~

 

“You better not piss on me.”

I frowned immediately at the words from my cellmate. It was the first thing he’d said to me since my arrival. They’d locked us in at 6pm, an hour after dinner, which I forced myself to stomach a couple mouthfuls of before binning it.

I wasn’t sure what time it currently was, but the lights had been turned off hours ago. My body clock guessed that it was somewhere around 1am. I’d been laying in the darkness listening to the sounds of jail. My first night inside. The inmates didn’t go to sleep straight away. They spoke, shouted out of their cells to others. They tried to intimidate the new inmates, like myself. After a couple hours though, things finally fell silent.

I couldn’t see my cellmate, but I could hear him breathing. I didn’t know how I could tell, but I knew he was still awake, as he clearly knew I was.

 

When I’d arrived earlier that day, I’d been brought to my cell by an officer, my supplies in my arms. Bedding, a pillow, clothes and the likes. The cell had been open, but not empty. Three inmates were in there, two sitting on the bottom bunk and one sitting on the chair that was placed by a small table on the wall opposite the bunk bed. I had no idea who my actual cellmate was. The whole cell was so narrow, there was less than a meter between the beds and the table and chair. I noted the top bunk was stripped bare and after an initial assessment of the faces surrounding me, I climbed up the ladder and put my things down.

I’d sat on my bed, not wanting to lay down. I ignored the other inmates as they goaded me, trying to get me to talk, or fight, I didn’t know what. If anyone decided to try and mess with me, it was better to be prepared. Laying down was not the way to do that. I may have never been to jail before, but I knew the inmates gave the new convicts a hard time. We had to prove ourselves or we’d be easy targets. It was easy to have your few possessions taken from you, so I tried to hide what I guessed were the most valuable things that I’d been given. A simple toothbrush, a small tube of toothpaste, some slippers that looked like sheets of paper, a ratty blanket and some plastic cutlery.

 

“The last cellmate I had pissed the bed in the night and it soaked all the way through,” my cellmate explained when I still didn’t say anything.

I would have called bullshit, but feeling just how thin these mattresses were, I wasn’t so sure it was a false story.

“If you need to piss in the night, there’s a toilet in the back corner, but don’t you dare shit,” there was an edge to his low voice.

I was surprised to feel a smile attempting to rise and I quickly smoothed it out.

“What’s your name?” my cellmate clearly wanted to talk now that his friends had long gone.

I ignored him for a few more seconds then sighed out, “Phoenix.”

“For real?” he sounded surprised. “Or is that a nickname?”

“It’s my name,” I only muttered.

“Nice,” I imagined he was shrugging. “I’m Eddie.”

“Okay.”

“What are you in for?” Eddie asked, making me roll my eyes in annoyance. Yes, I couldn’t sleep, but that didn’t mean I wanted to talk.

“I thought you weren’t meant to ask that in here,” I muttered.

“You watch too much TV, I can ask you whatever I want,” he scoffed.

“Well, I’m not going to answer,” I replied in a clipped tone.

There was a round of silence and I found myself blinking into darkness. My stomach panged with hunger. I wanted to be home. I wondered if my brothers were just as restless as I was right then.

“How old are you?” Eddie clearly wasn’t done.

“Why do you want to know? So you can pimp me out?” I hissed through gritted teeth as I suddenly bristled with anger.

Eddie burst out laughing so hard that inmates from nearby cells yelled for him to shut up. It was a hearty laugh, loud.

“You clearly watch too much TV. We don’t do that in here,” he said when he caught his breath back, though a few chuckles still escaped him. “At least, I don’t. I’m just getting to know you.”

“I’m nineteen,” I mumbled with a frown that he wouldn’t be able to see, then I asked. “You?”

“Almost twenty-one.”

I said nothing because what else was there to say?

“Don’t worry,” Eddie spoke. “If someone wants a piece of you, I’m sure he’ll have the decency to ask you first. Consent and all.”

My brows furrowed deeply. I couldn’t tell if Eddie was joking or not, and his lack of laughter made it seem like he was being serious.

At least that’s what I thought until I realised the quiet huffing sound was Eddie silently chuckling.

“Shut up,” I growled at him, which only seemed to give him permission to laugh out loud now he’d been caught.

“How much time did you get?” he asked me once he settled down again.

I sighed hard, choosing to ignore him.

“I can tell you’re the loner type,” Eddie eventually said. “And that’s cool and all, but you won’t last long in here without buddies. Goodnight.”

I clenched my jaw. I knew he was right, but I was so angry, I didn’t want to talk to anyone, let alone make any ‘buddies’. The strip search on my arrival was still haunting me, and so was the fact that I was wearing clothes that had been worn by so many others before me. The mattress was so thin it felt like I was sleeping on the bedframe, and I hated the cocky swagger the officers carried, as if they were gods on earth. But what could I do? Assault a guard and I’d get years added to my time. I had no choice but to obey.

Obey for fourteen months. That was a long time. I was going to spend my birthday in here.

“Night,” I muttered, but Eddie was already asleep.