Page 229 of Fragments

All of this uncertainty, this stifling unknown, is making it so I can’t breathe.

Stay positive… You have to.

Velle, Joy and Rook will figure something out. They’re good together. They make each other better.

Ren is alright… He has to be.

He’s the only thing holding me together.

All these years, I’ve thought Ren made me weak; that he ruined me, tore me to pieces with his bare hands for his own amusement.But that’s not true…

He makes mestrong. If it weren’t for him and all his issues, I’d still be that scared, lonely kid who used to cry himself to sleep missing his home, his bed, hisfamily. He taught me how to survive this place, because he showed me that prison life can be more than just shuffling through one day to the next.

Ren made Alabaster Pen a place I actuallychoseto stay in…

Although right now I’m seriously regretting that brilliant fucking decision.

But honestly, it wouldn’t have mattered. I could be offered a million more chances to leave, and I won’t take them. Becausehe’shere. And this is where we fell in love…

Toxic or not. Codependent, whatever…

It’s alwaysus, above all else. He’s myboyfriend, and I love him.

We’re staying together… Even if it means burning down everything else.

I feel like an idiot.

For every time I ever complained about how shitty things were here… For all the grumbling about the food, or the conditions, or the guards…

God, what a whiny bitch I was.

Things canalwaysget worse.That’s the official slogan of Alabaster Penitentiary.

Take your licks and like ’em, because you never know when the Warden willpoof!Wave his magic wand of sadistic fuckery and rain a monsoon of new bullshit all over your worthless existence.

Sitting alone in the cafeteria used to be one of my least favorite things. But now it’s taken on a whole new scope of misery.

The room is silent.Yes…it’s actuallyquietfor once in Alabaster Pen, which has to be the most ominous experience of my life. I never thought I’d miss the shouting and raucous laughter of the idiots around me. But here I am, sitting quietly, staring at my plate of sludge, praying for one of Dirt’s ground-shaking burps, or that high-pitched hyena laugh Simmons makes when he thinks something’s really funny.

I miss the old days… Ren and Kang bickering about bullshit while Dash cackled and threw noodles at them. The time Ren tried telling us he blew Justin Trudeau—the Canadian Prime Minister—and Parker laughed so hard, milk came out his nose. Or when Landon made a joke about kissing me, so Ren pantsed him in the hallway.

I miss being with my friends, chatting and laughing and ragging on each other, bringing some light to this unbearably dreary place.

And I miss Ren. More than anything else, I fucking miss himso bad, it feels like my gut has been sliced open and my organs are being pulled out one at a time.

I miss his dazzling smile, and his delicious scent, his possessive touch, and his achingly sweet taste. I miss watching him push his dark, shiny hair back and wink at me like he fully knows exactly how damn beautiful he is. And his voice, whispering ridiculous, filthy things in my ear to make me squirm while we’re sitting in a crowded room.

What I wouldn’t give to hear those rumbly words right now, above all else.

But instead, all I have are memories that hurt, in a sea of silence.

The new guards have instituted a no-talking order. Meaning we’re not allowed to speak,at all, anywhere outside of our cells. So meals, showers, and walking the halls in between are all done in complete quiet.

It’s creepy as fuck, and so insufferablyboring, it’s like an all-new form of torture within these walls. And there’s nothing we can do about it.

A few inmates backtalked when it started. And they disappeared. Who knows if they’re in solitary, or the East… Or dead.

The Warden’s guys are ruthless; vacant robots made strictly to follow orders.A million times more terrible than Velle has ever been, even in his hay-day.