Prisoner (Criminals & Captives #1)(4)

On the first day of class, I’d stood at the front of the room, hands clasped together, knuckles white, as sixteen men in orange jumpsuits filed in. I know what they saw—a prim, buttoned-up schoolgirl. They could sense my uneasiness. I gave out the syllabus, fumbling my speech, stiff and unnatural. The only good thing about the class was that the man from the east entrance hallway wasn’t in there.

Ms. Winslow.

I couldn’t get out of there fast enough, and I can’t go back. I just can’t.

I head toward my advisor’s office, determined. Desperate. I need her to let me out of this project. One of my classmates is doing a memoir project with high schoolers. Others are working with veterans, nurses, the elderly. It’s not fair that I got the prison inmates. Not when it drags up every bad memory I have. Not when I think I might belong there more than anyone knows.

No one can ever know.

I take my seat outside my advisor’s office in Kendrick Hall. Scuff marks from thousands of students cover the faded hardwood floors, and the walls are still a vibrant mahogany, untouched by the years except for the gouges in the molding where people have etched initials and dates.

This building is like an ancient oak; we can leave marks, but the tree was here long before us and it will remain long after. I close my eyes. I’ve fought hard as hell to get here. I’ve made it two years—I’m a college sophomore now. I can’t let this stop me. My whole life, the darkness has threatened to swallow me up, but I won’t let it.

The door opens, and I stand. The woman who greets me is beautiful—glamorous, even—with bow-shaped lips and low-lidded eyes that makeup can’t replicate. Her hair is blonde, bordering on gray, arranged in a wispy chignon.

“Abigail,” she says with a smile. “Please come in.”

“You could have called through the door.” As usual she ignores the small note of worry in my voice. Politeness is a big deal for her. I understand that—it’s a big deal for me too. Sometimes I think it’s the only difference between the slums I come from and where I am now.

She winds her way through the cluttered office with ease. It would be impossible to tell she was blind if I didn’t already know. It probably helps that she’s worked at the same university, in the same office, for twenty years. She invited me into her office after my first day in her class, and I’ve been beyond grateful for the special interest she’s taken in me.

Until our project started. Prison? No.

“So,” she begins, settling into her seat, “did you blow them away with your eloquence and poise, the way you blow me away?”

I laugh unsteadily. “Not really. Not at all.” I hate the idea of disappointing her. So few people have ever cared about me. But I hate the idea of that prison even worse. “It’s not working. Isn’t there any way I can change projects? The prison. It’s too dark.”

Like the way I am inside, but I can’t tell her that.

“All the more reason to teach the class, Abigail.” Her voice is faintly reproving. “What’s really bothering you?”

She’s not going to let me out; I can already tell. Panic bubbles up in me and pours out as words, desperate words. “I can’t be effective in there. I’m wasting project funding. I’m wasting prison resources. They don’t take me seriously—”

“You get them to take you seriously by taking them seriously,” she says. “If you treat them like people, they will respond as people.”

My mind flashes to the man in the hallway, the one who whispered my name. I think about telling Esther about him, but what would I say? There was a man who made my heart beat twice as fast, who made me feel hot and cold at the same time.

“It’s not safe,” I say.

Concern washes over her features. “Did you feel like you were in danger?” she asks.

I wish I could lie to her. “Not exactly danger…”

“Guards stayed with you?”

“Always,” I admit.

“And the men? They behaved?”

“I guess. Aside from a few class comments. One suggested I got lost on my way to the little girl’s room. Another suggested some alternate uses for my pointer.”

A smile plays upon Esther’s lips. “At least they won’t lack for creativity. I do remember that,” she says, and suddenly I’m the one remembering. Esther hasn’t always been blind. And I already know she taught a class at the prison, back when she was an undergrad like me. “Did you feel as though you were in physical danger?”

“No.” It’s not the inmates I’m afraid of, not really. It’s the whisper that says I might not be different from them.

“Then what’s the danger, Abigail?”

I know what she’s thinking—that I’m too timid, too safe, in my writing and my life. Be more open, be more willing. If it doesn’t scare you, it’s not worth writing about. She’s always pushing me to explore the shadows inside me. She doesn’t understand.

“It’s not right for me.”

“I know you don’t want to be there, but it’s not only about you. Those men have committed to your class—you can’t fail them now, and contrary to your own very faulty self-assessment, you have what it takes to be a wonderful teacher for them. I see it, even if it’s hard for you to do the same.”