Alone

Alone. You'd think she'd know the word by heart now. What's more alone than her life? Prison, for God's sake. Alone professionally.

But not really. You could always hear the girls in the next cage over, your roommate rolling over in her bunk, the warden's shoes along the walkway. She was alone surrounded by people every minute of the day.

Now, though, all these people around her, it was too real. She wasn't ready yet, she wasn't ready for Not Alone. So she smiled and closed her ears to the whispers and rolled over in her sleeping bag and wished for Alone.