Bora Bora Bora

16: All animals are equal

Nicky's POV

For a few glorious seconds after my eyes open, I'm almost glad to be awake, since I've never been a big fan of reliving the past. But then I see the icy white and gray, and I remember.

"Morning, sunshine," my bunkmate chirps. I grunt in response.

"That must have been an intense dream you were having. You slept through the 7:00 am and 7:05 alarms and most of the guards stomping in front of our door."

Believe me, it was.

I sit up in my bed, rubbing my temples.
"Yeah, years of experience letting guards and alarms know they can kiss my ass. Worked out pretty well for me, as you can see."

My bunkmate snorts. She's changed out of her pajamas, and I suppose I could change into some fresh clothes as well. I can feel her eyes glued on me as I strip and I wanna tell her to look away, but for once in my life, I decide to bite my tongue. I better start now, if I wanna get out of Max alive. And I do. If not for me,then for Lorna.

"Ya, I see," she responds, eyeing my half naked torso.

After I finish changing, she stands in front of me with her hand streched out. "I'm Rosario. Penelope Rosario."

"Nichols," I say taking her hand. I raise my eyebrows. "Penelope Rosario...sounds French."

"So I've been told," she raises an eyebrow in response, quickly catching on to my sarcasm. Her Ss sound slightly like Zs, almost as if she had a lisp, if lisps were sexy. Yet there's something about her that makes me uneasy, but I can't put my finger on it.

"Where are you from, really? You don't sound anything like the other latins I know," I ask.

"That's because I'm from Spain. We're the original latins."

"Sure. The other latins are just the result of the brutal colonization of the great ancient civilizations that had been standing for centuries but yet your people claim to have discovered."

"Exactly," she smirks. 

I rub my eyes, kinda glad I don't have a mirror so I can't see the mess running mascara must have left on my face. Not that I give much of a shit anyways.

"So. That must've been a real catch you left up the hill- to cry like that last night," Penelope Rosario says.

"You have no fucking idea."

"Eh, whatever- you'll soon find a way to get over your prison wifey. Prison's full of bitches- that's why they invented the term prison wife, right?" she scoffs, laughing at her own joke. I bite my lower lip.

"Not prison wife," I say.

"Huh?"

"I said, not prison wife. Wife" I hold up my left hand. "I'm married."

It's the first time I say that to a stranger, and somewhere between all the intermittent pain and cold I've been feeling since yesterday, the words make me feel a little bit warmer inside.
Her eyes widen.

"Ah, bueno. You don't mess around, do you, Sra. Nichols?"

The female guard from yesterday opens our cell door, looking as friendly as ever.

"Breakfast, inmates!" she commands.

"Good morning to you too, honey bun," Penelope winks at her as she walks past her.

"Watch it, Rosario" the guard snaps back.

She looks back at me with a naughty expression plastered on her face. I follow her out of our cell, the guard walking closely behind us.

Our table buddies are already there when we sit in front of our morning mushes. This time I look at their faces. The woman sitting in front of me, next to Penelope, looks about 40-ish. She has olive skin and curly black hair, and the silver cross around her neck makes something deep inside my chest hurt. The tag on her uniform reads: De la Vega, Ana Maria. Quite a name. The sort of name you'd expect to see rolling in movie credits, or in the cover of a book. Not exactly in a prison's ID tag.

The girl sitting next to me can't be very much more than a teen. She must be over 18, to be in here, but her pink-rimmed glasses and the braids she's tucked her red hair into make her look hardly 13. I can't see the name on her ID.

"What's the deal with that guard?"I ask Penelope as she starts to dig into her disgusting food. "I thoughts only the COs who actually have dicks are dicks."

"Power grows dicks in everyone, chica. Haven't you read Animal Farm? " she answers absentmindedly.

"All animals are equal, but some are more equal than others," the girl besides me whispers, in a voice so quiet I think I'm the only one who hears it.

"So, Rosario," Ana Maria De la Vega says, "when are you going to introduce us to the new barbie in the dollhouse?"

She nods at me and then back at her.

"De la Vega, Nichols, De la Vega, Nichols. And Quiet over there 's Amy Rogan."

She gestures at the young girl, who smiles shyly at me and then looks back down. I should be past the point of surprise right now, but how does a kid who can't even look another person in the eye for longer than 1 second end up in a maximum security prison?

"She doesn't talk much," De la Vega says.
She leans on her elbows and squints her eyes while she looks at me. "Look at you, blondie. What you'd do?"

A shiver runs down my back. Those are the exact words I told Chapman when I first met her. God help me if I'm sending off the same vibe as she did.

"Yes," Penelope leans forward as well, "what did you do, Nichols?"

I scoff at her. "To get in prison? Drugs. To get in Max? More drugs."

I cross my arms over my chest, challenging her.

"What about you, huh? How did a nice Spanish girl like you end up in Litchfield,NY?"

"I came to America with my girlfriend. We had...business."

"Uh-huh. And is that business what got you in here?"

"Well..you could say so," she says thoughtfully. "It was part of the reason why I had to kill her."

"Fuck," I widen my eyes and laugh. My hot bunkmate killed her girlfriend.

Welcome to Max, Nichols.

Before I can dive further into this delightful conversation, a loud noise makes all our heads turn. An inmate is passed out on the floor just a few meters away from us.

Two guards, including our friend from earlier rush towards her. She kneels beside her and starts giving orders.

"This one's a fucking junkie," she hisses, "just throw her in the SHU."

I watch as they roughly carry her away, no one even bothering to check her vitals or even look at her face. Her scarred arms dangle at her sides, like a rag doll's.

Beside me, Amy Rogan speaks again, this time a little bit louder:

All animals are equal, but some are more equal than others.