You see Hopevale was the school I had just started going to the year before all of the craziness began to happen and I wanted to be there because I wanted to graduate.

So being brought into the Hopevale detention center was a blessing for me. All I had to do now was act right and keep myself out of trouble. They were high security so I was in a bright orange jump suite and went absolutely nowhere without an escort.

The staying out of trouble part wasn’t hard. I was the oldest girl in lock up so even if I didn’t have a different reason to be well behaved that was it. If I fucked up here I was going to prison like real prison and at 17 that was not what I wanted at all so I kept my mouth shut and my hands to myself.

We went to class every day just like other teenagers except we had one teacher for all of us and we were in all different places. I did my best to help some of the younger girls with what I could and still stay on top of my own work. This later worked out really well in my favor.

I had one issue the entire time I was there and it wasn’t even an internal issue. I had a phone call with my mom that didn’t go well and ended in yelling and slamming phones. I was told that because of this I was no longer able to have phone privileges for a period of time.

I apologized for my behavior and moved on. No phone wasn’t a big deal as my mother and I weren’t on good terms and there would be no further phone calls to be had.

After that it was all smooth sailing on my end right up to the day of court.

My first court date came and I was ready to be transferred and moving on with my life. That was not at all how things played out for me. My mother still wouldn’t agree to let me go to Hopevale and the judge still wasn’t convinced I was going to do what I said.

So back to detention I went with a court date for assessment in 30 days. I was so angry but handled myself in court so well that the staff let me swear and complain all they way back. As angry as I was I knew that I just needed to work a little harder to make them see I was going to do the right thing.

“You call it hope — that fire of fire! It is but agony of desire.” – Edgar Allan Poe