Home (A Jarnie Fanfiction)

Prologue: Five Years

As a baby blue Porsche was heading down the road to Bolingbroke Penitentiary, the DOC in the guard towers looked puzzled. They wondered who could be visiting such a dangerous prison in a fancy car. As the car approached the checkpoint to enter the grounds, a guard left the stand. The window of the car slowly starts to go down, and inside the guard sees a beautiful white-haired woman in her 20s.

"Hello, ma'am. Are you sure you're at the correct facility?" the guard asks.

The white-haired woman, who seems a bit nervous starts to speak,
"Yes sir. My name is January Fooze. I'm here to visit Inmate #3883. His name is Arni-- sorry," she laughs " Arnold Carl. He goes by Arnie, although it has been a while so I'm not even sure he still likes that nickname. He used to go by so many things Arnie, ArnieDogg, Dufflebag Carl," she abruptly stops herself.

January lets out a nervous breathy laugh, she almost seems like she can't seem to catch her breath. The guard, whose name tag reads "Jackson", had already begun looking into the computer system to see if the inmate was allowed visitation. January began picking at her fingernails, a bad habit she had developed in the past five years. One she just couldn't seem to get rid of, no matter what methods she used.

January begins speaking again,"I'm sorry. It's just been so long since I have seen him. I think almost 5 years now." she smiles nervously.

Jackson let out a chuckle.

"No worries Ms. Fooze, I understand. Well, it looks like Mr. Carl Is indeed allowed visitors starting today. You'll be the first one he's seeing, and I'm sure he will be just happy to see you. All I need now is just to see your ID and you'll be ok to go. You can park anywhere and Mrs. Jones at the front desk will help you get through security so you can visit him."

January rummages through her purse and hands over her ID. The exchange was fairly quick and easy, and as she started driving into the parking lot, all of the memories of her and Arnie quickly came to her mind. Just as quickly as those memories flooded her, so did the blood in her cheeks. She could feel her heart pounding in her chest as she put her car in park. She had never been so nervous in her life, not even when she first admitted her feelings to Arnie in front of the Mirror Park lake.

She pulled down her sun visor and opened it up to her mirror. It had been five years, five long years since she had been able to see or contact Arnie. That was until a week ago when she received a letter at her New York apartment. She couldn't believe she had received a letter from Bolingbroke, much less from Arnie. She had lost hope years ago that she would ever hear from him, after all, it was her fault he was in prison. As those guilty memories came flooding in, she began tearing up. She quickly wiped them away and fixed her makeup.

She blew out a quick breath and stepped out of her car. She wanted to jump back in immediately and leave, but then she remembered Arnie's words in his letter and she began walking to the front of visitation.

As January walked in she noticed how quiet the office was, she didn't know what to expect but quiet was not it. It was a small lobby with waiting chairs in an organized rectangle around the room. In the rightmost corner of the lobby, there were more comfy couches to sit on with a center table full of magazines. As January's eyes moved to the right of the lobby, her gaze was caught by the visitation room just beyond a couple of doors. She wondered if he was already sitting there waiting for her, just as nervous as she was. She finally started moving to the direction of the desk, when a voice had already called her from that direction.

"Ms. Fooze? Are you still wanting to visit Mr. Carl or would you like to wait for another day? I need to inform the guards if he will be receiving a visitor today or not." the lady at the front desk asked in her direction.

January hadn't realized she had been frozen in place for a while before she started making her way over. As soon as Mrs.Jones' patience had run thin it seemed January had made her decision.

"Yes!" she rushed out, "I am here to visit him today."

"Alrighty then, sit anywhere while I let them know and a guard will come and get you to go through a security check before you enter into visitation." Mrs. Jones said.

"Ok, thank you."

She took a seat at the couches, as they looked the most comfortable, and started to look through the magazines. They were a little outdated for January's tastes but she couldn't complain, it was a prison she was waiting at. Not ten minutes later a guard called her and she was searched, scanned with a metal detector, and made to put away all of her possessions in a small locker room. She was not allowed to keep anything on her, not even her jewelry. As she was taking off her "A" necklace she let out a soft laugh at the inside joke she and Arnie had with that necklace. She would have to let him know she still had it, and she did wear it today, just as he had asked her to.

"Alright, I'm ready...I think." January said to her guard.

"Right this way ma'am." the guard started leading her towards the visitation doors. It was quite a big room, filled with metal tables that had attached benches and metal handle-looking things in the middle. There were several people in the room already, many visiting friends and family of inmates, and even more DOC guards in each corner of the room and on the catwalks above.

"Ok Ms. Fooze, sit here and we'll be bringing Mr. Carl right out for you." the guard said.

January sat down, waiting impatiently. She was so excited and nervous and happy, she couldn't believe today was finally the day she would see Arnie, she didn't think that would ever happen again.

A buzzer rang out from the door leading to the cell blocks. January looked up from picking nervously at her fingers, and there he was. He was handcuffed had shackled ankles, and was being led by two guards at the elbows. She couldn't believe her eyes, he was really in front of her. He was still as handsome as she remembered. He still had that mischievous glint in his eyes and that crooked smirk that always made him look like he was up to no good.

As her eyes were welling up with tears, the guards sat him down and cuffed him to the table by the wrists and his ankles.

"Now, you behave Mr. Carl and we won't be having any problems. No touching, no passing any objects, keep your voices down, you get the point." the burly guard said roughly.

"Yes sir, I understand," Arnie said sarcastically and looked up at him giving him a wide smile.

The guard let out a grunt and rolled his eyes. As the guards started walking away Arnie finally turned his attention towards January. She was in shock as the tears were flowing down her face.

"Hi," she breathed out.

"Hey, JanJan," Arnie said, smiling at her.

And before anyone could do anything to stop her, JanJan lept out of her seat, went around the bench, and threw her arms around him in a big hug.