evy, girl,” Della said. “That’s all. You’ll probably get bail.”
“But I can’t pay it,” I said, hearing the sob caught in my throat, and trying to swallow it down. Crying would be seen as a sign of weakness, right? And the last thing I wanted was to be seen as weak to all of these women. Regardless of what Della said about the general atmosphere there.
“Hey, you know, sweet girl like you, you got people out there who care about you. They’ll find a way. There’s always ways. There’s a whole industry around getting people out of jail,” she said.
She was right.
My mom and sister would do anything.
The problem was, I couldn’t ask that of them.
Bayleigh finally had a happy little life going for her. And my mom was a little strapped for cash after footing the bill for a lot of Bayleigh’s therapy and living expenses while she recovered and started to rebuild outside of Shady Valley.
Maybe I should have moved with them.
I’d been stubborn and dug in my heels about staying. What can I say? I was big on creature comforts. I like consistency and really hated change.
Starting over had sounded terrifying and overwhelming. So I’d stayed.
But I should have gone.
None of this would be happening if I’d gone with them.
I closed my eyes tight against the onslaught of tears, knowing I had to keep it together. There would be a time and a place for falling apart. This was not it.
