Thunder boomed overhead as I sprinted from my beat-up car to the dull, gray building several hundred meters in front of me. Cold spikes of water assaulted my back, seeping through my thin summer shirt, chilling me to the bone. I yanked open the door, eager to escape the rain and walked toward the cement slab that served as a desk on the opposite wall, keeping my head down. I’d been here enough times to know the layout by heart. To the left of the door was a row of uncomfortable plastic chairs. Cheap paintings that were meant to decorate the room, but just looked gimmicky under the fluorescent lights, littered the walls. On the right, there was a heavy steel door with a burly guard stationed next to it.
When I reached the desk, I signed in, receiving a handful of papers and a glare from the secretary. I muttered a thank you and moved towards the row of chairs. I picked one that’s in the middle and away from the door so that I wouldn’t catch the draft that would come in every time the door opened. Not that the door opened much. There was hardly anyone in the room except for two staff members and a handful of visitors. I sat down and began filling out the papers.
It didn’t take long. I’d been here enough times to complete the sheets with my eyes closed.  When I finished, I went to give them to the lady and quickly returned to my seat. Deafening silence ensued. Usually, this doesn’t bother me, but today, I was restless. Ever since that cruel judge had issued the verdict, I’d been ticking off the days on my calendar. The lawyer had said that in three years he’d be able to apply for parole. Three years had come and gone and I was almost certain that his parole would be allowed. But I wouldn’t know until I saw him.   
It seemed like today the wait took longer than normal. I practically jumped out of my seat when the guard finally called my name even though he mispronounced it.  I followed him as we walked through the heavy metal door and into a white-tiled room.  He said nothing as I took off my shoes and jewelry, placing them on a conveyor belt to go through an x-ray machine. I had been here so many times in the past three years, but I had never managed to get a single word out of him. Silently, I passed through the large metal director.
Thankfully, nothing beeped and I was allowed to put my things back on.  The guard led me through another steel door that opened to a medium sized room. It had several tables and chairs, and a vending machine stood alone in one corner. I took a seat at one of the middle tables, ignoring the looks that the visitors threw at me. Most of them probably thought it was weird that a teenaged girl was in the visitation room of a state penitentiary, but it didn’t matter. I put my hands on top of the table and I couldn’t help feeling a pang of mixed sentiments.
I didn’t, in any way, like this place, but my most recent memories of Nate all happened here. And, to think that I would never be here again meant that I’d never be able to relive those times in except in my memory. But, if Nate did get parole, then I’d definitely be making a lot more memories that were much better than the ones that had happened in this room. With a smile, I remembered the first time that I had been here, and how much both Nate and I had changed…  
The sun rested high in the sky as I pulled my car into the nearly empty parking lot. Quickly, I glanced over at the GPS to make sure that I was in the right place. Yep, McGregor State Penitentiary, looking as drab as I would imagine any prison would look like. I parked my car near the front door and walked to it. I reached to open the door, and pulled hard on it because it was stuck against the door frame. After a bit of struggling, I entered the lobby and stopped to look around. I took in my surroundings before moving towards the desk on the other side of the room. The woman behind the desk, a pudgy, middle aged woman that chewed her gum at an obnoxiously loud volume, looked up at me when I got there.
“Are you visiting someone?” She asked coolly.
“Um, yeah,” I answered, butterflies running wild in my stomach.
“Then go fill this out,” She grabbed a clipboard with several pages attached, “And bring it back when you’re finished.”
I nodded and walked to the row of chairs that looked more like torture devices. I sat down and looked at the pages. Questions like “Who are you visiting?” and “What is your relation to the inmate?” were on there. I decided to do those these first, my answers being: “Nathaniel Toro” and “best friend”. The rest of the questions were simple and easy, except for when it asked for my driver’s license. I was nervous because I thought that they wouldn’t let me see him because I was a minor.
When I finished, I gave the clipboard back and, having been given vague instructions to sit and wait, went back to my seat to wait. About twenty minutes later, the bear-like guard sitting next to a steel door called my name. I flinched as he mispronounced it and went towards him, not bothering to correct him. He led me past the door and into a large room with a metal detector and an x-ray machine that reminded me very much of going through customs at an airport. I passed through without any problems and the guard brought me to a room with tables. I sat down and prepared to wait again.
