Falling For An Inmate

Chapter 29: Tragedy

CHAPTER 29

Arya Crawford

When I was younger, I had daydreamed about gladiators and mythical monsters. Obsessed over heroes and their conquests.

I had watched Disney's Hercules on repeat. My fascination with Greek mythology growing over the years.

The Greek tragedies played on my mind constantly. The drama, the flair, the extravagance of it all. And I had always wondered how exciting and fun life would be if only it was like a Greek tragedy. Only, then, I did not know that those tragedies were an exaggerated mimesis, a melodramatic reflection of life, not an alternative reality.

I realized that in accordance with Aristotle's formula for what makes a Greek tragedy, the tragedy of my life had just reached the peripeteia, the turning point. The peripeteia in my story had come with Carter's altercation with Spencer, about two weeks ago. And it had made everything take a turn for the worse.

What I had witnessed that day in the shed, had birthed in me new feelings and sensations. Ones that I simply could not disentangle. Something was different. Something had changed. And for the life of me I couldn't figure out what exactly it was.

The scene replayed in my mind constantly, like a broken record. I relived those moments again and again, unable to wholly believe what I had seen. I could still feel Zack pulling me away from Carter even now. I could still feel the scream that caught in my throat when Carter had lunged at Spencer. And I could still feel myself trembling, Zack's arms enveloped around me, trying to shield me from witnessing the carnage.

Seeing Carter like that had changed something in me. Seeing him go from man to beast had caught me so off guard that I was still reeling from the shock. I didn't know how to describe it but seeing Carter almost beat a man to death made something in my mind just switch off.

Something had switched off and not only did I not know what it was, I didn't know how to switch it back on. I had been having such mixed and conflicted feelings every time I thought about Carter lately. I still cared about him, and it was evident whenever I thought about him being in Ad Seg, suffering. But I was also scared. Of what? I wasn't sure. I don't know what I was scared of, but I know that I was. Thinking about him made me feel a strange kind of fear. A fear that I could not trace back to its elusive source.

For the two-ish weeks that Carter had been in Ad Seg, and since the fight in the shed, I had often found myself lost in thought. I was always preoccupied trying to untangle my emotions and understand what it was that I was actually feeling. To get some clarity. But I got no clarity. I just seemed to sink deeper into the haze day by day. The only thing I did understand now though, was that something had changed. Something had changed and it was not small. The impact on me was huge. I just couldn't figure out what the impact was and how it had made things different.

While the confusion and uneasiness were turning into a whirlwind in the background of my mind, I had also been dealing with the gnawing anxiety about talking to Uncle Gordon about letting Carter out of Ad Seg now.

I know it wasn't my place to demand that inmates be put in or taken out of Ad Seg, but like I said, I still really cared about Carter. And despite the strange cloud of disquiet that had come over me seeing him so enraged, I didn't want him to feel any pain, especially on account of me. Remembering that he had fought with Spencer for me, made me drown in a pool of guilt every time. So, I had to get him out of that dark and cold hole they had put him in. I had to at least try.

I had been wasting time, pacing the hallways in the wing of the building that housed the infirmary. My anxiety was palpable, and each time I would think of going to talk to Uncle Gordon, my heart would jump up my throat.