Chapter 22:

Randy found it entertaining and watching Taylor always brought a smile to his lips. John did not dance with her that night. He seemed angry and chose to sit and watch the others or talked to Randy. But Randy had decided to try his luck with Taylor that night. John turned up his beer and stared as the Viper used his dance moves as an excuse to place his hands on Taylor.

"You know what, Randy? I am so sick of worrying about what people think. I mean why bother being good anymore. What's the point?"

"Don't think like that." Randy stopped dancing and placed his hands on her to stop her body. "Before you know it you will be out of here living a normal life." He leaned down and whispered in her ear. "Three years is going to feel like forever. I promise I'm coming to pick you up from this rat hole. If you let me." He placed his arms tight around her.

Taylor saw John's glare as Randy rocked her with his chin nestled gently on her shoulder. She didn't care anymore. John would forget all about her. Two weeks and he was leaving. The closer John's birthday got the more he pulled away from the group. It was like he was already erasing them from his mind. Just as Randy would do. Getting close to any of them wasn't an option. Getting close to anyone was insane.

"You're not going to remember me in three years Randy." She told him.

"You're just drunk. Girl you are so crazy when you're drunk. You never drank this much before. Are you okay?"

Randy had noticed. Of course John hadn't.

"This is going to be the closest thing to a life I'll ever know." She held out her arms in a circle and swung round and round. "I'm going to enjoy it while I can." She laughed hysterically. "Because it's all over when I'm twenty one."

"Over?"

"When I leave here I'm going to the women's prison and if I behave myself, I might make parole when I'm forty."

"What?" Randy placed his hands on her shoulders. He begged her to be playing a joke on him.

"I'm serving a life time sentence, Randy. Murder one." She laughed and cried at the same time. "I'm never going to get married. I'm never going to have kids. Drive a car." She grabbed a beer and turned it up. "So the hell with it all!" she screamed out. She gulped down the beer and then tossed the can across the room. "Screw it!"

Randy just stared. He rubbed his hands over his head, his thoughts entangling every other one he'd had.

He left John's. He couldn't stay there.

Everyone who had heard her gathered around Taylor. They hugged and comforted her while she cried.

"Don't." she said smiling and wiping away her tears. "I just want to have fun while I can." She told them. Everyone but John surrounded her. He just looked down at his beer. Shocked by her confession as well.

She sat beside him on the sofa to gather her emotions.

"Murder?" he asked. "I never would have guessed you were in here for that."

"You never asked."

"I guess I just wanted to pretend that this was like some kind of boarding school or something."

"You feel differently about me now."

"Nah." But she could tell he did. "But I was thinking that it would be terrible if you went your whole life without knowing what it was like … to make love." He hinted. He inched closer and kissed her shoulder.

"Ya, I guess it would." She spat at him. She stood and stormed out of the room. John was using her situation to try and get her to sleep with him before he left.

Randy went into his apartment and he paced the living room. He paced from the door thinking about heading back to the party then he turned and walked toward the kitchen. He screamed out and slammed his fist into the wall. He did not understand how someone as sweet as Taylor could be given such a harsh punishment. Had it really been self-defense? Had she told the complete truth about her crime? How could the justice system be so cruel?

Randy did not talk to Taylor the next day at work. It was just the two of them again and had been for a while. They had gotten to the point where they could laugh and cut up during work before. Now that he knew the complete truth he didn't know what to say.

Taylor thought he saw her differently just as John did. She had broken off her relationship with John although she didn't say so to anyone. Not even John yet. Randy couldn't even look her way.

The next day was the same as was the following day.

Taylor continued to party. She didn't care anymore about anything. She had heard so much about the lives the others were going to live when their time was over but all she had to look forward to was cement walls and bars. Love, marriage and kids would never be in her future. She wouldn't even have visitors. She had no family and her one friend had already become too busy to visit or write.

She danced and drank, hoping she would drink too much and her life would end.

"You're out of here in a week, John." Randy sat beside his friend. "You have money; can't you get her a lawyer? She doesn't deserve the sentence she got."

"Randy. I have a life outside of here. I got a girlfriend waiting on me and a family."

"I thought you cared about Taylor?"

"I do. But I can't marry a murderer. My family already moved so no one will know what I've done. I'm starting a new life and I'm not going to mess it up."

"It was self-defense. John, there are people in here that did far worse than she did that didn't get as much time as she got."

John shrugged.

"Maybe it was self-defense, maybe not."

"You know it was. How can you know Taylor and think she would hurt someone intentionally."

"Maybe what Officer Kenneth says is true. He told me to watch her. He's the man whose brother she killed. He would know better than anyone else. He said that she came on to him. She made him think he had a shot and then when he moved on her, she stabbed him. You know if she hadn't gone to jail she would have inherited everything that man had. He left it all to her and her mother. But her mother died."

"Ya, coming from the same source that tried to pay me off to attack her." Randy mumbled.

"Anyway, even if I wanted to help, it's not my call. My parents won't care about the details and they control the check book. They can't see past a label. She should have just let the guy screw her."

John started the biggest fight he could have imagined when he said those words. Randy's temper combined with the alcohol made him lose control. He jerked John up by his shirt and glared hatefully at him.

"Don't blame me. Hell, she isn't even my girl anymore."

"She is probably the sweetest girl you will ever have in your life." Randy growled.

Taylor was too drunk to care what the others were doing. John and Randy were always getting into fights. She danced with Punk and drank even more. Nothing mattered. Who cared anyway?