I didn’t wait very long. The loud sound of a metal door being opened knocked me out of my thoughts and in walked an officer. The butterflies in my stomach began to riot. Behind the officer was a man in sweatpants and a gray t-shirt. He was well built and had apple green eyes. He was almost handsome, but there were dark bags on his eyes, a jagged scar in one corner of his face, and he wore a grim expression. He looked nothing like the best friend I had been laughing with just over one month ago. This was a new person and he scared me a bit.
The officer led him my table and he sat across from me. As he sat down, I saw a flash of metal around his wrists and, with shock, I realized that those were handcuffs. He looked up at me, and I saw his grim expression vanish for a moment as he smiled.
“Hey, Morg, how are you doin’?” He asked and, from there, my Nate was back. He’s not an incarcerated felon, he’s just a sixteen year old boy.
“Okay,” I answer back quietly, I’m not really sure what to say, because, what can I say? That I’ve had a horrible month because he’s not with me? It sounds so petty and stupid, because he's the one who's behind bars.
“Really? The guys aren’t giving you any trouble?” Nate inquires and I have to swallow the large knot that’s forming in my throat before I reply.
“Nope, everything’s just fine.” It just about breaks my heart to lie to the guy that I’ve known for what seems like forever, but I can’t tell him the truth. I can’t tell them that they pester me incessantly with cat calls and other things that had never happened before because they didn’t want to mess around with Nate. No, I can’t tell him that, so I try to steer the conversation in his direction, “What about you? How have you been doing?”
“Oh, y’ know,” He shrugs indifferently as if he’s been here for far longer than just one month, “Same old, same old.”
“Same old, same old?” I repeat the words, and they come out like a question, because all of a sudden, it hits me.
As much as I want to tell myself that this is just another regular discussion with him, it’s not. In the past month, the basic foundation of our relationship had been drastically altered. It didn’t mean that I don’t want to be friends anymore, but it meant that those things we used to talk so casually about, we couldn’t.
“Yep,” Nate nodded before leaning forward, seriousness etched in his face, “Listen, Morg, I want you to promise me that you won’t worry about me, okay? I’ll be fine and… and I don’t want my whole predicament to get in your way of doing whatever you want. I don’t want you want to feel any obligation, okay. Either way, three years’ll be up before you know it, I’ll get parole and then we’ll go travel to wherever in the world you want, okay? But promise me that you won’t worry. Please.”
I looked into Nate’s eyes and I saw worry there. But not for himself, for me. This guy, a minor in an adult prison, wasn’t even worrying about himself. I felt completely undeserving of his worry. Tears prickled behind my eyes and I sniffled a little bit.
“Yeah, sure,” I nodded. I wasn’t entirely telling the truth. Of course I would worry about him, it was a given, but it was clear that something in Nate had changed. Whether it was for better or for worse still had to be seen, but it was something very important, and it had been irrevocably changed.
The bone-grinding sound of the metal door opening knocked me out of my reverie as a gray-clothed figure walks in behind a guard, from the door opposite the one that I came in. Slowly, my eyes trail up this figure. I start at the scuffed sneakers, move on to the baggy sweatpants and skim his sculpted physique underneath the t-shirt before finishing at his face. The greenest eyes on the planet met my own hazelnut ones and he smiled. Had I been any other girl, I probably would have been swooning, but I was used to Nate’s constant charm so I had developed a small invulnerability. Nate walked over to my table and sat across from me. I noticed immediately the lack of handcuffs, though I didn’t mention it.
“Hey, Morg. How are you doing?” He asks first, like he’s been doing for the past three years.
“Oh, fine, my math teacher decided to give us a pop quiz yesterday,” I say, offhandedly. It’s a trivial detail that wouldn’t have interested anyone else, but, as I’d learned, Nate loved hearing about the mundane stories of my week. Maybe it was because it gave him a sense of normalcy or he just liked to hear me talk, he practically gobbled up those types of stories.
“Ah, that must’ve been fun,” He said sympathetically. “Anything else?”
