”Online shopping scams,” she mumbles into her tray, grabbing a tiny spoonful of watered-down applesauce. ”What did you do, Nichols Nichols? Is your first name really Nichols too? Since you said you’re named after your last name…” Lorna laughs a small laugh, hardly able to believe one’s parent could be too lazy to give their child a proper name.

”Close – it’s Nicole but everyone calls me Nicky, except my idiot mother,” Nicky smirks, her eyes pouring into the woman across from her. She isn’t too surprised to hear what Lorna did to receive prison time; she doesn’t look like the type to do anything too heinous. ”Online scamming, ay? Sucks you got caught, kid! What did I do – you really wanna know? I did this thing called drugs. Heroin, actually; I love the damn thing, makes me feel so in tune with life.” A dreamy look in her eyes as she talks about her favorite drug of choice.

”Oh, you’re a drug addict…Hmm, you don’t really look like one,” Lorna observantly responds. She always imagined drug addicts to have an acne-filled face, barely any teeth, and raggedy hair. That could be because her parents sheltered she and her older siblings, so she never had the chance to see what people were like outside of the bubble of her family.

Nicky chuckles. ”And what exactly would you qualify a drug addict to look like, huh?”

”S-sorry,” Lorna timidly answers, feeling bad for her naivety. ”Just you know, only seen drug users in TV shows and movies…so I figured that’s how they looked in real life. My bad, my bad.”

”Ay, don’t fret over it, kid. Anyway, I gotta head to work – and yes, we have jobs in here – so I’ll see ya around, Morello.” Nicky starts to get up, but turns to give one more stare at the brunette, ”Come sit with me and my family later for dinner. I think you’ll like them.”

Lorna Morello aimlessly walks around the prison, after leaving the cafeteria, and silently wonders why she had to end up in such a place as this. She’s always been the ’good girl’ in her family – she never got in trouble at school or with her parents, she made sure to get straight As, she refused to have sex until marriage (mostly because of her parents’ strong Catholic faith pushing her not to), and she mostly kept to herself. So, how the hell did she end up in prison – and for a solid three years at that?