It was a misunderstanding, really. I kept telling myself it was self-defense.

No matter how I framed my case, guilty, guilty, guilty. I had given up by that point, accepting my sentence to the high security prison just outside of the city.

It wasn’t ideal— How could it be? But I had accepted it by now. Years in this place, in this cramped cell. It was nearly impossible to do anything without being watched by the guards.

But I had my ways.

After a rather heated dispute in the mess hall, over something I couldn’t quite remember now, I had wound up in the small waiting room outside of the nurse’s office with my face cut up and my head throbbing. I had always been one quick to anger, and even quicker to act out on it. My emotions got the best of me and I had gotten into a pretty nasty fight with another inmate.

It was only a few cuts on my face and hands, small drops of blood trickling down my nose and onto my upper lip, but I had immediately been sent to the infirmary.

I sat with a firm expression, my thumb swiping across my upper lip at the trail of blood every so often. I didn’t have to wait long for my name to be called by the nurse, a young woman that I recognized, but I had never met.

I followed her into a small room in the back of the infirmary, my eyes glued to the back of her head as she walked. I took a seat on the edge of the cot, staring at her as she sat in front of a small desk on a rolling stool. She held a clipboard in her hands, scribbling down on it at the desk before rolling the chair over in front of me, our eyes meeting for the first time.

“What’s your name?” She had asked, her voice soft and gentle. She seemed too caring to be working at a high-security prison like this.

“Dee.” I answered shortly, watching her pen move across the paper on the clipboard again before she looked back up at me, her eyes already examining the cuts on my face.

“Alright, Dee…” She spoke softly again, glancing down at the clipboard for a brief moment.

“What happened?”