A week later, a new girl replaced Perrie. Well, not replaced. Nobody can replace Perrie. She just took over the space that once belonged to Perrie.
The girl's name is Jackie and I absolutely can not stand her. She's about an inch shorter than me but her personality is about 10 times bigger than mine. Her bright pink hair would give that fact away. But the worst part is that she keeps going on about how she's hard shit and juvie will do nothing for her and she'll probably be back in a year or two. I don't disagree.
Perrie never exactly gave details about her new rooming situation, but I could sense tension between the two of them, even from a distance. Even from across the yard at rec I could feel Rachel staring us down.
"She's not staring us down,"
"Blondie, I can tell when someone is giving me a side eye, it's been happening my whole life," I said, "and I'm telling you, that's what she's doing,"
"Maybe she has a crush on you," Perrie supplied. I snorted.
"Yeah right," Perrie paused our discussion as we approached Rachel's little group. Since I broke my hand, I couldn't exactly do a full workout anymore, so Perrie and I opted to do walk or take slow jogs around the track that lines the fencing of our outdoor yard area.
"I'm being serious Jade, you're an attractive person, maybe that's why she's staring." she said once we put enough distance between Rachel and us,
"So you admit that she's staring?"
"Stop twisting my words,"
"Or are you saying I'm attractive?" she groaned.
"Stop it,"
"I'm not twisting your words, I'm simply repeating what you said back to you," Perrie gave me a dirty look but I could tell she was just playing. We kept walking for a bit before Perrie spoke again.
"When do you meet with the parole board again?"
"Four more days, on Thursday,"
"Are you nervous?"
"Definitely, but Jackie has been sort of coaching me on how to talk to them," I said, "I mean, I take everything that she says with a grain of salt because she's here for the third time but still," Perrie nodded, but didn't respond. Something was bothering her but she didn't want to tell me. I didn't want to pressure her, so we finished out rec time in silence.
~~~~~~~~~~
"So what's the deal with you and that blonde chick?"
I turned around from my desk, momentarily pausing the letter I was writing, and faced Jackie.
"Perrie?" Jackie nodded, "What do you mean what's the deal with us?"
"Are you two fucking?" I nearly choked on my spit.
"What?"
"You two are always together and the way she looks at you, I could swear she's in love with you," That caught me off guard.
"I- what? What's that-" She cut me off.
"Don't worry about it, you'll probably never see her again once you get out so if you don't like her back you don't have to do much. Just wait it out a few more days," she said.
"No no, that's not the issue here-" I started to argue.
"Then what's the issue?" Damn this girl doesn't let me finish my sentences.
"I guess the part that I might never see her again." I trailed off. Jackie nodded and went back to whatever she was doing before she started talking, getting the hint that I was done talking about this particular subject.
~~~~~~~~~~
"Jade, it's going to go great, don't worry,"
"I know, it's just got me kind of freaked out, I have the meeting in like two hours and a lot rests on this," Perrie nodded.
"Yeah general anxiety. But when you get to leave everything will be okay, right?"
"IF. If I get to leave." I corrected her. Perrie shook her head at me and shuffled the deck of cards again.
"I think you mean when. It's called projecting. You project what you want into the universe and the universe gives it back"
"Do you truly believe that?" I asked with an eyebrow raised.
"I see no reason not to," She rescinded simply.
"Do you not believe in jinxing things?"
"I think that's based off of how we see life, right? I think of it as projecting because I'm positive it will happen, you see it as jinxing because you're scared it won't. Optimism versus pessimism."
I nodded slowly as she delt the cards for us to start our game of speed.
~~~~~~~~~~
"Thirlwall!" A CO called into the pod. Perrie instantly shot up and looked at me, giving me her signature smile and a thumbs up. I took a deep breath, pushed my glasses up on my nose and went to the door. Here we go.
Apparently when you go visit the parole board you don't need to be handcuffed which I guess makes sense. You wouldn't want to attack someone or try and run right before you meet with the people who have the power to let you out. That would be dumb.
I was led to a completely different wing of the facility that I've never even seen before. It's always weird to think about how I've been living here for so long yet I couldn't navigate the facility.
I was directed into a board meeting style room with five representatives from the parol board. They gestured me to sit in a chair across the table from them.
"Hello Jade," The woman sat directly in the middle said, "I'm sure you know this but today we are here to discuss the possibility of releasing you on parole," I nodded. "So, Jade, tell us why you got arrested,"
"I stole a lady's credit card and basically drained her account," I said, "Cops traced it back to me and now I'm here,"
"And why exactly did you do this?"
"My dad was never one to give my siblings or myself any pocket money so I took that into my own hands and went on a shopping spree."
"And can you tell me why exactly we should let you out?"
"I mean, no offense, but I'm really not planning on coming back here. I've adapted to live here and everything, but I can tell you that this is definitely not where I want to be in the future."
It went on like this for the better part of an hour. Various questioning about what I plan to do when I get out, how I've changed as a person, all relatively basic questions. Until one came up.
"How did you break your hand?" The guy on the far left asked.
"Oh, um, I got a bit frustrated and rather than hitting my pillow or something, I overestimated my strength and hit a wall," I said, my eyes glancing down. I knew that if I was asked about that it wouldn't be great. Considering it was so recent, they could see that as regression of character or some shit like that.
The board was silent for a little bit, waiting for anyone else to ask me a question.
"Alright Jade, that's all for now, please step into the hallway, we'll call you once we've reached a decision." I nodded, rising from my seat and exiting. The CO who escorted me there was waiting for me outside. He raised his eyebrows at me when I exited.
"Did it go well?" He asked. I shrugged.
"We'll find out I guess,"
"There's always next time kid," I'm sure the dude was trying to reassure me, but the guy really didn't. I took a seat on one of the chairs outside the door and waited.
20 minuets later, the guy who asked me the last question appeared in the doorway.
"We're ready for you," I took a deep breath and stood up. This is it.
Everyone's face was unreadable when I walked in. I pride myself on generally being able to tell how people are feeling based on their facial expressions, but in this exact moment, it didn't seem to work.
"So Jade, we can tell you've made quite a bit of progress since you first got here," I nodded eagerly, "However, it's a little concerning to us that you resorted to violence so quickly and we think that we should meet again in around a month to discuss release, alright?"
My heart dropped. I'm sure the color drained from my face too.
I don't remember much after that. It probably included signing some papers, various tips on how to make this go better next time, yada yada yada.
I didn't register going back to the pod, but as soon as I entered, I made a beeline for my cell. I could see Perrie out of the corner of my eye try and approach me, but I didn't really care.
Honestly, fuck the universe.
AN: I've been writing non stop to try and prepare as many chapters as possible because on Friday, there's a highly anticipated video game coming out called The Last of Us Part 2 and I can guarantee that's all I'm going to be doing for the time being. Not that I think many of you are particularly into video games (Perrie defiantly isn't lmao she was not having it with Alex and his Playstation) but like yeah.
Me literally 2 days later: Sorry lmao I was supposed to publish this last night but I got super sick (long story) but I'm still trying to prep some chapters.
stay safe everyone!