Chapter 60

I grunted as I turned around and slid back onto the bottom bunk of the bed. Allan wasn’t my problem. He needed to stand up for himself.

Nothing else was said that night. Allan climbed onto the top bunk and, after a while, softly let the tears fall. He thought I was asleep and did it so quietly that no one else would hear. That was the first secret of his I kept.

***

Weeks turned into months, and I barely spoke to Allan. He stopped sitting at my table, only said a word or two to me in the cell, and was rejected by all the gangs that he started spending a lot of time with the ladies. It made things worse for him. Inmates picked on him for being a bitch and humiliated him whenever the opportunity rose.

The kid just took it. It was like he thought he deserved to be beaten up. I tried so hard not to care and just let him be, but shit, a piece of my heart went out to the kid. I couldn’t watch it, so every time I just walked away, I saw the aftermath later on when Allan turned in for lights