Jimmy Bell wasn’t born bad. He was born in Sheffield, in a terraced house that stank of chip fat and damp, the youngest of three. His dad was a boilermaker who drank too much and hit the walls when the telly signal cut out. His mum, a quiet woman with tired eyes, worked nights stacking shelves at Asda. It wasn’t a tragic life. Just a forgotten one. You grow up in a place like that, and you learn to survive by blending in, by keeping your head down, by doing what you're told — until the day you don't.
Jimmy left school at sixteen. No GCSEs, just the skill of nicking motorbikes and running faster than the coppers. He floated around, picking up jobs as a brickie’s labourer, helping a mate at a scrapyard, pulling pints at a dodgy pub where the landlord kept a bat behind the bar.
Then he met Sophie, working the till at a Tesco Express. Blonde fringe, pink nail polish, gave him grief for buying White Lightning at ten in the morning. He asked her out anyway. She laughed in his face. Two weeks later, they were shagging in his mate’s Vauxhall Astra. A year after that, they had a baby girl: Maisie. Jimmy was 21. Terrified. But he straightened up. Swore to be a proper dad. Got full-time work, kept his head down.
And for a while, he was happy.
He didn’t know the clock was already ticking.
It happened on a Thursday. Cold, grey, drizzling rain like it always did in November.
Jimmy had been laid off from a roofing job two months before. Bills were piling up. Food running low. Maisie needed nappies. Sophie was working late shifts and barely speaking to him. He was desperate — the kind of desperate that makes you reckless.
So when his old mate Dean offered a “quick run” for a bit of cash, Jimmy didn’t ask questions. He should have.
It was meant to be simple — drive to Leeds, drop off a bag, pick up an envelope, come back.
What was in the bag?
Heroin. A lot of it.
Police swarmed the car on the M1. Jimmy didn’t even resist. Just sat there as they shouted at him, face pressed to the bonnet, his entire world unraveling.
Five years.
Possession with intent to supply.
Sophie didn’t come to the sentencing. She didn’t answer his letters. She didn’t bring Maisie to visit, not even once.
The first Christmas inside, he got a card. Handwritten, shaky — from his mum.
“We love you. We miss you. Don’t give up.”
He pinned it above his bunk like a lifeline.
By the second Christmas, the letters stopped.
He found out why in February. His cellmate, a scouser with too many tattoos and too few teeth, had managed to nick a mobile. One night, Jimmy used it to check Facebook. His hands were shaking.
The first thing he saw was a black-and-white photo of his mum.
“Rest easy, Maureen Bell. 1958–2021.”
No one told him. No one called. She’d had a stroke. Died alone in the council flat. No funeral invite. No goodbye.
The real kick in the guts came a year later.
A letter, official-looking. From Social Services.
Maisie had been taken into care.
Sophie had started using — heroin, ironically. Lost the flat. Lost custody. Lost everything.
Jimmy begged for updates. Begged for visits. They sent back a single typed letter: “Due to the nature of your conviction, contact is not deemed appropriate at this time.”
He spent three weeks in the block after that. Lost it. Punched a wall. Broke his hand.
He’d failed. As a father. As a son. As a man.
He was released on a rainy Wednesday in March. The same kind of rain as the day he got nicked. Five years to the day.
The world had moved on. Sheffield looked the same but felt different. His old estate was boarded up, graffiti over every door. The corner shop was gone. Replaced by a vape lounge.
He had no home. No mum. No Sophie. No Maisie.
He stayed in a halfway house, got a job washing dishes at a Wetherspoons, shared a room with a bloke who talked in his sleep and smelled like old cheese.
At night, Jimmy lay in bed and stared at the ceiling.
He didn’t drink. Didn’t use. But he smoked now. Ten a day, minimum. Said it helped with the silence.
He went looking for Sophie. Found her six months later. Skinny, grey-faced, teeth like broken keys. Living in a hostel in Doncaster. She didn’t recognise him at first. When she did, she cried. Told him she was clean. Told him she was sorry.
He believed her. For a while.
Then she vanished again.
He never found Maisie.
She was somewhere in the system. He wrote letters. Made phone calls. Hit dead ends. Red tape. “Due to safeguarding...” “Due to your history...” “Due to data protection...”
He started to understand that some mistakes stay with you. Some doors never reopen.
People like to say “You’ve done your time.” But Jimmy knew better. You don’t leave prison. You just trade bars for invisible fences. The punishment never ends. It just gets quieter.
Now he works nights. Cleans train carriages after they’ve been emptied. Finds needles. Used condoms. Vomit on the seats. Just another ghost in a yellow vest with a mop and a past he doesn’t talk about.
He doesn’t tell people about Sophie. Or his mum. Or Maisie.
He just does his job. Smokes his fags. Keeps his head down.
Sometimes he walks by a school playground on his way home. Watches the kids laughing, running around. Looking so full of tomorrow.
And he stands there for a moment, fingers trembling, heart sinking into his stomach, wondering if maybe, just maybe, one of those girls might be her.
But she never is.
And he keeps walking.
The names have been switched out to protect the family of "Jimmy"
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