Page 135 of Ghosts Don't Cry

Chapter Fifty-Six

RONAN - AGE 18-25

County holdsme until they transfer me to state, where I have more medical examinations and more questions I don’t answer. They document every scar, every mark that tells the story of how I ended up here. The intake guard whistles when he sees the damage to my ribs.

“Christ, kid. How long have you been walking around like this?”

I don’t tell him. In fact, I don’t speak at all unless I have to. Processing takes forever. Paperwork, photographs, fingerprints and a strip search. They give me prison issue clothes that smell like industrial cleaner, along with basic supplies—toothbrush, soap, sheets, blanket. Things I haven’t had in longer than I remember.

My cell is six by eight feet of concrete and steel, with a narrow bed bolted to the wall. The mattress is thin, but it’s still softer than the factory floor. The pillow feels strange underneath my head. It’s too soft after months of sleeping with my arm tucked under my cheek. The blanket is rough and warm.

The first night, I can’t sleep. The cell never gets truly dark—low lights from the main area outside seep through thewindow. It’s not the light that keeps me awake, though. It’s the heat.Actualheat, pumping through vents in the ceiling. My body doesn’t know how to process being warm, and I lie there sweating.

Meals come on a strict schedule. Breakfast at six. Lunch at noon. Dinner at five. To everyone else, it’s prison slop—tasteless oatmeal, watery stews, bread you have to chew. But after so long living off dumpster diving and stolen scraps, and the few things Lily brought me, it’s a feast for my stomach and my senses.

My hands shake the first time they pass me a tray. Steam rises from the food, and my stomach cramps at the smell. I eat slowly, carefully. My body has forgotten how to handle regular meals.

The other inmates notice. Reese, three cells down from mine, watches me during meals. I recognize the look. I saw it in Dan Hartman’s eyes often enough. He’s looking for any sign of weakness he can exploit.

“Boy acts like he’s dining at the Ritz,” he tells his crew, and they laugh.

Two days later, a muscle-bound lifer called Jackson sits across from me at breakfast. “You’re in Reese’s spot.”

I keep eating like I haven’t heard him.

“You deaf?” His hand slams down beside my tray, making everything rattle.

I lift my eyes to his, and let him see whatever is left in me after nearly dying in that factory. Whatever they show makes him pause.

“Leave him alone.” The quiet voice comes from behind me. Riley, my cellmate’s friend. An old-timer with prison-yard muscle and a reputation for staying out of politics. “The kid isn’t looking for trouble.”

Jackson hesitates, then stands. “Reese won’t like it.”

“Don’t give a fuck.” Riley’s voice doesn’t change. “If he has a problem, he can take it up with me. Kid isn’t going to be his bitch. He’s been through enough.”

Riley explains the hierarchy while we’re in the yard after breakfast. Who runs what. Which guards can be bought. Which inmates to avoid.

“Reese tries to own every new fish that comes in. Especially the young and pretty ones.” He leans against the fence. “But you’ve got something different about you, kid. Something that says you’ve already survived worse than anything he can do to you.”

He’s not wrong.

The medical unit keeps me under observation while I finish the antibiotics they started in the hospital. The doctor who examines me doesn’t comment on the fading bruises, or the scars. She just documents everything in my file and gives me vitamins to help with malnutrition.

“You’re young,” she says while checking my ribs. “And according to your records, you hadn’t quite reached the point where it was a full addiction.” I understand what she means. Yes, I did go through withdrawal while waiting for the trial, but I have absolutely zero interest in searching out a fix of any kind. “You’ll heal. But you need to eat and rest. Let your body recover.”

That’s what I do. For the first time in years, I rest, and allow the warmth to seep into my bones, and let regular meals fill out the hollow spaces hunger carved inside me. The only thing I struggle with is sleep. I still have to check my surroundings. I still wake at every sound. But Idosleep better than I did in the factory.

The irony doesn’t escape me. I had to nearly die. I had to break into a store and deliberately set off alarms, and wait to be arrested, to finally get the basic things I needed to survive.

A bed. Regular meals.Warmth.

Time becomes measured in small victories. The day I can take a deep breath without pain. The morning I wake up and my hands don’t shake when I lift my breakfast tray. The first time I catch my reflection and don’t see a ghost staring back.

Riley shows me how to survive without becoming part of the violence that rules most inmates’ lives. Which work details to volunteer for. How to avoid Reese’s crew without looking weak. I learn how to fix things—starting with the broken fan in the guard station, then the wiring in the library. Being useful means being left alone.

The prison library becomes my sanctuary between counts. It’s small, nothing like the school library where I used to hide, but it has books.Realbooks. And I spend every free hour I have there.

Three months after I arrive, a guard stops at my cell when other prisoners are on their way to the visitors room.