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Nightmare after nightmare, Fezco woke up in a cold sweat with the memories of that day fresh in his mind.

They day he lost everything.

It felt as if it had all happened yesterday, but it'd really been two months. Two months since he last woke up in his bed. Two months since he was getting ready for a play he never got to go to. Two months since Custer came into his house and set him up. Two months since the feds bust down his door. Two months since Ashtray died.

That part was the most significant. It's what hurt the most. The was forever imprinted in his memory. The way the red dot traveled up his little brother's body and rested itself in the center of his forehead for a few moments before the red dot was replaced with a bullet, and the only red in Fezco's sight was his little brother's blood.

It had been two months since he watched Ashtray die right in front of him, where he couldn't do anything. Remembering the frightened look that Ashtray gave him right before he died broke his heart. He was just a kid.

It had been two months since Fezco lost everything.

He hadn't even had a chance to fully sit down and process everything and deal with his feelings and emotions until a few days ago when he spent 48 hours in solitary confinement after getting into it with another inmate.

It was a long 48 hours, completely alone in a cell as big as his bathroom back home. It gave him a lot of time to think, about everything.

He thought about Ashtray, finally being allowed the chance to mourn his little brother. He cried for what felt like hours, finally letting everything he had been holding in out.

His grandma always told him, that if he ever for any reason landed in person, not to fucking cry. No matter what. But his grandma wasn't here now. And neither was anybody else, so who was gonna know?

Fezco thought about his grandma a lot too. As if things couldn't get any worse, he was informed by his grandma's lawyer that she was put into a home after the whole raid-shootout, but passed away last month.

So he mourned both his grandma and his little brother, his only family. It had been two months since Fezco lost everything.

He thought about his best friend Rue. She was like his little sister, but he hadn't spoken to her ever since he had to throw her out of his house for trying to steal his grandma's medication when she was going through withdrawals. He mourned their friendship.

And he thought about Lexi. He thought about the girl he'd had crush on since New Years, the girl he talked to day after day for months straight.

He thought about their conversations over the phone. He thought about the way their relationship had been leveling ever since they watched Stand By Me in his living room. He thought about her play, and he thought about the way he was really gonna ask her out after it.

He mourned what it could have been with Lexi.

Fezco thought about how different things could have been if Custer never showed up that day, growing frustrated with the whole situation.

He saw a therapist in the prison once a week, where he just awkwardly sat handcuffed to the chair, staring at his sneakers while the therapist stared at him, sighing every time she asked a question that he didn't answer.

Fezco didn't wanna talk to her. He knew that no matter what she said about confidentiality, she was gonna write everything he said down in her stupid ass notepad with her stupid ass pen and put it into his records. He didn't wanna answer her stupid ass questions and he didn't want whatever bullshit sympathy she was gonna give him and he didn't wanna hear her stupid ass reassurance.

But he had to admit, he was grateful that she picked up her stupid ass pen to sign off permission for him to join writeaprisoner.com.

She said something about him talking to someone in the real world would help him cope with everything that happened if he didn't wanna talk to her.

Fezco wasn't so sure about that, the whole talking to someone about his problems, but he was dying to talk to someone who wasn't an inmate or a guard or his lawyer or the therapist.

His cellmate Jojo told him about writeaprisoner.com, after Fezco asked him who the girl in the pictures on his side of the cell were.

"That's my boo so don't be looking at her pictures too much or I'll fuck you up," Jojo threatened playfully as he wrote in his notebook, a letter to the girl in question.

"Word, my fault," Fezco apologized from where he laid on his uncomfortable ass bed, staring up at the ceiling, making Jojo laugh a little.

"I'm just fucking with you, man. Look at em if you want, I know it sucks not being able to fuck bitches in here," Jojo sighed, making Fezco chuckle. "You got a girl back home?"

Fezco thought about Lexi for a second, a lump forming in his throat. "Nah."

Fezco liked Lexi. Shit, he was gonna ask her out that night of her play but couldn't because he was knocked out, handcuffed to a hospital bed after going into surgery to get the bullet removed from his abdomen.

He bought her flowers and wrote her a lil note, planning to give it to her after her play, on the date he was gonna take her on.

