Escape to reality (Completed)

Chapter 5: Someone To Talk To

We talked and talked for a long time until the guards told us to go back in. I felt so sad that we had to go that I nearly forgot that our cells are together. For the next few days all we did was talk, nothing, but talk. We would annoy the other prisoners with our constant jabbering. Although I never got into deep conversations with her, I barely know her past. Correction: I don't know anything about her past, or how and why she got stuck here, but I wasn't going to pry it out of her. Adding to that, I've seen her with some type of smirk, but never really smiling. She normally talks looking down at the floor, not that I mind.

I wasn't prepared for the next question she asked me. "What do you like?" I had been so used to hearing her talk I nearly forgot what I liked.

I stay silent for a while "I like..." This question really got me by surprise. I loom over my shoulder as if the answer would be over it, or someone would be holding flash cards with the answer on it, like in TV. I say what I observe. "... Talking." She looks at me with her dull expression and remains silent. "What did I do!?" I think to myself in panic. "Why didn't I just say something insignificant, like reading?"

"I..." She interrupts my thoughts. "I like talking too." I feel a smile being drawn on my face.

I don't let the conversation get awkward "I also like reading books." I try to look away from her and focus my sight on the floor so she wouldn't see my panic. "The library has a few books about the outside world. I like thinking how it'd be living out there without a care in the world. Even if we had difficulties out there too. Anything is better than being here."

"Do you remember anything before this?" She asks abruptly. "Before being locked up, I mean." Her eyes fixate on me and don't move a millimeter.

This was good. I wasn't the one who asked her about her past, she asked me. "Me?" Which was a stupid response "I don't believe I was born in this place... But I don't have solid memories of anything before being locked here." I feel a soft, but persistent pain in my chest grow steadily "They are more like vague memories. The image of two adults who's face I can't identify, whom I deduct are my parents. I can't seem to remember anything past that." I must have seemed troubled, Jen was looking at me with sorry eyes. "Sometimes I dream about them... But never anything too sure. For all I know they could be figments of my imagination." Of course I had to explain what "figment of my imagination" meant seeing as though she'd never picked up a psychology book. Strangely those were abundant in the library...

"I see..." She looks back down.

"What about you? What do you remember?"

After a long pause her pained voice shoots out. "Nothing." Her voice cracks. I can see anger and frustration in her face. "I can't remember anything. The thought is there. I can feel a warm house with family... But whenever I get close to remembering... It all falls apart." Hot tears fall from her cheek and she whipes them away with her sleeve. Why did I even ask?

I place my hand on her hand and finally, I see her smile.