Us Against All Odds (En)

state penitentiary part 2

By running relentlessly, he had climbed to the highest heights. But his race suddenly seemed to him like a flight forward, not a pursuit of a goal. All of this, he knew in his heart, had been nothing but hot air.

Nicholas Sparks

-----

- "Wish me luck," she said, putting her hand on the handle and turning to Mason.

-"You don't need it. But shit."

---

Maya was waiting in line. Suddenly she was fourteen again, her hands sweaty, as if she had to go tell her father that she had a test to study for the next day and wanted to practice a little less that night.

So she had concentrated, the line was moving very slowly. She closed her eyes and took a deep breath. And she had started running, running in her head, as she had so often done. It was like a flash and she wasn't running anymore, she was looking at Carina, the first time they had gone on vacation together, and Carina had opened her towel, offering her a view of her muscular body, in a striped bathing suit with a smile on her lips.

-"You can move forward please" said the woman behind her.

The captain was out of her trance. Even thinking about this memory had frozen her.

-"Yes, sorry, I was lost in thought."

-"You are lucky, it's hard to get lost in your thoughts when you are in a prison queue."

- "I'm probably thinking too much"

- "Are you new here? I've never seen you before".

- "yes, this is the first time"

- "a boyfriend?"

- "no, actually... My... Uh ... My dad"

- "oh..."

- "I'm here to see my grandson, he thought it was a good idea to steal a police car and have an accident with it on top of that... But I love him, what do you want... What did your father do?"

-"Physical assault... At the point of death".

- "hum! ... You can't choose your parents, my little... I hope that the victim was well treated".

- "it was me"

- "your father declared himself guilty in your place?"

-"no... i was his victim" Maya couldn't believe she was confiding in a stranger, but somehow this woman reminded her of Miranda Bailey, only twenty years older. You could tell her anything you wanted to because she had that soothing presence.

- "Oh my dear! But why are you coming to see him then?"

Knowing that she had been assaulted, this woman had taken the liberty of becoming protective of Maya, as if she too were her little girl, or daughter.

-"I want to know why... To move on..."

The woman had snapped her fingers and forbidden Maya to forgive her, before she had ticked to mark the obligation behind her sentence.

- "Hello, ID" said the agent at the entrance. Maya had given him her passport. "You have nothing to declare?"

- "ho-how's that..."

The agent turned around and pointed to a poster on the wall: "no money, no weapons, no illegal food, no phones, or anything else that is prohibited?"