“10 years, 2 months, 7 days. It’s the only tattoo I have on my body. I
was the youngest person in prison, so I withdrew into myself, and I
started writing in a journal every single day. That journal became my
world. I used it to figure things out, and one of the first things I
realized was that I’d stopped being me. It wasn’t so much the crime
that had landed me in prison. It was that I had decided
to stop being me. And I needed to find that nerdy, intelligent kid
that I’d once been. So I started studying in prison. Then one day I
got a letter from Principal Lopez. And she told me: ‘I grew up with
you. And I know that you aren’t the person they say you are. So the
moment you get out of prison, you are going to come speak to my kids,
because I want them to learn from your experience.’ And I immediately
started crying in my cell. And sure enough, two days after I got out,
she called me on the phone, and asked: ‘Why aren’t you here yet?”