by A.R. Rivera
7
-Avery
This place has a way of picking you apart. You think you're whole, that you're complete, but only because it's never occurred to you to be anything less. Being inside, like I am, it's a whole other story. The methods they use to keep us in here have a way of washing over you, overwhelming you, until your cracks are exposed. And then all you see are the cracks, the breaks, the insufficiencies and imperfections, and you know beyond a shadow of a doubt that you need . . . more.
My own cracks came at the cost of expressing myself. I can't crack anymore, though. Not in this place, where no one listens. I'm suffocating in here; on this island of locked doors and barred windows. Caged like some kind of animal, but treated like a zombie-slash-puppet, forced to brush my watercolor feelings onto paper, forced into silence with pills and schedules.
There is no longer any such thing as conversation or interaction. There is only division, regret, and ruin. Cracks are dark recesses with deaf companions. My voice, waiting to be heard.
In prison, it's all routines inside walls drenched in mildew and sweat. I spend every second surrounded by guards who don't actually see me. I don't get to talk to anyone anymore. Not that I was ever interested in engaging with people. But now . . . I'm not even here. I have no name. I have nothing. Not even my own will.
I'm a ghost.
And like every ghost, I spend a lot of time haunting the memories of the life I lost.
No one cares. Certainly not Angel, who occupies those haunted places with me but hasn't spoken to me in ages.
That last night, when we were still free, I looked at Angel and knew. Knew that I had pushed too far. Way beyond 'too far.' So far that any control I might have had in what happened next, was gone. I forced the situation and it got out of control. Seems like it happened so quickly. In a moment, things were said and done that shouldn't have been and I had to take responsibility for that. I tried to. Angel still hates me for it, though.
I can't stand that she won't forgive me: that she hates me so much that she'll look right through me, pretend like I don't exist. If I don't have her attention, then I have no ones.
I don't have right now, so that only leaves what was. All I can do is look back and wish that I would have chosen a different road. Maybe then our lives would have turned out differently.
We used to be our own little clique. Most times, when we were together there was perfect synchronicity. A strange family; small, but true. There was me, the older sister-type, struggling to be everything she needed: a nurturer, a friend and confidant.
Angel was always the most frail and dependent between us. I admit that I sometimes preyed on her weaknesses, but that doesn't change the fact that I love her. She was the best friend I ever had, the only person who had ever seen the true me, the one I hid away from the world. Those glimpses ended up costing her but she still stuck around. Still let me in and appreciated me. I loved her more for that.
And Jake was a fool. For needing her like he did. For taking her at her word. For thinking he could be truly honest with her. For thinking she was strong enough to take the hits that came with being his girl.
He was a damned fool.
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