Falling For An Inmate

CHAPTER 27

Arya Crawford

Have you ever felt trapped?

Trapped in your empty shell of a body? Your wasted mind? Your soul being leeched dry? Well, have you?

All our lives, we learn to find homes in our bodies, in our minds. We are encouraged to love all their quirks and their dimensions. But are we ever taught what to do when the homes we labored away on, to feel comfortable in, become our prisons? No, we are not.

When our bodies and minds are no longer a safe place to retreat. When the grills on the windows of our metaphorical home turn into metal bars that keep us caged inside. What do we do then?

I watch from the barred windows of my metaphorical home, as my family and friends laugh and play in the grass outside. In the sunlight. Free of this bottomless pain that I feel. I long to join them and escape my prison. I long to shed my skin, shed my mind, and jump out of this abyss to join them.

An abyss that just keeps sucking me in. A shroud of darkness a seemingly permanent fixture in the body and mind I call home.

They see you as a burning candle.

Strong scent to carry their worries away.

To remind them of a warm summer's day.

To feel calm and relaxed.

And melt with the wax, to the memories of long ago.

But only you know that you are a house on fire.

Only you feel the pain of everything burning around you.

The suffocation on the other side of blackened windows.

The house that is you, engulfed.

The flames roaring over your cries.

Feeling everything crumbling around you.

They float on a cloud of scent.

Drawn to the warmth of your flame.

They light the candle once more.

Only to set your house on fire again.

And watch you burn all over again.

A lit candle, a personification of myself. The candle, a beacon of hope for some, a symbol of my own destruction for me.

I was imprisoned in the house of my mind, my body, as it all burnt to the ground around me.

I wanted to discard my skin, and with it my prison. I wanted skin that Spencer had never touched before. I wanted a mind Spencer had never tormented before. I wanted escape from these impossible prisons. But there was no escape. And the fires of destruction raged on inside my house, my home, searing the skin off my bones.

Over a week had gone by since the incident in the shed, bringing me into the third month of the internship. Jackson, Megan, my family, my uncle, Dr. Abignale, and Carter had all questioned me about it. But I had stayed tight-lipped.

I didn't want anyone knowing, for two reasons. The simplest one being that if I were to tell anyone, my internship at the prison would effectively come to an end. The second reason was an extension of the first, I didn't want Spencer to control my life. Not again. Not ever again.

For the better part of two and a half years, my life had been about Spencer Cohen and what he had done to me.

The trial, even though it was concluded speedily due to an abundance of evidence, had all been about Spencer. About me, but about Spencer too. The rape kit, the forensic analysis of my body, the testimonies, the never-ending court appearances, every sentence spoken to me was regarding my rapist.