Page 3 of Our Secrets and Scars

Inmate #7492

Idaho State Correctional Institution

13500 Pleasant Valley Rd.

Caldwell, ID 83634

Kinz,

I’m not in a good way. Shit, I don’t even know what to write. I just know that I have to talk to you.

I was transferred yesterday. It hasn’t even been twenty-four hours, and it’s already so much worse than I could have ever imagined. And I’ve seenShawshank Redemption.It’s like purgatory here. There is nothing. No life, no color, no air. It’s like I’m suffocating, but not enough to actually kill me. Torture. It’s fucking torture.

As soon as I arrived, they strip-searched me. It was an experience so damn demeaning that I won’t even describe it. Just know that it was awful, perhaps the most awful thing I’ve ever had done to me. Then they took my blood and sprayed my hair with white vinegar because it apparently kills head lice. I didn’t even have head lice. And after hours of paperwork and inductions, they finally showed me to my cell.

I have a cellmate. I didn’t have one back in juvie, and I’m not sure how I feel about it. He’s a big guy, in his late thirties, I think, and serving time for aggravated assault. He looks scary, but so far, he’s kind of kept to himself. Maybe it’s too soon to say, but I don’t think he’ll be too bad. He snores though, making the night pass even more slowly.

There’s this prison guard too. A woman. She keeps looking at me, and I don’t like the way it makes me feel. I’m probably just super on edge from being here, but there’s something about her that makes me nervous. But then, everything about this place makes me nervous. The other inmates, meal times, even using the damn toilet. My stomach is a permanent mess of anxiety, so painful it radiates through my entire body and threatens to cripple me. I can’t let it show though. That’s prison 101. Never. Show. Weakness.

I’m going to reread some of your old letters tonight after they lock the doors. Hopefully, they’ll bring me some of the comfort I crave. Maybe if I read your words enough, I can pretend that everything’s okay. That I’m not here in this nightmare. That I’m with you somewhere safe instead.

I’m especially grateful for you today. Thank you for letting me rant. You mean more than you know, Kinz.

Always, Fletcher

RETURN ADDRESS

Kinsley Garcia

1152 Llamarada Blvd.

Twin Falls, ID 83301

Dear Fletcher,

Do you ever wish that you’d been born a different person? Or even that you were never born at all?

Sorry to start on a depressing note, but I guess I’m just feeling like that today. Maybe I’m missing who I used to be more than normal. That girl who I was once just feels so far away from who I am today. I’m not her anymore. Guess I haven’t been for a long time.

It’s weird, I never knew that pretty privilege existed until I stopped experiencing it myself. Though I guess the same can be said about all kinds of privilege, right? You can’t really comprehend its existence, or at least pretend not to, if you’re personally benefitting from it.

It’s just that I never knew what it felt like to be on the outside until I got burned. Until the day my boyfriend publicly dumped me thirty seconds after I’d walked through the school doors for the first time after the accident. “You understand, right, babe? A face like mine doesn’t suit a face like yours anymore.” He’d actually said that, can you believe it? I can’t believe I ever dated that jackass. You know he’s the one who got everyone to start calling me Freddy Krueger?

And to think, I gave that asshole my virginity. I was only fourteen, and I wasn’t anywhere close to being ready for something like that, but he begged, and I didn’t know how to say no.

But anyway, something happened today. It was the usual shitty bullying, not anything particularly extreme or worse than normal, but I guess I didn’t handle it very well for some reason. I don’t know why. Maybe I’m extra hormonal or something, but when I’d have usually thrown an easy comeback or bitchy remark right back, I did something I swore I’d never do.

I cried.

God, it was so mortifying. You probably won’t even think it was that bad. But they said no one would ever want a scarred-up, damaged bitch like me. Truthfully, I don’t remember it word for word. Guess it’s not even all that important. Point is, I cried. I sobbed like a kid alone in the bathroom. I’m so fucking weak that I couldn’t even go to my next class. I just came home and started writing this letter to you.

I swear I can see you rolling your eyes at me right now. And I don’t even blame you. I’m being dramatic and self-absorbed. Trust me, I know that as well as you. The accident killed my sister, and all I got was a few burns on my face. How could I possibly be selfish enough to complain about a couple of scars when my sister lost her life?

I know I should be grateful I got to keep mine, so why is it that I wish I were the one who died instead?

God, I bet you think I’m such an asshole. Even I think I’m being an asshole. I cried because some douchebag with a monobrow and overgrown sideburns called me unlovable, and now I’m sitting here complaining about it to you when your problems are so much bigger than mine. At least I can still go to school. You can’t. You don’t even get to breathe fresh air for longer than half an hour a day.

I’ve probably done enough whining for one day. Sorry that you’ve had to read about all my melodrama. I’d be surprised if you’ve even made it this far. I guess I find it easy to talk to you about this stuff. It’s easier to be honest when you’re talking to someone whose face you’ve never seen and voice you’ve never heard. Heck, I don’t even know your first name.

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