“Well, Johnny and Amy are taking me to…” I started only to be interrupted by the loud whistle of a prisoner walking by our table and the derogatory “hey, sugar, aren’t you beautiful?”
Nate glared at the man who had said that, his eyes turning stormy, which shut up the offender quickly. I sighed and shook my head. You would think that after all the times things like this had happened that I’d be used to it, but I’m not. The man quickly shuffles away and Nate looks back at me, as if prodding me to continue, which I do.
“As I was saying, Johnny and Amy are taking me to Jersey Shore for my nineteenth birthday next week,” I finish my sentence and he nods. I take in a deep breath before beginning, “So, what about you? What did the parole officer say?”
A pained look quickly passes Nate’s face and disappears before his face returned to the unreadable book that it had become.  He fidgets a bit in his seat and he sits straighter. Excitement bubbles up inside me, he probably got parole and he was just wondering how to tell me.
“Well, you see, I… Kind of” He starts off slightly nervous, which is a weird sight. I’ve never seen Nate nervous or anxious. He’d always been cool and collected.
“What is it?” I questioned. A small amount of fear blooms in the pit of my stomach but I pushed it away. He had to have gotten it. He just had to.
“I didn't get parole!” He blurted out, looking down at the table.
             “Wh.-what?” Tears burned behind my eyes.
            “I didn’t get parole,” he repeated solemnly.
           I couldn’t believe it. The tears that I had held back over flowed. They ran down my cheeks, leaving a burning, wet trail behind. I rested my head on my arms, looking away from Nate. A sob escaped me as the words ran through my mind. How could he have not gotten in? Nate had had no behavioral issues and he hadn’t done anything else wrong. So, why? Why didn’t he get parole when the others, the ones that had been in charge of the robbery, had gotten it?
“Hey, Morg, don’t cry,” Nate said softly, “Come on, please don’t cry.”
He put his large hand over my smaller one and held it. More sobs escaped and Nate kept his hold on my hand. All the while he was whispering small phrases of comfort, and they were all but lost on me. Why? He hadn’t done that much wrong so I didn’t understand why he hadn’t been allowed to get parole. After several minutes of crying, I had finally exhausted my well of tears. Slowly, I looked up. Nate was watching me, worry evident. I noticed that several heads were turned towards us, but I disregarded them.
“So, why?” I managed to croak out as I searched through my purse for an unused tissue.
Nate leaned back in his chair, “The prosecutor, he found some B.S. way to connect my… Thing with the car accident that killed the judge’s niece on the same day. And, the judge didn’t even bother looking at the evidence, he just totally vetoed my parole.”
“What?! That’s so unfair!” I exclaimed anger boiling up inside of me.
“Nah, it’s fine, I don’t mind it,”
“You should!”
“No, no, it’s okay, I’ll just reapply next year. There’s no legit evidence that’s going against me, just speculation.” He reassured me.  
“Okay, I guess,” I whispered.
“Yeah, I don’t want you to worry about it. Just the fact that you’re getting annoyed on my behalf in enough,” Nate smiled.
“Your time is up,” A female guard with dark skin and corn rows in her hairs said as she walked over to our table.
“Guess you better go,” Nate’s smile disappeared.
“Yeah,” I agreed reluctantly. I hated these times the most. “I’ll see you next week,”
“Next week, yeah,” He repeated.
We both got up to say our goodbyes. Then, he opened his arms and I leaned in. It was an awkward hug across the table but that was all the guards would let us do without thinking that I was trying to slip him something illegal. The guard cleared her throat and Nate squeezed me one more time before letting me go. Like every time, I had to fight off the sadness that I felt when I had to leave. But I knew that next week I'd come back. Reluctantly, I said goodbye and turned to walk out of the room.
As I passed through the metal detector again, I thought about Nate’s parole. Even though he hadn’t gotten parole, there was always next year. For the first time since Nate had told me three years ago, I took his words to heart. He would be fine. It would be okay. Yes, everything would okay.
When I get home I’ll do just like I did three years ago, take a new marker and start counting off the days on my calendar until this time next year. Because that’ll be when Nate’s results for parole would come in. And if not next year then the year after that. But, no matter how long it takes, no matter how long we have to wait, I’ll never lose hope. Never.