My Fiancé Let Me Rot in Jail

The security guard touched my elbow. Light. Professional. I stood up from my desk.

"Ms. Willis," he said. "Please come with us."

Two officers waited by the elevator. Dark uniforms. Neutral faces. The kind of faces that had done this a hundred times before.

I looked at Colton's door. Closed. The brass nameplate caught the overhead lights.

I didn't knock.

I walked between the officers through the open-plan floor. Forty desks. Forty people who looked up, then down, then at their screens. Sarah from accounting. Marcus from legal. Diana, the new junior analyst who always smiled at me in the break room.

No one smiled now.

The elevator doors closed. One of the officers said something about procedure. I didn't hear the words. Just the shape of them.

At the station, they took my bag. My phone. My watch. They pressed my fingers onto an electronic pad. Rolled each one carefully. Professional.

"Look at the camera."

I looked.

Flash.

"Turn to the right."

I turned.

Flash.

They gave me gray cotton. Loose pants. A shirt with no buttons. Slip-on shoes that didn't fit right.

The holding cell smelled like industrial cleaner and something underneath it. Something old.

I sat on the bench. Counted the cinder blocks. Thirty-two across. Eleven high. Three hundred and fifty-two total.

A woman two cells down was crying. High. Thin. Like a child.

I closed my eyes.

They moved me the next morning. County detention. General population. A guard walked me down a corridor that echoed. Our footsteps sounded wrong. Too loud.

"Bottom bunk," she said. "Keep your head down."

The cell had four bunks. Three women already inside. They looked at me the way you look at something you're deciding whether to touch.

I put my things on the bottom bunk. Sat down. Stared at the wall.

The first night, they let me sleep.

The second night, it started.

Banging. Metal on metal. Right outside the cell. Two a.m. Three a.m. Four. Every time I closed my eyes.

"Wake up, college girl."

"Think you're better than us?"

"We know what you did."

I kept my eyes closed. Counted prime numbers. Two. Three. Five. Seven. Eleven. Thirteen.

The third night, someone grabbed my hair in the shower. Yanked my head back. I didn't see her face. Just felt the impact when my skull hit the tile.

I got up. Rinsed the blood off. Finished washing.

The guard wrote it up as a slip. Wet floor. Accident.

I didn't correct her.

The fourth night, they surrounded my bunk. Three of them. Faces I'd seen in the common area. Faces that watched me eat, watched me walk, watched me exist.

"You think you're smart," one of them said. Her breath smelled like cigarettes and something sweet. "You think you're special."

I looked at the ceiling. Counted tiles. Twelve by sixteen. One hundred and ninety-two.

"Look at me when I'm talking to you."

I didn't look.

The first kick caught my ribs. The second, my hip. I curled into the wall. Made myself small. Thought about mitochondrial DNA replication. The citric acid cycle. The structure of hemoglobin.

They got bored after a while.

The fifth night, I stopped sleeping. Just lay there with my eyes open. Stared at the bunk above me. Someone had carved initials into the wood. J.R. + M.T. A heart around them.

I wondered if they were still together. If they'd ever been together. If the heart meant anything at all.

The sixth day, I didn't eat. Sat in the common area with an empty tray. A woman across from me leaned in.

"You should fight back," she said. Quiet. Almost kind.

I looked at her. She had a scar through her left eyebrow. Brown eyes. Tired.

"It doesn't stop until you fight back," she said.

I looked down at my tray.

"Thank you," I said.

I didn't fight back.

The seventh night, I lay on my bunk and recited every organic chemistry formula I'd ever memorized. Methane. Ethane. Propane. Butane. The nomenclature of alkanes. The mechanisms of substitution reactions.

Somewhere around benzene, I realized I couldn't remember Colton's face.

I tried. Closed my eyes. Pulled up the memory of him at his desk. Behind the wheel of his car. Standing by the window in his office.

Nothing.

Just a blank space where his face should be.

I opened my eyes.

The woman in the bunk above me was snoring. Soft. Rhythmic.

I counted her breaths until morning.

They released me on the eighth day. Gave me back my clothes. My phone. My watch.

The officer at the desk didn't look at me. "Charges dropped. Insufficient evidence. You're free to go."

I signed the form. Took my things.

Outside, the air was cold. It was raining. I stood on the steps and looked at the street.

A cab pulled up. I got in.

"Where to?" the driver asked.

I gave him my address.

He looked at me in the rearview mirror. Looked away fast.

I pulled my sleeves down over my wrists. Covered the bruises.

When I got home, I stood in the shower until the water ran cold. Then I stood there longer.

I got out. Dried off. Put on clean clothes. Long sleeves. High neck.

I looked in the mirror.

My face looked the same.

I walked to the kitchen. Made tea. Sat at the table.

My phone buzzed. A text from Colton.

*We need to talk. Come to the house tomorrow at 10 a.m.*

I read it twice.

Then I set the phone face-down on the table and drank my tea.

It tasted like nothing.