War of Hearts #NaNoWriMo2017

three: "prison sucks balls"

Griffin Everwood

Prison sucks. It sucks balls.

That's all Griffin can think as he stabs his fork into the slightly grey chicken that sat on his ugly plastic tray with a suspicious stain on it.

The chicken matched his grey jumpsuit.

Prison sucks. Prison food sucks.

He looked around at the guys sitting at his table. Then he looked down at his bare bicep. Maybe he should get a tattoo.

"Hey, Gomez! Do you think I'd look good with another tattoo?

The boy next to him grins. "Oh yeah, I think you'd look hot with a butterfly above your ass."

He shoulder checks Gomez and goes back to his non edible chicken.

"Okay, boys, listen up! If I call your name you've got visitors coming." The warden announces with an enthusiasm that should be reserved for sex and edible food, not weekly visitors.

In Griffin's opinion, Warden Bailey was entirely too peppy and optimistic to be a prison warden. He probably do better as a summer camp counselor. His exuberance was seriously starting to get on Griffin's nerves.

Prison sucks. Prison food sucks. Prison people suck.

No girls sucks. No decent food sucks.

Everything sucks.

"Okay! Allen, Alvarez, Burns, Carter, Cooper, Dennis, Everwood, Fernandez, Franco, Gomez..."

Griffin's head snaps up.

He wasn't supposed to have any visitors today. Max had to babysit Maisie, and Holly had for the day Leo, and Hayes had to work a double. Maybe Sawyer... He shakes his head. Santa Claus would come visit before his baby sister did.

His little sister hates him. He knows that. He understands that. And to be honest, he kinda hates himself too.

How does he know this? It probably has something to do with her yelling that "I hate you!" over and over again as he was led away in handcuffs. Tears were streaming down her face and she was hysterical as Luke and Max dragged her away from the crime scene.

She looked so broken. So lost.

And it was all his fault.

She may never forgive him.

He knows that he will never forgive himself.

Griffin Everwood has made a lot of mistakes in his life.

He's broken girls hearts without a second thought, and he's beaten kids up to the point where they're almost unrecognizable. He's almost flunked out of high school. Twice. He didn't show up to his grandmother's funeral.

And he can be an asshole.

Actually, he is an asshole.

But Sawyer.

Sawyer was the only thing that Griffin has ever done right in his seventeen years of life. The one thing he didn't screw up.

That was, until three months ago when he was arrested for murdering their father.

So maybe it's just Griffin that sucks.

~~~

Griffin watched from the back of line as the light above the door went from red to green.

The guys ahead shuffled forward. Some looked like they were dreading it. Most of them look like this was one good thing that happened to them all week. And maybe for them it was.

But not for Griffin.

Because the one person he wanted to see wouldn't be waiting for him on the other side of that metal door.

Griffin was the last one out the door.

It was probably his lawyer had come to review his case or maybe Max got out of babysitting. It was possible that Harrison and Jazz were sitting at one of those cold metal tables.

But what he saw made him stop in his tracks.

And there, sitting at a metal table was a teenage girl with messy white blonde curls and a bright red leather jacket .

She was wearing a band t-shirt. Today it was The Clash. Griffin's favorite band. He wonders if she did that on purpose. He shakes the thought form his head. She probably didn't even realize it.

Her scuffed black Chuck Taylor's are tapping against the floor. 

She didn't look any older. She still wore her hair in a haphazard ponytail. Her eyes were still an stunning mix of green, blue, and grey. She still drummed her fingers and tapped her foot when she was nervous.

She was exactly the same and yet completely different.

It had been three months since he had last seen her, but Griffin would recognize her anywhere.

"Sawyer?"

~~~

Sawyer sat on a cold stainless steel bench in the prison visiting room, drumming her fingers against the metal table. She was nervous. She didn't want to be, but she was.

She watched as the light above the door turned from red to green and opened. She watched as a line of grubby teenage boys in bleak grey jumpsuits started filing in.

They hugged their families and shook hands with their lawyers and kissed their girlfriends.

Griffin was the last one in.

He always did like to make an entrance.

His hair had grown longer since the last time she saw him and his face covered by a layer of stubble. He had bags under his eyes and he was thinner than she remembered.

Griffin wasn't smirking, and he was always smirking.

But he still looked like her big brother.

The guard pointed to the teenage girl in the red leather jacket. She gave him a feeble wave.

"Sawyer?"

It was almost a whisper, like he didn't really believe that she was sitting there.

And part of Sawyer didn't really believe it either.

"Hi, big brother."