Chapter Seventeen
Everest
“Fuck off,” I groan as I roll onto my back and glare up at Lance.
He stares at me blankly and then drops a sack of food on my face.
Lunch. Food that he had to have someone else bring to the room because I refused to move.
I wanted to. I was hungry. I just… couldn’t.
There’s an extra weight dragging me down today, and everything takes more energy than I have.
I’ve had to pee for hours but still haven’t gotten out of bed since Jett left this morning.
It’s four in the afternoon and he’s just now getting food because we had to wait until someone else had enough time to bring him something.
I feel a little bad for Lance, but he wouldn’t shut the fuck up all day long.
Him having to wait so long to eat, that’s what they call karma doing the Lord’s work.
Lance hasn’t been anything other than his overly conversational self today, and it’s done nothing to alleviate my shitty mood.
In fact, I’m so overstimulated that I feel like my body is a livewire, and I can’t wait for his fucking shift to end.
I just need five seconds of peace and quiet. Just five.
I let the bag of food slide off my face onto the bed and roll back over to face the wall.
I seriously can’t even look at him right now.
I don’t know how I’m going to survive the next however many fucking weeks I have left in this place with him as my guard.
I fucking liked him yesterday, and I’m confused how that was even possible.
The paper bag crinkles obnoxiously as he pulls his food out, and then he starts to eat at the same decibel as a fucking fire truck while I fail miserably at falling back asleep.
What feels like a million years later, the door creaks open, and I lean up to see who the fuck is interrupting my unsuccessful attempt to nap.
When I realize that it’s Jett stepping inside, my eyes dart up to the clock in confusion.
“It’s only four-thirty. You’re early.” I accuse with far too much malice. Especially when I’m grateful as fuck that he’s here.
JP only glances at me for a moment before turning to Lance. “I got this. I dropped my stuff off in the cell. I can get him moved over.”
“Oh, for fucks sake.” I groan as I plop back onto the bed dramatically. I completely forgot that I was supposed to move over to the wing today. I’m glad I saved what little energy I woke up with, because I’m gonna need every ounce of it for this.
“Have fun with that.“ Lance whispers sarcastically as he squeezes past Jett to rush out of the room. I just roll my eyes because if anyone was being annoying as fuck, it was definitely him.
“I figured you’d have a rough day,” Jett says as he starts to shove things into my luggage bag. “You were tossing and turning all night.”
“You could say that...” I reply as I eye him warily. “What the fuck are you doing?”
His movements halt as he glances up at me from the foot of my bed. “Helping you pack. We only have thirty minutes before rollcall.”
The iron doors clang loudly as they close behind us, echoing throughout the whole wing.
As I slip my shoes off at the foot of the bed, I glance around me, taking in what miniscule details I can see with the lack of lighting.
Despite it still being light outside, it’s extremely dark in here, just like Maven said it’d be.
The floor is cold even through my socked feet, and the beds look exactly like you’d expect.
Calling them lumps of cardboard with springs is a pretty generous description.
There’s no comforter, just a sheet atop the covered mattress.
My cell is upstairs, the only occupied room on this entire level.
The room might be a tad bigger than the one I’ve been in the past few weeks, but there’s no longer a shower, just a closet with a toilet.
Before we got here, I expected to be shitting out in the open the way most prisons are set up, but I can’t even bother feeling grateful about that little luxury.
It’s hard to believe that I was excited about this.
I wanted to know what it felt like to belong somewhere, to be doing something that I chose for myself, to not have the burden of everyday life hanging over me.
I may have had a few miserable days during this process, but there was still this dormant excitement pumping through my veins. I’d been waiting for this day.
Now, I stare into the space that I’m going to be calling home for the next few months and I feel… nothing. Not a hint of joy to be found. Not a single iota of fucks to give.
“Where do you want your things?” Jett asks as he steps toward me.
He’s close enough that I can feel the warmth from his body, but it almost seems distant, like it can’t permeate the fog I’m in.
I point at the ground in front of me and he leans around me to set it down.
He watches tensely as I push it over carelessly and it clatters to the concrete.
I use my foot to shove it under the bed and then crawl on top of the mattress. One less thing to worry about.
I can feel the burn of Jett’s gaze on my back as I turn on my side and try to get comfortable. It doesn’t work, but he doesn’t say a word as I toss and turn hopelessly. I bask in his lack of things to say as my eyelashes finally start to flutter closed.
Sweet, sweet silence.
A finger trails across my jaw before brushing a stray strand of hair from my face.
I roll over onto my back groggily as I stare up into the darkness.
The hand follows me, caressing my face. It feels like I’m waking up inside a dream.
I’ve been asleep, and I could actually be dreaming, but I know I’m not.
I don’t know what time it is, or even what day it is anymore, but I know that it’s Jett touching me.
Everything about him lights my body on fire, and his flesh against mine is comforting in a way that defies all logic.
The last few days have been an unfeeling haze.
All I have for proof of my time is fractured memories from that place that’s somewhere between sleep and awake as I crawled off the bed to use the bathroom and came right back.
I wouldn’t even know whether it’d been one day or a dozen if it weren’t for Jett.
The only reason I know it’s been a few days is because every time his shift ended, he’d leave a paper crane on the corner of my bed when he left.
There’s now a small collection of them along the back of my desk, but it’s too dark in here for me to count how many there are. How many days I’ve been this way.
It’s been a miserable existence that I spent either lost in memories of my past, or staring blankly at the stone wall.
Jett has poured all of his energy and every waking moment into taking care of me.
Forcing me from the bed to eat, shower, and brush my teeth regularly.
The notion seems absurd and absolutely childish, but he never even hinted at being frustrated by me or the way I was acting.
