By the time summer came, Taylor had learned how to make herself smaller in prison without disappearing entirely.
She kept her head down, did her work, avoided debts and gossip, and avoided officers who liked standing too close. She earned a reputation for being quiet, not weak; polite, not inviting.
The women around her stopped looking at her like she was a novelty and started treating her like part of the landscape. It was strange how much comfort there was in becoming unremarkable. And yet, beneath all of that carefully build sameness, something in her remained restless.
It surfaced in small ways at first. In how often she found herself watching the mail cart come through, even though no one ever stopped at her cell. In the tiny ache she felt when Denise got a birthday card from her
