#NaNoWriMo Week 1: A Vignette

(November 4, 2020)

Write a prison story that is inspired by, or includes, the phrase “I/we/she/he couldn’t wait to see him.” (Prompt from Bhala Writers)

The shiny scar on his left eyebrow, from that night of ill-advised freshmen year rites of passage. The small impression in his cheeks that appeared when he cracked his rare, wry, smile. His ears, big enough to receive all my secrets without ever letting any slip. And those eyes. Those eyes disarmed me.

Every. Single. Time.

In the darkness of my room, eyes closed, I traced his features in the air, as if he were lying right next to me. I had etched his face in my mind so many times in the last two and a half years, each time erasing and redrawing the last expression I saw looking back at me. I paused mid-air, on the bridge of his nose, last seen dripping, gooey, crimson.

In just a matter of hours, we would stand face to face again, wrested from our respective worlds by the long arm of Lady Justice. After all that had happened, I couldn’t wait to see him. Still.

Still, I couldn’t wait to see him.

Almost as quickly as I had fallen asleep, darkness gave way to light, ushering in the morning. The flurry of activity, ever loud, frantic, and giddy — like a boarding house on the first day back at school — alluded to newness, possibility, and life. Yet, my legs felt like bags of wet sand, pinning me to the bed — or perhaps just grounding me, lest hope and nostalgia took over again.

“Breathing helps,” my lawyer often said.

Breathe. One. Will he actually come this time? An uneasy breath sputtered out of me.

I inhaled, slowly, deeply. Two. Exhale.

In. Three. Will she be there?

My breath was suspended momentarily, as I recalled the hate-filled, rageful epithets she hurled at me and my ancestors that day. The only time in our entire relationship I saw her otherwise-always-perfectly-composed demeanor crack wide open.

Four. Of course his mother would be there.

That realization brought the sensation back into my legs and ejected from my lungs the breath I wasn’t aware I’d been holding. I sat up in bed. I needed to get it together before my name filled the air from every corner. After all, everyone knew today was the day. At last.