The second letter came faster than Taylor expected.
She had told herself not to pay attention to timing, not to start measuring days by when the mail cart rattled down the corridor, but the rhythm of it settled in anyway. There were only so many things in prison that felt like they belonged to you, and correspondence was one of them.
Still, when the envelope appeared less than a week after she sent her reply, something in her chest tightened. And she didn’t really like it. Or trust it.
She waited until she was back in her cell to open it. Not because anyone was watching—no one cared that much—but because the act of reading it felt oddly private. Like something that didn’t belong under fluorescent lights and casual observation.
Taylor sat on the edge of her bunk, turned the envelope onc
