PR150N

Chapter 11

This whole situation was driving me insane. I'd barely been here for a few days yet it felt like years. I had looked over the room so much I knew what was wrong with it by memory; the floor had a split by the sink because the water splashed too hard from the tap. The ceiling light in the far left corner was dull and slow to illuminate when the switch was pressed, the third ceiling tile on the right side had some dusty fingerprints from when workers had moved it. I couldn't handle it for much longer. Dr Forrester came into the room with a bright smile on his face which irritated me more. It was seven in the morning, there is no way this man should be this happy.

"Gooooood morning!" He said in a chipper tone, I audibly groaned as a response. He raised an eyebrow as he walked closer to the bed and picked up my chart. "Now that's not the response I was expecting from someone who can go out for social today." My turned up nose and grimace quickly switched into a shocked expression.

"Don't fuck about Aaron. I'm not in the mood." This had to be a joke, right? He'd never joked about before...

"Gov agreed it. You can go out for the social hour but that's it. Then you're back here for a check up." He put the chart back down and walked to stand beside me. "He is keen to try and have you back in the prison. Here is deemed as a luxury. You're the only person I know that wanted to rush back." He let out a flat laugh. I could tell he was waiting for me to explain everything, I'd been tight lipped about pretty much the whole situation. I ran my hand through my hair and sighed.

"I'll probably be back soon." I said, a hint of sadness in my tone. I took a moment to look out of the window - well, the window cover they'd placed over the real window so you couldn't see where you were. This cover had a nice meadow with some animals in the background, lots of greenery and trees and a wooden fence running across it. It looked nice.

"Why do you say that?" Dr Forrester asked, leaning closer to me so that his forearms were resting on the bed. "You know you can tell me anything." It was my turn to let out a flat laugh. I shook my head.

"Please... I have worked out your type. You're the govs mole. Feeding him all the information you hear while people are in here. I'm sure you both know more than you're letting on." I rolled my eyes.

"Look..." Dr Forrester quickly looked around to make sure no one else was listening. "The gov has a soft spot for you and Sol. You're model prisoners, only fighting if it's to stop something from happening. You eat your meals, you are good in social. He has no complaints. He wants to help." I moved my gaze towards him without turning my head. There was something quite inviting about having the gov on your side, but would Sol and the gang approve of me telling them what's going on? Maybe I could run it by him at social. I just needed to delay this conversation for a few hours.

"Let me think about it." I said quietly.

"You've got more than enough thinking time now. I'll be back in an hour." My head whipped towards him.

"No. After social." I argued but Dr Forrester shook his head.

"This is a very limited time offer." Shit. I had to think of something quickly.

"I-I can't. Not without Sol's approval." I tried. "I'll do anything, please just bring him in for five minutes and you'll have your answer." Dr Forrester paused for a moment and just looked at me. He didn't say a word, didn't move a muscle, just studied me. Then he turned on his heels and left the room, shutting the door without a single syllable being uttered. Had I just screwed it all up? Should I have just said yes? I needed to be careful though, I knew prisons were corrupt places and the last thing I needed to do was put yet another target on Sol and his gang. I was not going to be pressured into answering instantly. I could still tell Sol about it afterwards... that's if he was even talking to me. The way he acted after he left yesterday had me thinking that there was far more going on than I was aware. Something had happened with the gang and he didn't want to tell me. Looking back, he may have been doing that to protect me but I don't need protecting from words. They aren't bothering me any time soon. I've heard it all being in here as one of only 20 women in a prison of 150. People always assume the women need protecting from everything but the truth is, hiding them from the real world doesn't help them at all. The ones who have been through the hardships, waded through crap and come out of it the other side, those are the badass women we need in the world.
To my surprise, the door swung open and Dr Forrester practically flung Sol into the room. He held a hand up to tell me I had five minutes before he shut the door and left us alone to talk.

"H-hi." I stuttered awkwardly. Something about how yesterdays social ended still had me feeling nervous. Sol didn't speak, he just offered a half smile. The silence in the room was deafening and internally I began to panic. What had I done to make him act like this? I had thrown myself into the middle of a fight to help Toby and suddenly I was the outcast. Weirdly the day I'd ended up in hospital Sol had been fine, worried about us both and wanting to find out what had happened. Dare I say it, he even thought about us enough to call Stephanie by my name. Yet now he was in front of me, silent and stern as if he just found out I'd killed his family or something. I knew I had to break the silence, otherwise this would go on forever and my five minutes would be up before I had a chance to ask Sol the question. I opened my mouth to speak, but strangely Sol got there first.

"I need to ask you something and you need to be honest with me." He said strongly, stepping closer to the bed as I pulled myself to sit up in the bed.

"Sol, I've always been honest with you." I said quietly, but gestured for him to ask the question. For a moment, his eyes seemed to shine with worry for what he might hear but he took a deep breath in and out and blurted out the question before he had a chance to regret it or overthink it.

"Did the attack on Toby have anything to do with you? And so help me, if I find out you lied to me I'll fucking kill you myself." This is what this was all about? Someone had planted in his head that I was the one who did it? Damn.

"Really, Sol? After everything we have been through you want to think I'd do something to hurt my family?" I scoffed. "I'm actually offended by that." I shook my head and looked back over to the meadow cover on the window. For a moment it was silent again and I deliberated even telling him what Dr Forrester had said to me. If he couldn't even trust me when I helped his friends, what good was it going to be to have the Gov on our side?
Sol let out a huge sigh.

"I'm sorry." He said quickly. He was never one to apologise, with the nature of what he and his gang did there was often no need to. So the fact he had said it to me was quite a big deal. I turned my head back towards him and offered a half smile.

"Since that car ride here, we've teamed up to help each other. You helped me, I helped you. I stopped your guys going into isolation, I stopped you from being attacked, i hospitalised myself to help Toby. Why the fuck would I want to purposely hurt the only people I care about?" Sol could tell he had hit a raw nerve with me as I went off on a rant. He hung his head low as he took the barrage of my angered abuse, furious at him for even suggesting it. I glanced up at the time and saw we only had a couple of minutes left of this meeting. I needed to pull myself together and sort out what he was actually called here for. I sighed and gestured for him to come closer. To my surprise, despite shouting at him seconds before, he walked straight over to me. "Look, I'm sorry too. It hurt to know I wasn't trusted. But I need to run something past you and I've only got a couple of minutes..." I checked the door to make sure it was shut properly. "Dr Forrester is Govs rat." I started, making Sol flinch where he stood. "But, he filled the gov in on what happened to us and the gov wants to help us. Apparently he has a soft spot for us both, being model prisoners and all. I just wanted your opinion." Stunned, Sol stood with widened eyes for a few seconds before breathing out a sigh of relief.

"Take it. We need all the help we can get." With that the door opened and Dr Forrester came back in, ready to take Sol back to his room. He glanced at us both and we nodded, informing him that we were accepting the help. Whatever this meant for us, we didn't know. But what we did know was that we would be doing it together.