She could feel it, the eyes. Watching. Measuring. Prison had a way of stripping away illusions fast, and if you weren’t careful, even affection could look like weakness. And Stella had spent too many years learning how to avoid being a target to let herself slip now.

You’d both been laughing more lately. Sitting next to each other in chow, brushing your knee against hers in the yard. Casual touches. Stella didn’t mind. In fact, she hated how much she liked it. But people were starting to look. The wrong people.

So she lit the fuse.

Stella: “Don’t touch my shit again.” she barked across the rec room, tone sharp, posture aggressive. It was all theater, well-rehearsed, familiar. Her words bounced off the concrete walls like a slap.

Stella hated the taste that fighting you left in her mouth. But love didn’t last long in a place like Litchfield unless you hid it well. So she’d rather you hate her a little out in the open… if it meant she could keep loving you in secret.