Point of View: Nick
I felt both better and worse that night after the confrontation with Tattoo and the visiting time with Brian, Zoe and Kayla. I went to dinner, making sure I kept my back against the wall in the corner that I'd sat in when I first met Eric, and scanned the room, waiting for Tattoo to show up. He didn't come down to dinner, and I wondered where he was, what they'd done to him. The warden hadn't been too shocked by my accusation when we talked after the attack, and I had a feeling maybe Tattoo, at least, had been taken care of.
I did, however, see Scar.
He came in the cafeteria alone, with a bandage wrapped around his head and one of his wrists in a brace. He looked miserable, and all bruised and a scab gracing the curve of his lower lip. He'd been beat to fricking hell. I smirked. Eric, you fucking did it, I thought proudly. Scar glanced at me as he walked by with his tray balanced on his forearm and looked away quickly, scurrying to a table around the corner, where I couldn't see him.
That night I was laying in bed staring up at the ceiling, thinking about everything.
My life had changed so much. Just a couple months ago, I had been a stuck-up, shit-faced celebrity, eating Howie's nachos off a dirty club table and getting my stomach pumped every other day. Since then, I'd nearly been killed twice; once by my own hand in my vehicle and once by my newfound enemy. I'd been dumped by a girl I thought I loved, and fallen in love with a girl who loved me. I'd seen Krystal die, been accused falsely, and now I was sitting in jail. Yet through all of that, I felt like I was growing, learning, becoming someone better. I felt like the world was against me, but in the struggle I was finding myself.
Eric had made the ball start rolling in my mind the day he'd kissed me. He'd said, in so many words, that I wasn't who he thought I was when he'd seen me on TV. I really was a completely different person than I'd been before. I felt less arrogant, less reckless. I felt like an adult. It was almost eerie.
I looked at the clock . It was past one o'clock in the morning. In five days, I realized, I'd be sitting in front of a jury, with a crap-ton of reporters and TV cameras staring at me, waiting to find out my fate. Everyone was so certain I was going to get off, that they'd never prosecute me. But the fact was the state had way more evidence against me than we had to defend me.
I imagined what it would be like to spend the rest of my life in this cell, in this little room, being visited by my friends and family periodically, but spending my life, for the most part, alone.
It ached somewhere deep in my stomach as I realized this could very well be the case.
Suddenly I understood why Eric had been so obsessed with the concept of dying in jail. The days dragged by so slowly, the nights even slower. If there was no hope of getting out, nothing to count down to, would this life really be easier or better than death?
Something was tickling my arm. I looked down and saw a long blonde hair. I picked it up delicately, looking at it glowing in the pale shred of moonlight that trickled through the window. It was Kayla’s, caught on my shirt where she’d rested her head. I held it, staring at it, stretching it to its full length, running my finger tips along it. It was mesmerizing. Any other time, any other place, it would’ve been kinda gross, but I had so little to hold onto here… I carefully coiled it and laid it on the night stand, then rolled over onto my side and stared out at the pictures I’d drawn.
The next thing I knew I was up and I was drawing again. I drew a picture of Eric. I was careful with the features, making sure they were accurate, that the curve of his jaw was just right. He had a long, feminine face and it would be easy to mess it up. But when I was done, I was pleased with my handiwork, and quickly added it among my collection.
I wanted to go home.
I hugged my knees to my chest as my throat constricted and I closed my eyes. More than anything else in the universe I just wanted my home, my friends, my family. I wanted to be safe, I wanted to sleep in my own bed with my own smells and wear my own clothes. I wanted to sing.
I was up again at the desk within moments of that thought completing, my pencil running over the pen, drawing blank music sheets. I moved my finger, humming the notes as I played an imaginary guitar, composing a song…
