Only the Moon Watching

Chapter 28: The First Meeting

I've never slept through an alarm. If I know I have to be up at a certain time, I wake up every hour on the hour anticipating it. Even in jail, even without an alarm clock or a phone, I know I might hear from Steak "in the morning" so I wake up at 2am, then 3, then 4, 5, and 5:30.

Finally, at 6am Garda Girdle yells for us to get ready for breakfast. And at 6:05 someone knocks on the bowl. Shiv watches the door while I bail out the water and I hear Steak's voice whisper down: "I'll find you this morning! Be ready!"

My hands shake as I collect my breakfast tray. In a perfect world, I'd have gum for a first date. And lip tint and my eyebrows brushed and I'd have coordinated my earrings to match my outfit. (And I would never wear orange because it brings out any red spots in my skin!) But in jail, I don't have a choice.

I'm wearing socks and sandals for gods sake! Socks and crocs – disgusting.

I've never felt so much riding on a first meeting before. In the outside world, you never know if a guy will want to keep dating you. Are you going out for one coffee or will it turn into twenty? Will he meet someone else in the Starbucks line? Will he decide, randomly, to move cross country or defer school and go backpacking or drop out entirely to pursue an app he's building? But in jail, we're severely limited in our options. If Steak and I like each other, we'll probably keep talking for the next six months. He can't ghost me, he can't pretend to be busy at work or school. Whether I want to or not, I'll know all his movements. He lives right on top of me, I will literally hear every single time he flushes.

It's sort of like we live together.

We're skipping a bunch of steps: the first butterflies of seeing someone you like from a distance, casual dating, serious dating, moving in...

One time, I saw Needler hold up a message of her own and gesture to the rolled paper, calling it the Prison Promise Ring. Apparently, if you find someone on the bowl you like, you stick with them. (At least for a month or two, which feels like forever when all your days are the same, and sometimes those few weeks are the entire length of your sentence.)

A cafeteria trustee slops the familiar carrot-or-peach mush onto my plate, but I'm barely paying attention, looking over his shoulder to see if Steak is somewhere in the kitchens.

I still haven't seen a photo of him, I have only Shiv's description to go on: tall, dark, possibly Asian but hard to tell – the kind of face that could catalogue model or play an alien in a blockbuster movie. Interesting-looking – hard to place but easy to admit he's hot.

She didn't mention tattoos, and that rules out a lot of the trustees. No word about earrings or facial hair or anything else easy to identify, either. I guess he must know what I look like – the only new face he hasn't met yet – so when we lock eyes maybe his will light up with recognition and that'll be my sign.

Crossing the cafeteria to my table, I meet eyes with Grifta instead and hastily avert my gaze. I'm nervous already, I don't need to pick a fight today.

I slap my tray onto the table, between Ripper and Shiv, and the noise of metal on metal turns my already-nervous stomach.

"You look queasy," says Ripper, stealing an unappealing grey pancake off my plate.

"Might meet Steak in person today," I whisper. "I didn't expect to be so nervous but I am. I've never used dating apps and I never had an online boyfriend growing up! I've never had feelings for someone before I've seen them in person, but –" I shake my head. I don't have feelings for him. Not yet... "Anyway, he said he's going to find a way to come down here and –"
All the girls lean in.

"He's gonna cause a ruckus, eh?" says Shiv, eyes gleaming. "Pull a fire alarm, clear the cafeteria? Start a bit of real fire to get the guards running in the wrong direction?"

"He wouldn't!" I gasp. "I thought he just meant he'd volunteer for kitchen duty or something! I expected him to be the one passing out pancakes, not–"

"I'm kidding, Josephina," Shiv says in an exaggerated valley-girl accent. "Calm down, like, take a chill pill! Steak plays by the rules, for the most part. I'm sure he'll just volunteer for clean up. You already know him so well." She winks. "Eat up so your brain doesn't go all fuzzy."

I think I've forgotten how to chew, so I settle for taking a swig of my drink. It doesn't sit well – apple juice – that stings my unsettled stomach. It's too sweet, too acidic, and it feels like bile in the back of my mouth.

Why am I so nervous?

I've already talked to him! Kind of. We've exchanged messages, it's not like I know nothing about him! And if I get a good look and don't like him up close, what's the problem? It's not like I'm stuck with him forever, we're only upstairs-downstairs roommates for six more months...

I let Ripper steal the second pancake off my plate, then take a spoonful of the questionable carrots-or-mushed peaches and force it into my mouth and chew. Even after a few days, I still can't work out what flavor I'm tasting. It's still just disgusting orange mush. It mixes unpleasantly with the after taste of apple juice and reminds me of –

Puke.

Oh my god I'm going to–!

The door opens, and a trustee with a mop walks in. As he removes it from the bucket and slops it wetly onto the floor, I double over underneath our table and hurl.