Total pages in book: 79
Estimated words: 76203 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 381(@200wpm)___ 305(@250wpm)___ 254(@300wpm)
Estimated words: 76203 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 381(@200wpm)___ 305(@250wpm)___ 254(@300wpm)
How was I sitting in a jail cell right now?
I didn’t sell drugs.
I didn’t even do drugs.
I mean I was so clueless about drugs that I had someone laugh in my face when discussing a song called White Girl and I had no idea that it was a slang for cocaine.
For God’s sake, I thought having a glass of wine without company to share it with was kind of naughty.
I wasn’t trafficking drugs!
Even just thinking about it again had my chest rising and falling at an alarming rate, making my head fuzzy.
“Hey, you’re gonna be okay,” another female voice said, making me turn my head to notice that I wasn’t in the cell alone like I first thought. Though, to be fair, I was in such a daze when I’d been put inside that I probably wouldn’t have noticed if a dozen other women were in there with me.
“I really don’t think so,” I said, placing a hand on my chest where it felt like my heart was trying to make a break for it.
“Don’t feel like it, but you will be,” she said, and I looked more closely at her.
I guess I would put her in her thirties with red hair, a lot of makeup, and the kind of outfit that, given the day of the week, I ventured a guess meant she was possibly a sex worker.
“The first time is never easy,” she said. “You getting charged?” she asked.
“I, ah, yes. I think so, yes.”
“So, this is just a holding cell,” she told me.
“Holding for what?” I asked.
“Until the van comes from the county jail. And that’s where they’re going to keep our asses until your arraignment.”
“Arraignment?” I asked, suddenly cursing myself for not being one of those true crime girlies, so I would already understand all of this. I felt as clueless as a baby. And I suddenly regretted all of those rom-coms and romance dramas that I was obsessed with. They were getting me nowhere here.
“It’s when you’ll go before a judge to plead guilty or not guilty,” she said.
“I’m not guilty.”
“‘Course not. Me neither,” she said with a wicked little smirk. “If you don’t have one, you’ll have your court-appointed lawyer with you then.”
Right.
A lawyer.
That was what Detroit had said to me.
I needed a lawyer.
God, Detroit.
He’d witnessed my humiliating arrest. Did he think I was some sort of drug dealer now? I shouldn’t have cared what he thought, but I did. I guess when you saw someone day in and day out for years, you kind of felt self-conscious when they saw you hauled away in handcuffs.
“Okay,” I said, nodding toward the woman, trying to understand. “How long until then? Today?” I asked.
To that, she let out a raspy laugh.
“Nah, girl. They got forty-eight hours to get you in front of a judge. Then you plead whatever you’re gonna plead, and the judge will decide if you get bail or not.”
Bail.
Money.
Money I most certainly didn’t have.
Money my sister and mom didn’t have either.
Oh, my God.
I was going to have to tell them about this.
That was mortifying.
But they would have to believe me that I was innocent. Right?
“If I can’t make bail?”
“Then it’s back to County.”
“County. County jail?” I asked. “I don’t… I don’t even know what that means,” I admitted.
“You’ll learn soon enough. Van should come before noon,” she told me, glancing out the cell door to the clock on the wall. “Just a big ol’ room full of other women and bunks. They got cells, of course, but we got an overcrowding problem,” she explained. “So all the new girls sleep in the common room in bunks.”
“But… But… what about… the bathrooms?” I asked. If there was one thing I knew about jail, it was that there was a toilet in your cell. And you were expected to use it even if your cellmate was in the room with you.
“There’s a room with three toilets and half walls between ‘em. You’re gonna be over your insecurity after the strip search,” she told me, making my stomach plummet.
Strip search?
How utterly… dehumanizing.
“Shit. Okay. Relax. They don’t use ‘em all the time. Not anymore,” she tried to comfort me. “The law got stricter on them the past few years. You might not have to do one. They don’t touch you anyway. Just make you lift your titties and bend over. That’s it.”
“That’s… it?” I choked out, feeling nauseated.
I didn’t get naked in front of people. I mean, I barely felt comfortable being naked with a boyfriend. I had kinda always been a ‘let’s do it in the dark’ kind of girl.
“Listen,” this woman said, acting like a mother figure to a poor, scared child. “These women, they’ve seen a million sets of titties and coochies and asses. Trust me, they ain’t thinking about yours during or after.”
“Right,” I agreed, but that somehow didn’t make it any better.