The Innocents

Chapter Twenty-Six

I wish I could say that life got easier once Gladey was out of the picture, but it didn't.

A bunch of things became more confusing as the days ran on. One was my obvious attraction to one Miles Ford, seven years my senior and a prison guard as if I had to remind you of that. The other was Mrs. Krenshaw. I made it a point to talk to a few girls who also attended sessions with her and none seemed to discuss half of the things that I did during our time. They said she wasn't invasive, didn't ask about their parents or past lives, but more talked about how they felt now. One girl, even mentioned that she hadn't even brought up her crime at all. I left the cafeteria after that with more questions than answers.

Mrs. K watched me closely. This I knew. She asked about the time I spent with Marla and what we did together. After I lied and said that we just spoke about books, she decided to go out on a limb and ask about Gladey.

"I suppose you're the new leader of The Thorn," she said, opening a box of fresh apple fritters.

"No, I don't believe in leaders per say," I replied, taking in a whiff of the pastries. They smelled delicious, but I don't reach for one. "What are you, conditioning me?"

She leaned back in her seat giving me that all knowing look. She opted for a peach color on her lips and her hair wasn't quite as hairsprayed back as it usually is. Her suit that day was navy blue with a white blouse. There's a pin on the collar of a tiny ship.

"What is it that I can do for you, Drew," Mrs. K asks, leaning forward.

"Well, the girls and I had an idea about putting on a play," I tell her. Marla and I had stayed up all night making pretend plans hoping to God that the warden would let us. It's not harmless and well, it may help bring a better light to this place. I tell Mrs. K this. I make it sound like the benefit to the prison greatly outweighed the benefit to us.

"I have never heard of a worse idea," Mrs. K said, but the corner of mouth twitched. She considered it. She sat back, her mouth now pulled tight, her eyes scanning every part of me. "Do you want to talk about Crawford?"

"No, this isn't about that," I say and she said, all right. Her reply was a little too nice.

"Something traumatic can have lasting effects on people," she told me.

"You would know," I replied and then I gave in because to get something in this world, you have to give something in return. So, I agreed to talk about Crawford and in exchange, she would allow us to put on our play. She agreed pretty quickly which lead me to suspect that may renege on our deal. But I had to be trusting. Then, I went back to that night.

It's strange how much I did remember when I actually let my mind recall my night with Faye. I guess in a way it was all still happening as much as I tried to deny it. On my skin, I felt him, in my ears I heard him whispering, on my lips I tasted him, through my nose I could smell his cologne, and in my eyes I saw him winking. All five senses brought him back to life, a writhing ghoul in the darkness of my memory.

I bought this monster to life by telling Mrs. K about him, down to the upturned collar of his polo shirts, each detail precise as if they had been on the tip of my tongue all along. Describing to someone how one single person ruined your entire life should have been more difficult but maybe it was because I didn't see him as a person. To visualize someone anything but who they are was a coping mechanism that I was mastering.

I told her about the club and how he had drugged my drink and the dancing and ultimately me leaving with him. Never once did she ask why. Never once did she ask if I thought about Jackson or even Faye. Unlike the courts and the press and the rest of the country, she didn't appear to blame me at all.

Then I began to talk about what he had done to me. I remembered those things in choppy fragments. The way he hiked up my skirt and the way I felt his hands between my legs and his body, heavy on mine. The way he had kept me pinned down with one hand while the other unfastened himself gladly helping himself to something he had no right to take from me. It wasn't his and now he has it for eternity and now here I am, me, but a me in a different form.

Then I told her that I thought I deserved what had happened to me. For some reason I felt it was penance for some past life where I had fucked up something so badly that in order to be redeemed, this Drew had to suffer and that maybe now my soul could move on because I was square with God. Maybe someday I wouldn't be as damaged as the walrus man said I was. Maybe in the next life I could be whole.

I guess I had gone on metaphorically for some time because I eventually lost my points and train of thought and after a long stretch of silence I decided to just come out and say it.

"When I get out of here, I am going to kill him you know."

I don't know what I expected to happen. Maybe, Mrs. K would pull out a recording device, her phone or tablet maybe, and play back what I just said. She'd use that to add on more time onto my sentence so we could spend our days talking about Crawford and eating apple fritters like some wild animal on a chain in a zoo. I bet she would really like that, I thought. What better way to forget about your shitty life than to keep someone around who makes it seem like it's rainbows and unicorns?

But none of that happened. What did happen was that Mrs. K looked at me, unmoved by my words, like a stone figure in a museum and then said, "What you've been through can help others."

And I thought, help others? Why would I want to do that when I was the one who needed the help?

I closed my eyes that night and saw nothing behind my eyelids which was a great relief and I got to thinking that maybe, just maybe talking about what had happened had been like lifting a boulder from my shoulders and taking the veil from my eyes. I drifted off imagining someone out there who was thinking good thoughts and dreaming good dreams could lend me one of theirs because now I had space in my mind that was reserved for something beautiful.