Omaha Boys Imagines

Beauty and the beast | Wilkinson

Every day when I wake up, the first sight I see is the dirty gray ceiling of my jail cell.

I've gotten used to it: the loud swearing echoing from the other cells, the crying of the younger criminals, the guards' harsh words. You have to get used to it. Otherwise...you'll go insane.

I sit up on my bunk, wincing from the pain in my back. Every night, I try to pretend that this ratty old mattress is my bed at home, but who am I kidding? Even if I successfully fool my mind into thinking that this bunk is actually my bed at home, my backache in the morning quickly quells that thought.

Underneath me is Gilinsky. He's doing time for drug dealing or something. He's basically harmless, except sometimes he'll try to fight people to prove his superiority. He knows better than to challenge me, though. I look down at him and see him reading a book. I smirk; reading might actually benefit him. He's getting out of here in five years. Me, on the other hand...I'm in here for life.

"Yo, good morning," I say to him. He barely looks up at me to acknowledge my greeting. Whatever. I hop off of the top bunk and look out the tiny window on the cell door. Sure enough, like every morning, Maloley's across the hall, flirting with the female guards. Doesn't matter though. Those guards? They have husbands and children at home. They're only flirting back because they're scared he might try to start a riot if they don't.

Every morning, we're allowed out to eat breakfast in the cafeteria. That's the only time I ever get to see my man Johnson. We got arrested together, charged together, and now we're in jail together. The only thing to do now is stick together and try not to piss off the others.

"Yo, Wilk," he shouts from across the cafeteria. I smirk. Johnson's one of the smartest people I've ever met. He doesn't deserve to be in here, but of course my stupid ass had to do some stupid shit and get us both locked up in here.

"Yo," I say back. We walk up to the breakfast line and pick up some prison food. We usually don't eat it. We have food hidden back in our cells anyway. We stuff the food into our clothes, to sell to the other prisoners later. We have a whole system figured out.

"You hear about the new program?" Johnson asks. The prison has some stupid programs every once in a while, to try to teach us how to be productive citizens or whatever. Might be helpful to Johnson, who's getting out in a couple of years. Again, I'm in here forever, so I usually don't participate.

"No, what is it?" I ask.

"It's some kind of dog training program. We train dogs to help blind people and what not. You know, like guide dogs?"

I perk up. I love dogs; I have some dogs at home that I'm dying to see. "That's sick. You going?"

"I'm gonna try to sign up. They said if we do a good job with the dogs, our sentences could be shortened."

"Then I'm definitely doing it," I say. "Where do we sign up?"

/ / /

"Hello, everyone." The old lady standing at the front of the room looks around at all of us. There are about fifteen of us in here, each of us chosen by the prison staff. It's an honor to be in here, I guess. They trust us with this task. "Today is our first session with the dogs! Each of you will be assigned a dog to train. You'll be teaching these dogs important skills needed to become a guide dog. With the help of these volunteers," she gestures to the group of people next to her, "you'll be helping someone in need."

After a long lecture on the importance of guide dogs to society, we get paired up with volunteers. "Mr. Johnson, you'll be partnered up with Michael, and you two will be training Holt here," the lady says. Johnson and Michael stand next to each other; the lady steps out of the room and leads a golden retriever puppy into the room on a leash. I see Johnson immediately fall in love with the dog. The two of them go off somewhere, followed by a guard. The lady continues pairing people up with dogs and volunteers, and pretty soon, I'm the only prisoner left in the room.

"Mr. Wilkinson, you'll be paired up with Y/N here," the old lady says. I stand up and watch as she brings in a black lab puppy. I take the leash from here and follow a guard into another room. The puppy drags me into the room, then starts chasing its tail.

"I'm Y/N," I hear behind me. I look around and almost gasp out loud. I was too busy watching the puppy to take a good look at Y/N. Let me tell you, she is probably the most beautiful girl I've seen in my life. As she kneels down to the dog's level, I'm mesmerized by her bright eyes and contagious smile. Her hair is tied back in a ponytail, and flows down her back. I catch myself staring at her with my mouth open.

"I'm...I'm Sam," I say to her. She gives me smile, which nearly makes me faint. I don't know what the hell happened to my tough guy attitude, but this girl...

"This puppy's name is Dexter," Y/N tells me. She takes the dog off of the leash and lets him sniff around the room. Not that I'm paying attention to the dog anyway. I glance at the door and see a guard standing there. Damn it. If the guard wasn't there, I'd be flirting with Y/N at top speed.

"So, what do we need to do?" I ask her. She looks down at a clipboard, scrunching her eyebrows as she reads the paper.

"Well, the first lesson we need to teach him is how to sit," she says. Y/N takes a packet of dog treats out of her back pocket, making Dexter fly across the room to her as he smells the treats.I laugh and the sight of him trying to knock her down and get the treats. She laughs too, and takes a treat out of the bag. She holds it above Dexter's nose, waiting for him to sit. When he does, she firmly says, "sit." Then, she gives him the treat and praises him. "Now you try," she says, handing me the bag of treats.

Is it bad that I almost freaked out when our hands made contact?

"Dexter, sit," I say, repeating her actions. Dexter listens; I give him a treat and praise him. "Good boy, good job."

"Perfect! Now we have to keep doing it until he does it without a treat."

We spend the next hour repeating the "sit" lesson to Dexter, but he isn't a very fast learner. Exhausted, we take a break and sit down in the two chair in the corner of the room. Dexter wanders off to the opposite side of the room, completely occupied with sniffing the wall.

"Why aren't you scared of me?" I ask Y/N suddenly, turning to her. She gives me a confused look, before crossing her arms.

"Why should I be scared of you?"

"Because I'm a criminal and I'm in prison."

"So? What'd you do, anyway? What are you in here for?"

"First degree murder."

She doesn't even flinch. Most people, even the guards, will start looking at me suspiciously or will start acting scared. The fact that I murdered someone doesn't even seem to scare Y/N. "Aren't you scared now that you know I'm a murderer?"

"No," she says, shrugging. "Why should I be? I don't think you're going to murder me."

"How do you know?"

"I just know," she says, letting out a twinkly laugh. My mouth drops open. Is she being serious?

"You're either stupid, or just a really, really nice person," I tell her. She laughs again, this time throwing her head back.

"I'm neither. I just think that people change, you know? Besides, I can't judge you for something you did in your past."

I sit in silence, thinking about what she just said. If I were in her shoes, I'd be running away for dear life from myself. "You don't think I'm a bad person?"

"No," she responds in the most carefree voice I've ever heard in my life. I suddenly realize that it's not just her appearance that is beautiful.

"You know, we're kind of like the Beauty and the Beast," I joke. She laughs and looks me straight in the eye.

"I appreciate the compliment in that statement, but I don't think you're a Beast. Like I said, people change! Your past may shape who you are, but it's really who you are now that defines you."

Is it possible to fall in love with someone the first time you meet them?