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He closed his eyes, kissing me again, deeper than before. His hands moved down my back pressing my hips forward until they smashed his. The sundrenched seat burnt my legs, but I barely noticed.
"What are you doing to me? I sound like a pussy." Jake chuckled into my mouth. "But I'm keeping you, anyway."
When his tongue wrapped itself around mine, it was like two unstable chemicals meeting. Reacting. It was explosive. The heat rippled through me in waves, burning over every fear I had. Jakes' kisses could do that: chase away everything. Until there was only him. And me. Us.
I fought when he pulled away.
"I promise . . ." His lashes scraped my brow and I knew he was waiting for me to look at him. When I did, he cleared his throat. "I promise you, my angel, that no matter what-even if it breaks up the band-I won't go anywhere you don't want me to. If you really need me to stay, tell me. And I will."
The electric air crackled as his fingertips grazed the skin of my throat. "More than anyone or anything, baby, I need you, too. I want you so bad."
My lips skimmed along his jaw. "Take me, then."
+ + +
7
-Avery
This place has a way of picking you apart. You think you're whole, that you're complete, but only because it's never occurred to you to be anything less. Being inside, like I am, it's a whole other story. The methods they use to keep us in here have a way of washing over you, overwhelming you, until your cracks are exposed. And then all you see are the cracks, the breaks, the insufficiencies and imperfections, and you know beyond a shadow of a doubt that you need . . . more.
My own cracks came at the cost of expressing myself. I can't crack anymore, though. Not in this place, where no one listens. I'm suffocating in here; on this island of locked doors and barred windows. Caged like some kind of animal, but treated like a zombie-slash-puppet, forced to brush my watercolor feelings onto paper, forced into silence with pills and schedules.
There is no longer any such thing as conversation or interaction. There is only division, regret, and ruin. Cracks are dark recesses with deaf companions. My voice, waiting to be heard.
In prison, it's all routines inside walls drenched in mildew and sweat. I spend every second surrounded by guards who don't actually see me. I don't get to talk to anyone anymore. Not that I was ever interested in engaging with people. But now . . . I'm not even here. I have no name. I have nothing. Not even my own will.
I'm a ghost.
And like every ghost, I spend a lot of time haunting the memories of the life I lost.
No one cares. Certainly not Angel, who occupies those haunted places with me but hasn't spoken to me in ages.
That last night, when we were still free, I looked at Angel and knew. Knew that I had pushed too far. Way beyond 'too far.' So far that any control I might have had in what happened next, was gone. I forced the situation and it got out of control. Seems like it happened so quickly. In a moment, things were said and done that shouldn't have been and I had to take responsibility for that. I tried to. Angel still hates me for it, though.
I can't stand that she won't forgive me: that she hates me so much that she'll look right through me, pretend like I don't exist. If I don't have her attention, then I have no ones.
I don't have right now, so that only leaves what was. All I can do is look back and wish that I would have chosen a different road. Maybe then our lives would have turned out differently.
We used to be our own little clique. Most times, when we were together there was perfect synchronicity. A strange family; small, but true. There was me, the older sister-type, struggling to be everything she needed: a nurturer, a friend and confidant.
Angel was always the most frail and dependent between us. I admit that I sometimes preyed on her weaknesses, but that doesn't change the fact that I love her. She was the best friend I ever had, the only person who had ever seen the true me, the one I hid away from the world. Those glimpses ended up costing her but she still stuck around. Still let me in and appreciated me. I loved her more for that.
And Jake was a fool. For needing her like he did. For taking her at her word. For thinking he could be truly honest with her. For thinking she was strong enough to take the hits that came with being his girl.
He was a damned fool.
+ + +
8
-Angel
I toss myself onto my thin bunk and close my eyes, glad to be out of that suffocating room and back in this little cell that is no less cramped, but feels a little more comfortable. I've been out of there for over an hour and still have sweat rings on the underarms of my jumpsuit.
Taking a deep breath, I let my mind drift. It was tough and wonderful talking about him, but I haven't gotten to the hard parts yet. I still don't understand how I got from that reasonably happy girl to waiting to die. I mean, I know how it unfolded, I just don't understand how it could happen to me. And I'm stuck in it.
This situation leaves me nothing to smile about. I used to think of my nomadic life as a curse, but I would give anything to go back and live there again. To just pick up and go like I used to. If one of my foster parents said I couldn't do something, I would just wait until they went to sleep, or went off to work. Then I would cut and run: do whatever the hell I wanted for as long as I wanted to. Then it was wasting time in juvenile hall-which was like a freaking vacation compared to some of the places I stayed in-or doing time in a shitty group home until they placed me with another foster family. I was disposable, but so were they. That was my way of dealing: at any moment if things got too heavy, I could always walk away. Life got heavy a lot back then.
