DOWN BY LAW // WHEN THEY SEE US *DISCONTINUED*

Chapter 8

We won't beg people to like us.

Be against us. We'll clap back.

Monica Cartier

They were all love sick while I had to grind, they said we had 5 years in here. In NY everyone knows Juvie holds you until you're 21 or they give you early to the state if you do something bad. Either way, I was going down to prison for one year since I was 17 already.

They had nothing to worry about, but that year in prison could break me. Just like their breaking Korey.

He wrote Lyric telling her that he got into another fight. He was bad ass, he told us that they had to put him in solitary but he wanted to go there anyways.

Trina crazy ass already went to for trying to rape Dmirikel and-

"DUCK-" Rose yelled, it was too late, the football hit me in my eye. I paused diverting my attention to Dmirikel arguing with the new guard, "I CAN SHARE MY BROWNIE IF I WANT!" She really wasn't supposed to be sharing shit, that's why she was stuck in the orange shirts while all of us were in the purple shirts.  "I'm writing you up, you're spending the rest of your day in solitary-" he grabbed her, I facepalmed, she's been doing dumb shit the whole time.

We couldn't pass notes either, even the counselors said we could which was dumb. Because who would want to pass notes when we could just talk?

The rules with passing notes were stupid

"Big ass humpty-dumpty, aye Megan, buy me some Whoopers while I'm in there-" she was pushed into the hallway, they thought they could put their hands on us. Like we needed to be hit or man handled. No matter how long I'm here, ain't no officer putting his hands on me.

And all these girls are crazy, especially the white ones. Some of them are in here because they smoked crack and did meth or heroine. Some people robbed a old lady, others stole cars. Rose was with all that ghetto shit but I wasn't. Until now.

We had dumb community meetings in the library every Friday. And today was Friday. Everyone on our floor level talked about their problems and what they needed to be fixed.

They need to fix the whole system because we wouldn't be here otherwise.

"Any problems Laila?" Mr. Harold asked the fat white girl. She already didn't like me, word gets around she's been talking about all of us. Dmirikel already fought her, Lyric already pressed her, Megan laughs in her face, and Rose spilled her milk on her.

"Well, uhhhh-," she had an ugly, deep as voice, "I don't like them," she pointed at us, Rose started laughing, "rapists like them don't belong in here, they deserve the death penalty like Trump sa-"

"Shut up you trailer park trash ass bitch, I'll beat the fat off of you," Rose hopped over the chair, while Megan continued instigating the situation, "BEAT THAT BITCH ASS! BEAT THAT BITCH!"

"On god we ain't even touch that lady, got me fucked-" the white girl pulled Lyric's braids, and it turned into a full out brawl. Tubby tried sitting on Rose but Rose hit her with a chair. My smile lit up from ear to ear, Lyric never got in fights but now here she is, fighting a crack head. It was one thing to imagine her fighting but it was another thing to actually see her fighting.

She played no games.

Sweat bubbled around my nose. They need to get the air conditioning fixed. Was no one gonna stop the fight? Mr. Harold started panicking and my stomach felt queasy while 4 guards came in, picking them off of each other.