Only the Moon Watching

Chapter 52: He Must Really Love Me!

Jos the best girl I've ever met on the bowl?

That was lame, sorry. I've been meaning to ask if you have any nicknames. Like childhood ones that don't make any sense. Someone, I don't remember who, started a rumor about me that my name's Steak because I wasn't allowed a nickname growing up and I glommed on to the first one I ever got.

That's not true – some people think I was a Jehovah's Witness but I wasn't. They think we aren't allowed nicknames or parties or birthdays or Halloween candy. I don't know if any of that's true, because, again I'm not a Jehovah's witness. And my "cult" or whatever you want to call it did allow nicknames, actually. Though it's true I wasn't ever cool enough to get one.

I want to know if you ever had lame ones. Chet's mom used to call him Beaner because he had little kidney-bean toes – she didn't know it was a slur. (He didn't know it was a slur until he got in here, apparently he'd only ever seen white people before jail. He claims he was raised by old-money grandparents but with teeth like his... Well, maybe they're British.) Yikes I'm derailing this. All I wanted was to know about cute nicknames and now I'm talking –

The next line is scribbled out. Apparently Steak deemed the whole thing too offensive, because the paper is crumbled in a way that suggests he'd tried to trash it. The next letter is written on an unfolded envelope that he must have picked up during mail room duty:

Heeeeeey! Hooooooo!

I thought about your questions again, the Hoosier-y grandfalloon-y baloney ones. I do think you're right, actually. When you connect with someone you want to know everything, even the insignificant stuff.

Or wasn't that what you said? The little personality-quiz questions actually do matter.

I've talked on the bowl before and it's a fun way to pass the time but I don't think I've ever thought about toilets this much. I'm foaming at the mouth to get back to my cell and speak to you! Guess I shouldn't say it like that: foaming at the mouth. Wanting to use toilet. Sounds like a serious illness. I just mean: I get it now, I want to know everything about you. (Are you really a Samantha? Write me back...)

I have to admit I lose a little respect for someone every time they say they're a Hufflepuff, so I hope you aren't. (It just doesn't make sense! You choose the one house with no identifier other than 'nice?' Ted Bundy or one of those serial killers said being nice is like the easiest thing you can fake being! Faking cool or suave or confident or sexy is hard. Faking nice? Say please and thank ya, smile once in a while – it's not rocket science!)

We had a guy in here a while back who was a total sociopath – I mean, he'd killed his family, twenty-year-old dog, no worries about it. No remorse at all! (Cool as a cucumber who'd murdered people, that guy was.) But goddamn if he wasn't charming. Funniest guy in a room, made everyone feel you were his best friend. Not especially handsome but even Girdle got all googly-eyed around him. He just had it. Personality, charm, and the ability to strangle people in cold blood. It was wild. (He was a Hufflepuff.)

I respect people more when they can just say, "Yeah, I like being the center of attention. I'd want to be in Gryffindor." Or, "I'm just too focused on school to date. Ravenclaw." Or, "I like the Slytherin aesthetic: under water dorms, stained glass windows, mermaids under the lake... Green looks good on me..."

What I'd really judge you on is your taste in food. I'm not considering spending the rest of my sentence with someone who likes Tapatio over Cholula. I don't care that it means there's be more Choloula for me. I'm not kissing someone with bad taste who's wrong –

Maybe he's cut off this letter because he'd confessed he wants to kiss me?!

The next three kites are only a paragraph or two long – they barely get past the intros. He seems to be trying to invent a nickname for me, but struggling.

One of them has huge, smudgy water spots, like he wrote it in the shower.

They all confirm I'm doing the right thing.

Each letter makes me heart warm and my cheeks hurt from smiling. It's worth the risk, sneaking in drugs for him.

Waiting for my meeting with Mike feels like waiting for Christmas. I can't fall asleep fast enough...