Epilogue
Natalia
People always say prison changes a person.
What they don’t understand is that it actually reveals the truest form of them.
Locked away, stripped of identity and facades, something different and primal emerges.
No longer a slave to the roles and rules ingrained in us out there.
What came out was something raw, quick to react and engage. All nerves and bite, all fear and pain.
So no, my time in prison didn’t change me.
It just showed me who I really was, and I wasn’t ashamed.
I survived. I faced obstacles and situations others wouldn’t dream of.
Cut off, isolated, everyone left me to rot in there, assuming I would fester.
Like gonorrhea—painful and embarrassing, but forgotten after a strong course of antibiotics.
Hey, sweetie! I had a dream about you last night…
The words flowed easily from my pen, the thin notebook paper bowing under the weight of my hand. How many letters like this have I sent out now? Enough that I could do it without thinking, enough to make sure I always had money in my commissary and plenty of cigarettes to trade and buy favors.
At first, it was flattering, the number of men interested in a prison girlfriend. Letters led to phone calls, which sometimes led to visits, but only if they paid. How else would I have time to speak with them? How would I afford stamps? Whatever lies I fed them, they ate it up.
All over the country—even some abroad—men wrote to me based on some sleazy profile on prison pen pal websites. Not exactly the dark web, but not in the socially acceptable sphere, either; those pen pal sites had made for a much more comfortable stay than I had originally anticipated.
“Nat. Finish your Dear John note so we can get to rec early. It’s pizza day,” Dana, my current bunkmate, informed me.
If you showed an eighteen-year-old me where I was now, she wouldn’t believe it.
Sometimes, it was still hard for me to accept.
But the scars on my body, the missing teeth, and the new click to my jaw were constant reminders.
My tits were still perky—thank you, Dr. W—and the weight I had gained from all the insubstantial meals there had only added to the curves of my hips and ass.
Everyone in there was overweight, bloated from the carb and starch-filled diet meant to make it seem like we were well fed but that actually had zero nutritional value.
Grabbing a tray, I mindlessly joined the line, my thoughts both empty and aware.
I had eyes on every corner, waiting for someone to jump at me.
This wasn’t a place to make friends; it was a place for enemies and reluctant allies—mutually beneficial truces.
Sliding into my seat, I dug into the meal, barely tasting it as I swallowed. The sounds of scraping utensils, loud chewing, and varied conversations filled the air.
“So you really gonna get married?” Dana asked me, her tattooed eyebrows contrasted against her pale skin, making her perpetually angry expression even more severe.
“Why not? It looks good for the parole board. He’s got a good job, a house, some land. It means I got a place to go and someone to look after me when I get out.” I shrugged, pretending it was no big deal.
Emotionally, it wasn’t. I was numb inside. Love, excitement, hope…Those were useless to me now. Practical, realistic, pessimistic—those were my new best friends. I hugged them close at night, when the cries and screams kept me awake and all my sins came back to haunt me.
Sometimes, it felt like they lived in the shadows, waiting for me to fall asleep so they could slip into my head, fill my body with the dark smoke, rotting my insides until I woke up, choking and panting.
There was no escape, no reprieve from the absolute nothingness of being trapped in the prison of self-reflection. Combing over every moment and redoing them in your head until you realized the outcome would always be the same.
It wouldn’t change because I couldn’t change. Even there, I was only a lesser form of myself, a scavenger surviving on the corpse of what I once was.
What if I hadn’t run away after college? What if Max had never met Sophie? What if I had never married Max?
The same useless thoughts rolled over in my head, filling any space that wasn’t preoccupied with survival. I knew I couldn’t expect anything except what I could do for myself. In here or out there, it was only me.
So I watched. I learned. I hung back when I needed to, then stepped up when I knew the pain would be worth it.
I earned my badges, my scars of honor. Respect meant domination, and domination meant power.
It was all the same, yet entirely different.
Goods bartered and sold, a pack of cigarettes here for protection there.
“You haven’t even met the guy in person.
You don’t know what his house looks like.