Fezco called her the second he could, having memorized her phone number after she gave it to him on New Years, and to his surprise, she answered after hearing the robotic voice saying it was a call from a correctional facility. But she hung up the second he spoke.

"Lexi, it's Fez, I–" A click.

He tried not to take it to heart, he tried to understand that nobody wanted to be friends, better yet, in a relationship with an inmate. But that shit hurt.

"Yo girl real, she still wit you even though you locked up," Fezco mumbled, wondering what being in a relationship while locked up was even like.

"Well she don't got a choice, we met while I was locked up," Jojo informed him.

Fezco furrowed his eyebrows in slight confusion, "Whatchu mean?"

"You ever heard of writeaprisoner.com?" Jojo glanced up from writing his letter to look at Fezco.

"Yeah, didn't know people actually be on there though."

Jojo scoffed, "Hell yeah man, shit's dope. Met my girl on there and she been putting money on my books ever since. You should join it, find a girl for yourself."

"Nah, I don't wanna...ion wanna use someone like that," Fezco shook his head. "S'fucked up."

"Who cares, you in prison anyways," Jojo rolled his eyes. "Even if you don't want like, a relationship or whatever the fuck, jus make sure people know you lookin for a friend or just someone to talk to."

"...About what?" Fezco asked.

"...Anything. It's cool talking to someone outside the prison and shit," Jojo told him. "Helps pass time, and shit, yo ass got 10 to 20 years. You of all people should join that fucking sight."

Fezco took his eyes off the ceiling he had been staring at to glance over at Jojo, who laughed. 

"Whatever mane, I'm goin to sleep," Fezco mumbled, closing his eyes. "Good night."

Jojo didn't respond, giving his cellmate a weird look. Fezco had said good night every night ever since he got locked up, and Jojo found it kinda funny. This kid didn't belong here.

30 minutes later as Jojo finished up writing his letter, Fezco let out a sigh of slight frustration, not being able to fall asleep.

He moved to lay on his back from where he laid on his side, glancing over at Jojo as he folded the paper he wrote his letter on into an origami heart.

"Yo, how do you join that writeaprisoner shit?" Fezco rasped out.

Jojo's lips quirked up at that, looking up at Fezco. "I'll help you tomorrow, go to sleep kid. Night."

And Jojo did. The two were taking the same GED course, and were allowed access to the janky computers in the computer lab, so the next day during free time, Jojo ditched playing cards and helped Fezco through the whole writeaprisoner process, along with the help of a few other inmates, who were mostly just there to hype Fezco up about bagging a bitch even while he was incarcerated.

"Y'all real funny man," Fezco mumbled with a shake of his head as Jojo submitted his pictures for his profile.

"When's your birthday and your astrological sign?" Jojo asked once he got to the information about the inmate section.

Fezco paused for a minute, reading the questions off the computer screen. "Uh, next question."

One of the inmates at the computer besides them laughed, "You don't know your birthday?"

"Nah I do, but why they wanna know? Das personal," Fezco said. "Jus leave it blank."

Jojo sighed, shaking his head as he typed N/A into the answers.

Fezco didn't actually expect anybody to write to him, so when he was walked back to his cell after spending two days in solitary confinement and was given mail for the first time ever, he smiled.

Jojo was working in the kitchen, so Fezco was alone in their cell as he carefully ripped open the envelope after reading the sender's name off the front.

Vida Salazar.

He read Vida's letter at least four times, smiling to himself throughout every single time and laughing at the old lady nudes she had to see, his cheeks going pink when she called him fine right in the beginning.

What a way to start a letter. He liked it.

His eyebrows slowly shot up as he looked through the pictures she sent of herself, the pink tint on his cheeks deepening with a tent forming in his gray baggy pants.

She had to be the prettiest girl he ever laid his eyes on. Pretty wasn't even good enough of a word for her, and neither was beautiful or gorgeous or any other word people used to describe women.

Fezco thought for a second that maybe he could create his own word, but shit, not even that would be good enough.

He got to writing a letter back asap, stealing paper and a pencil from Jojo's things.

Dear Vida,