I’ve never, ever, had someone so invested in taking care of me.
Let alone doing it with so much warmth that it didn’t make me feel like a burden.
He didn’t just make me feel like I wasn’t a hardship for him, he made me feel like he appreciated being the one that could be there for me.
His arrival each day has been the only light at the end of the tunnel.
I told Jett not to get attached to me, but in the midst of my spiral, I may have forgot to guard myself when it came to getting attached to him, and I don’t think there’s anything I can do to stop it now. The seed has already been sown.
Him being here, waking up to his touch, it feels like heaven on earth in comparison to the haze I’ve been stuck in. It’s a lifeline that I’m desperate to cling to.
I’ve been hosting this flesh for long enough to know that after my burn-out phase, I have what I not-so-lovingly refer to as the ‘headache phase’.
I named it after the massive headaches I always get when I spend over twenty-four hours crying about literally everything.
Or nothing at all. It’s almost as if I have to make up for the past few days of not feeling anything by feeling everything in the span of a single day. It’s lovely.
“You haven’t eaten, E. I need to go get you something.” He says as he moves to pull his hand back, but I reach out and clutch onto it.
“Noooo,” I whine as I tug it back towards me with tears already forming in my eyes. “Stay. Please.”
“You need to eat and drink, schon.”
I tug harder on his arm, and while I have some muscles, I know that I’m not actually causing Jett to move. He leans closer to give me the false satisfaction of successfully doing something though and I appreciate that more than he could ever understand.
“Soon... I need company right now, JP.”
I can’t see his reaction because of the shadows on his face, but he reaches down and rubs his thumbs across my cheek tenderly.
He does it to the other side as well, and that’s when I realize that my eyes have betrayed me and he’s actually wiping away the tears leaking down my face.
I turn away from him, tugging the sleeves of my hoodie over my hands and wiping at my face vigorously.
“Tell me what you need, Everest. How can I help?”
I scoot all the way to the wall and pat the bed beside me, beckoning him to join me. He inches closer and puts a knee on the bed before he abruptly stops. “Promise me that you’ll eat when you wake up. Even if I’m not here.”
“I promise.” I choke out with a nod as I wipe at my face again.
He finally crawls onto the bed with me, getting as close as he possibly can.
I know that he doesn’t really have a choice, because while these beds are a decent size for a prison, they’re still only made for one person.
Even with me scrunched against the freezing cold wall, he’s probably still teetering on the edge.
He wraps his arms around me and tucks my head against his chest as he lazily runs his fingers through my hair.
I hum in appreciation as I snuggle close enough that our atoms could bond together. Maybe they will.
I know that my time here is limited. That in six months or a year, I’m going to look back on my time here fondly.
I still have a long way to go, and I don’t know what’s in store for me yet, but I’m keenly aware that I’ll never experience anything like this ever again.
All I get are these three measly months of freedom, and then I have to return back to real life whether I want to or not… and I don’t.
I don’t want to go back anymore.
I choke on a laugh as a sob rips from my chest. Jett holds me tighter against his body as I try to cover my face with my hands.
“Talk to me, E. What’s going on in your head?”
“I— I realized that I… I don’t want to leave this dumb place, and that just seems so stupid. I had everything I could ever want. I… I…“ I hiccup as I try to force the words out. “I was— I was never supposed to like living in a fucking prison and now I don’t want to leave.”
“Shh… Shh… you don’t have to leave. You shouldn’t worry about that, E. No one ever leaves. So, it’s good that you’re happy.”
I force a weak smile to my lips as the tears start to well up in my eyes again.
Guilt floods my insides as I accept every ounce of comfort he’s offering me.
I don’t deserve it. I don’t deserve him.
He doesn’t understand because he doesn’t know, and thanks to Maven, I can’t tell him the truth even if I want to.
“You belong with us now, Everest. With me. This is your home now.“ He whispers as he brushes his fingers along the back of my neck lovingly.
And that… that’s the problem. Despite all the luxuries and the true freedom I had outside of this prison, inside of these walls I get a different kind of freedom.
I haven’t had to wear a mask since I got here.
I haven’t had to fake a single fucking thing or drag my ass out of bed on the days I was miserable.
I’m able to be gay, sad, angry, annoyed, whatever the fuck I want to be, and no one is going to say a damn thing about it.
Axel isn’t having to babysit me, and I don’t have a thousand responsibilities weighing me down. It’s just different here.
I’m different here.
I’m wholly myself, and I’ve never been so happy in all my life.
I’m so happy that I’m growing more and more guilty as the days pass by.
I shouldn’t be happy here. I shouldn’t want to stay here.
What I should be doing is dying to get back to my life and to see my sister, but I’m not.
I’m just not, and I don’t know how to convince myself that it’s okay to be happy while I’m here and also disappointed that I eventually have to leave at the same time.
There are too many emotions, to many thoughts, for me to understand why I’m feeling the way I am right now, and it sucks.
So, while he thinks that everything he’s said is true, it isn’t, because I still have to leave.
No matter how close I get to the people here, no matter how many friends I make, no matter how much I love the routine, or the person I get to be inside these walls, I can’t keep them forever.
They’re just going to be a blip in time for me, and I hate knowing that more than anything.
I hate it so damn much, because I want to belong to these people.
To Jett. To this place. I want this to be my home, but it’s not… and it never will be.
As I cry into JP’s shirt and he pours his soul into comforting me, I pretend that’s he’s right, that all of this is mine now.
I push the truth to the back of my mind and ignore it to the best of my ability, because in this moment I legitimately fear that there’s no other place on earth I’ll ever feel at home besides right here with him.