Songbirds of Sedona (eBook)

- Sapphic Romance
- Second Chances
- Mental Health
- Released from Prison
- Sedona

Chapter 1 – Gemma
I deserve to be here. That’s what I keep telling myself when things get tough, and today is a tough day. I took a life. I deserve this.
I’m reading the card that arrived in the mail this morning, fighting the wave of emotions that always comes with any contact from the outside world.
“Happy Birthday, honey,” the card reads. “I wish you would let me visit today. Just know that I’m thinking of you. Hang in there. Not long to go now. Love always, Mom.”
I feel tears prick at the corners of my eyes, but I blink them away. Crying is a weakness I can’t afford to show here, so I’ve learned to keep my emotions locked away. It’s the only way to survive.
I appreciate my mother’s words, but they also sting. Not long to go now. It’s bittersweet. Even a day in this place feels like an eternity, and now another year has passed. Another year wasted.
The buzzer sounds with an ear-piercing screech, jolting me out of my bunk. It’s lunchtime at Perryville Prison. I put away the card, rub my eyes, and pull on my navy blue scrubs and white slip-on shoes. The fabric is coarse and worn thin from too many washes. My cellie Tonya is snoring softly on the bottom bunk, and I nudge her awake before I shuffle out into the concrete hallway already swarming with inmates.
I join the throng of women in blue flowing toward the cafeteria, careful to keep my distance and eyes fixed straight ahead. You learn fast in here not to make eye contact unless you’re looking for trouble. The noise builds as we march through the double doors into the massive, high-ceilinged dining hall. Fluorescent lights buzz overhead, glinting off the stainless steel tables bolted to the floor in uniform rows.
I grab a red plastic tray from the stack and get in line, inching slowly forward as the kitchen workers, inmates themselves in white aprons and hairnets, slop food onto each tray. Today’s lunch is a cold bologna sandwich, potato chips, beans, a bruised apple, and Bug Juice, the overly sweet red drink that claims to be “fruit punch.” My stomach protests, but I’ve learned to choke this stuff down.
Tray in hand, I scan the cafeteria for a safe place to sit. Perryville is worse than Lumley Max where I spent the last six years before being transferred here a year and a half ago. At least in Lumley, I had the protective walls of my private cell twenty-one hours a day. I only had to deal with other inmates during chow time and rec hour in the yard.
Here in Perryville, a medium-security prison, there’s a lot more “freedom.” Our cells are left unlocked most of the day so we can access the day room with its worn couches and staticky TV. We can sign up for classes and job assignments to earn time off our sentences. But with the additional privileges comes more risk. More time to interact with unpredictable inmates and end up in fights that could send me to the hole or get more time tacked onto my sentence. I’ve seen it happen and I’m determined to keep my head down. I’ve got six weeks left on my ninety-two-month sentence and I’m not going to blow it now.
I finally spot an empty table in the corner, far away from the cackling cluster of Norteñas gang members holding court near the cafeteria entrance. I keep my back to the wall as I sit down, always vigilant. My eyes dart from table to table, marking potential threats. You never really relax in prison.
There’s the cadre of meth heads with their pockmarked faces and jittery fingers drumming the tables, twitching for their next fix. They’re mostly in for drug offenses, burglary, identity theft—the things addicts do to get money for that next hit. I steer clear of them and their drama.
Then there’s the OG lifers, mostly in their forties and fifties, in for violent crimes. They look hard, joyless, their faces etched from decades behind bars. But they keep to themselves unless you cross them. I give them a wide berth.
At the next table over is a group of young women, barely eighteen. The detention officers call them “babies.” They’re pretty, with their long hair and thick eyeliner. They’re giggling and throwing food at each other. They haven’t been in long enough for this place to grind them down.
A tray clatters down across from me and I nearly jump out of my skin before I register it’s just my cellie, Tonya. She grins, flashing the gold front tooth I’ve never asked about.
“Gemma. Damn, girl, you look more uptight than usual today,” Tonya says, digging into her bologna sandwich.
“Just counting down.”
“Eyes on the prize,” she says. “And then what?”
“I haven’t figured that part out yet,” I mutter. “I suppose I’ll have to move in with Mom until I find a job.” The thought alone exhausts me. Not because I don’t want to work, but it’s no secret how hard it is to find a job with a conviction. Especially one as serious as mine.
“Same,” she says. “I’m moving in with my cousin to look after her children while she’s at work and I might look for a job in a coffee shop since I’m a certified barista now.”
“You finished your training? Congratulations.”
“Yeah. Just in time. I figured I’d need something to fall back on.” She regards me. “Are you going back into real estate?”
“No chance. No company would hire me, but I’m hoping to find a job as an electrician.”
Tonya chuckles. “Oh yeah, I forgot you got your degree.”
“Why is that so funny?” I ask, arching a brow at her.
“I don’t know. It’s just…” Tonya looks me up and down. “You look nothing like an electrician. I’d peg you for a beautician with your long hair and flawless skin.”
I shrug. “The course gave me something to do, but again, it’s unlikely someone will hire me, so I might start my own business and hope for the best.”
“You’ll get there,” she says. “We both will.”
Tonya’s been somewhat of a friend to me since I transferred to Perryville, as much as you can have friends in here. More of an ally. Someone to watch your back. We keep each other sane, make sure neither of us catches a disciplinary case that will delay our release. She’s short-timing it too and will be out a few weeks after me.
We eat quickly, talking through mouthfuls. In prison, you learn to devour your food before someone bigger and hungrier comes and takes it from you. Mealtimes are when trouble starts, as the chow hall is one of the few places where rival gang members can get within striking distance of each other. The detention officers patrol the aisles, but things happen fast. Trays start flying, and if you’re not careful, you can catch a blindside blow to the head and wake up in the infirmary.
I keep my head on a swivel as I force the food down. The trick is to look aware without looking scared. Here, fear is like blood in the water; it draws the sharks. You have to armor yourself in a hardened facade, even if you’re quaking inside.
“This is gross,” I say, scraping the last of the beans from my tray when a commotion breaks out across the cafeteria. An alarm blares and a swarm of detention officers sprint toward a heap of flailing limbs and guttural screams on the floor.
Tonya looks up. “What’s going on?” Two women are ripping into each other, blood spattering the white tiles. I can’t make out who they are before the guards wrench them apart and haul them off, still kicking and cursing.
The alarm shuts off and a deafening silence follows. Every eye follows the guards as they march the two prisoners out, each held firmly by an arm. The rest of us keep our eyes down and mechanically continue eating as if nothing happened.
A few minutes later, the guards bark at us to line up and clear out. I bus my tray and take my place in line. I was hopeful when I first got transferred here. I thought things would be better, easier. Now I know there’s no such thing as an easy prison bid. You just trade one set of dangers for another.