You ain’t never even been over there. Kentucky is a big-ass state.
You think Paducah is anything like what you’re used to, Trash Princess?
Way below your standards, even now.” I frowned.
Dana was rude, brusque, judgmental—but truthful.
“Why—what would you suggest I do? Move into some halfway house where I have to share a bedroom and bathroom with how many other bitches? I move from one shit hole with no privacy to another. At least I can get my own bathroom, my own bed. I only have to share with one person. I won’t have to have a house mom checking my times.
Plus, who would hire me? A nepo baby ex-con?
No skills of any kind? Tell me what options I have. Realistically,” I bit back.
“Alright. Just saying it’s been two years you’ve been talking to this guy? He never managed to visit once? You had how many guys come by in that time? Why this one?” she asked. I chewed slowly. I was eating mashed potatoes—or was it beans? I couldn't tell anymore.
“Like I said, it looks good for parole. He may not have visited, but he’s sent money every month.
He’s looked after me consistently in a way none of the others have.
Always takes my calls, writes me more letters than I write him.
He has more to lose than me, and that’s a good spot to be in.
I don’t see any better options. Parole meeting is next week, and my lawyer said it was looking good.
I gotta have something in place,” I told her, and she frowned.
“Seems fishy. Still think you could call your rich daddy and he’d feel bad, throw you some cash to get on your feet.
Just your pride keeping you from reaching out.
This ain’t no place for that. Think about it.
Losing your dignity for the length of a phone call?
Or sacrificing a better future because of pride? ”
I should have listened. My parents had cut me off as soon as I was arrested.
They didn’t attend any of my court dates, they never visited, and they never sent a single letter.
I didn’t know if they even knew which prison I was in.
I’d been transferred twice since I’d been incarcerated.
They were the past, a crutch that did nothing but slow me down. I would be fine without them.
Clint, my fiance, had a good job in Paducah, KY. He had a pension, a house he owned, and a brand-new truck he was coming to pick me up in.
My parole had been granted, and two months later, I was standing in my gray sweatpants, with a garbage bag full of what belongings I had accumulated, waiting for my betrothed.
A shiny red truck pulled in. The rims and wheels were jacked up, and the car glinted in the sun. Clearly, the man took care of his vehicle, took pride in his possessions. That had to be a good sign… Right?
I started walking toward the truck, my steps slow, hoping he would come out and meet me halfway, help me out in this awkward meet up. Shaking that thought off, I pasted a smile on my face.
Not the coy seductress one I used before, the I’m crazy and you’ll love it one I learned in here. The fuck around and find out one. Then I’ll make it worth your while. At least, that’s what I told myself.
Cowboy boots and denim clad legs dropped down, but I couldn’t see the man’s face or shoulders behind the tall door and tinted windows. As I took that final step, he stepped out and came into focus.
He looked like his pictures, and yet nothing like that at all. What I’d thought was a handsome face with an authentic beard and mustache worthy of a cowboy in reality was more of a dusting. He was shorter, his hands and body slimmer than I had imagined.
There was something delicate about him, especially standing next to the monstrous truck he cared so much about. The flags were waving, but it was too late. That was the path I had chosen, and I had to see it through.
“Well, lemme look at you, Natalie. You are even prettier than your pictures,” he said, a hand rubbing his chin as he eyed me like a prized heifer.
“It’s Natalia,” I said, trying to maintain the smile on my face.
“Yeah, Natalie, like I said. Now, get in the truck. It’s gonna be a few hours to get home,” he said, not even bothering to help me with my belongings or assist me in getting into the truck.
The drive was long and painfully silent. Conversation sputtered and stopped throughout the ride until I finally pretended to fall asleep. Eventually, I drifted off for real, waking up with my face pressed against the passenger door, a sweaty hand with dirt encrusted fingernails shaking me awake.
“Natalie, wake up. You’re drooling on the leather. We’re here anyway.” The door slamming punctuated his statement, jolting me awake. I peeked out the window and had to blink.
Again.
And again.
But still, nothing I was looking at made sense.