Caged Bird | ✔

Chapter Eighteen

Spending a night in a prison cell has I cannot say has ever been on my bucket list

Yet here we are

The holding cell seemed to be in the midst of what looked like the police offices, where anyone who so much as stepped foot into the stations eyes had access to you

No one talks about how embarrassing it is to be a criminal, even an alleged one. Their eyes raking over you as if you are a completely different type of human

There is them and there's you

I thought I had been put in a holding cell instead of a prison cell because detective Ambrose wanted to question me again,- but she had not

Not that I was complaining, but the longer she did not come the more anxious I grew that they were going to throw me in a prison

Being thrown into a prison cell would mean I was convicted of what I was being accused of, it meant that I was found guilty

I wasn't guilty, but why did I feel guilty?

If I could just get my hands on my ipad or my phone, I would hit the search engine and type in: why do I feel guilty for something that I did not do

Well to be fair I was not entirely innocent, but I was innocent from what I was being held for.

My first night behind the caged bars had been okay, considering...

All my fears of being 'shived' were null and void , as all the other women in the cell didn't even pay much attention to me after I was placed into the cell. they were too far in their own heads to notice me

Maybe we were all guilty?

I spent most of the night crying, my tears only ceasing when I heard a woman get up somewhere in the midst of night, and start to cry as well. I had overheard her converse with another woman earlier that day that she was in here for shoplifting a pair of sunglasses. It had been her first time shoplifting anything for that matter nonetheless she had been caught

Sunglasses woman cried and prayed to god that night, saying she was sorry and that she would never steal again, like a child begging their parent for forgiveness

Initially when I heard her get up from lying on the metal bench, I had watched her through the slits of my eyes, careful not to move so that she would not be alerted by my awake-ness. And when she started crying, like a nut job I got excited because I thought she was lying as to why she was in here, and suddenly I didn't feel so alone

Was she also being accused of murdering the man she loved who also happened to be the CEO of a very successful business and married to another woman?

However when I heard her prayers in between her sniffles about some stupid pair of designer sunglasses, I turned my head away from her, suddenly annoyed at her and the guilt she had for something that seemed so insignificant to me.

Her problems seemed so small in comparison to mine

I wanted to tell her she was dumb and pathetic for firstly having stolen sunglasses, no sunglasses is worth going to prison for, - even designer one, and secondly for wasting my time by allowing me to have hope

An officer comes towards the cell, his keys held by a round key ring hanging heavily onto his belt, pulling his belt down slightly because of all the keys it held. He is the same man that comes to the gate every time he comes to fetch someone new because their time is up and they are inevitably being released

I sit up, like I do every time he approaches, rubbing at my neck that is in excruciating pain from lying on the floor all night

The gate swings open, making a creaking noise due to the un-oiled hinges that hold the gate in place. He looks around the cell searching for whoever is going to be released next