The eyes of Donna Gail Weeks tell a story that could rip the toughest leather binding. The whites, chiseled with scraggy red lines, contain two empty black holes that seem to yearn for a world beyond the forbidding confines of prison walls, where she will spend the next 6 1/2 years.
The clanging bar doors only reflect a cold reality.
"It's a slow hell," she said.
For Weeks, 44, the road to hell has been paved with years of fast and loose decisions piled onto a broken spirit.
"I've had to shut myself out from pretending the outside world is there," she said. "It's hard."
Before her arrest, she worked as an attorney's legal assistant, striving to provide a stable home for her daughter, Sierra, and enough money to be able to hold her head high at the end of the day - all without any run-ins with the law.
Although she experimented with cocaine in her early 20s, she grew tired of it. She found God, went to church and stayed clean for 10 years.
But a string of broken relationships, combined with a poisonous mindset of never feeling good enough, made her turn to an even more poisonous solution - meth. What started as a weekend habit with a boyfriend morphed into a near-daily habit that feasted on her bankroll, consuming anywhere from $80 to $300 dollars a week.
"I'd sit there knowing I had to pay rent or pay bills, but the addiction is so strong," she said.
As powerful as the addiction was, Weeks swore she would never expose her daughter to her dark secret. However, when Sierra, then a pre-teen, noticed something wrapped in tin foil near the sink, she was on the verge of a nervous breakdown.
Her mother told her it was for burning incense. Sierra didn't believe her.
"That was rock bottom, losing my daughter," Weeks said.
Lonely and helpless, it seemed that the drug that had taken so much from her was the only thing that could give her any relief.
Then one afternoon in 2001, Todd Brown, a childhood friend of Weeks' boss, walked into the office. Though he was a multiple drug offender, he didn't fit the profile of a criminal: He had a family, was respectful to peers and kept a clean appearance. Eventually, Weeks fell for him.
Although Brown told her he loved her, she was convinced he loved meth more.
"He always told me he loved me, but I always asked him, 'How do you know this? Because every time you have said that, you've always been on meth,'" she said.
Their love for the drug became so powerful that they looked for ways to cut out the middleman. With very little income, Brown turned to Weeks to support his drug habit. They cooked the drug using ingredients including Sudafed, drainage fluid and lithium strips.
However, it was the anhydrous ammonia, a substance used in fertilizer, that turned meth into mind-altering dynamite. Brown knew of a farm out in Alachua where there were tanks of andhydrous ammonia that were, seemingly, easy to plunder. Weeks was hesitant about the attempt, but on Feb. 1, they made their way to the meth mecca.
Weeks was to drop Brown off, circle around a few times and come back when he had filled up the tank. But as she pulled up to pick up Brown, red and blue lights flashed in the rearview mirror.
"You got to go!" Brown yelled. Weeks slammed the pedal and blazed through the night.
"We have to stop!" she pleaded to Brown, who was throwing anything suspicious out the car window.
It wasn't enough to save them.
But despite the consequences, Weeks believes that getting caught served some benefit.
"I think this is God's way of getting my attention," she said. "I'm glad it's all over."
