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“He molested us. Julie and me both. For as long as I can remember. He’d come into our room during the night and lay with us, stroking our hair, whispering all the reasons he loved us. It seemed innocent at first, a father doting on his daughters. But it didn’t stay that way for long.”
“Jesus.”
“Yeah.” I swallow as my voice catches, threatening tears. “When I finally came clean to my mom at twelve years old, she denied the accusations. Said I had an overactive imagination and that I should stop looking for so much attention.”
“Couldn’t Julie vouch for you?” Lace asks. “She experienced it too.”
“I told her not to. I didn’t want any repercussions to land on her. I wanted to protect her until my dying breath.”
Neither of us comment on the irony of this, so I continue.
“When my father finally found out that I told our mom about it, he flipped his shit. Told me that I was a lying sack of shit and would be punished for my actions. That same night, he packed up his crap and left, leaving my mother screaming and begging forgiveness in the yard as he drove away.”
“Jesus.”
“Yeah.” I take a deep, cleansing breath and opened my eyes again. “We never saw or heard from him again, and that’s all it took to put my mother over the edge. She started drinking to deal with her pain, and she didn’t stop. She never stopped.”
Both of us lay in silence for a few minutes more, allowing the stories of each other's lives to sink in. It’s not a competition, and it makes neither of us better than the other one. We’re equal beings now, no secrets, no hate. Just two emotionally destroyed young women serving their time inside the gates of hell.
“At least we’re together, right?” Lace asks after a while, turning her head to smile at me. It’s as though she’s reading my mind, had taken a glance into the darkest portals of my soul. I’m too emotional to tell her that I feel the exact same way, so I roll over and kiss her on the lips instead. She returns that kiss, and we kiss each other until the other women are catcalling at us and until Jaxon breaks us up with a roll of his eyes. As we walk to the cafeteria for dinner, her fingers laced with my own, the grip never wavers.
Beth finally comes to visit me later that evening, but by the time I make my way to her and sit down, I almost wish she didn’t even bother coming.
“I thought I’d see you earlier than just now,” I say, sliding into the seat across from her. “Especially considering the charges.”
Beth sighs, like she’s been put-out by coming here. “What do you want me to say, Josephine? We did what we could, like I encouraged you to.”
“So what do we do now?”
“We do nothing.”
“You want me to just spend the next three plus years here with my thumbs up my ass?”
Beth smiles, but she’s not amused. “You pleaded guilty because you are guilty, Josephine. You’re just going to have to do the time.”
I lean back in the cold, steel chair and scoff. “Are you this good for all of your clients?”
“I don’t think I’m going to dignify that with an answer.” Beth gets to her feet, shoving notebooks back into her bag like the last thing she wants to do is stand around here and talk to me. Before she leaves, she holds her hand out, but I don’t take it. “Good luck,” she says, dropping it to her side. “The years will fly by.”
Later that night, as Lace finished up her shift in the kitchen, I lie in my cell and re-read Harry Potter for the sixteenth time. Julie used to make fun of it all the time, telling me that fiction and reality were too vastly different to even enjoy the fantasy, so why did I bother? I didn’t believe it at the time, but she must have been onto something because ten years later, I’m still not at Hogwarts. But even now, even when I know it’s all bullshit and I’ll never live in that fantasy world, it still makes me feel better. Somehow. Because for a while, I can escape. I can live as a witch, and practice magic, and have friends and a mother who didn’t drink herself to death and a father that didn’t molest his daughters.
I can be normal, at least for a while.
Someone knocks on my door, too hard, and I set the book aside, knowing it’s not Lace because she would come right in. I almost shout, “Come in!” but think better of it and get up to answer. I don’t know who all of my enemies are yet, let alone my allies, so I won’t offer anyone the chance to have the upper hand. When I swing the door open, it’s Lulu, and the familiar scowl I’ve come to avoid is heavy on her face.
“What?” I ask. She scoffs, heavily black-lined eyes rolling back into her head.
“Are you going to let me in?”
“Why?”
She doesn’t bother to answer this time, and instead shoulders past me, knocking me aside. She shuts the door behind her and puts a finger to her lips, shushing me from whatever I’m about to do or say.
“Get the fuck out.” I say it anyway, willing to risk her wrath. If I don’t set my boundaries now, nothing will ever change.
“I heard about your sentence.” Lulu begins to look around my cell, her eyes and fingers exploring the cell walls, the hanging photo of Julie and me, and the worn down, paperback novels I have on the shelf near my bed. I don’t stop her, because I still feel like I need to read the situation. She is not posed aggressively, and no slobbering muscle woman is hovering over her shoulder to beat the shit out of me when Lulu snaps her fingers.
“Who hasn’t?” I say. Lulu finally stops nosing around in my stuff and turns to face me, a snide smirk twitching at her lips.
