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Heaven shrugged. “Oh. No reason. Here,” Heaven said as she handed the bag to her new ally. “This is for you.”
Clitina’s eyes lit up like a kid at Christmas. “Ohmygod! For me?”
Heaven nodded as she said, “Yes.”
Clitina took the bag of goodies. “Yassss, boo, yasss . . .” She quickly frowned. “Wait. I hope you ain’t givin’ me all this stuff ’cause you tryna get me to lick your cootie or sumthin’ ’cause I ain’t with that freaky licky-licky shit. I suck dingaling, Miss Heaven. I don’t fucks with lickin’ cooties. Sorry.”
Heaven laughed. “Little girl, relax your delusional ass.”
“Oh no, hon. I’ma grown-ass woman, boo. Trust. Ain’t nothin’ lil’ on me.”
Heaven waved her on, dismissively. “Girl, bye. Grown woman my ass. But, anyway, hon, you are not my type. Trust me. It’s simply my way of showing you my appreciation for having my back.”
Clitina clutched her bag of treats to her chest. She couldn’t wait to get back to her cell to flop on her bunk and eat herself into a sugar coma. “I fought those bitches for free. But, hell,” she said, shimmying her shoulders. “What a bitch gotta do to get a bottle of Henny, Miss Heaven? Set a ho on fire?”
Hmm. That’s a thought.
Heaven couldn’t deny it. She liked her new young, reckless friend. She was ratchet and hood, but with a little—hell, a lot of—coaching, Heaven saw potential.
And she saw opportunity.
All she needed were a few more crazy bitches like her on her side.
Then there’d be nothing—absolutely nothing—she wouldn’t be able to do.
&n
bsp; THIRTY-THREE
Don’t Look Back . . .
Heaven awoke to another morning behind bars, wishing (as she always did every morning) that she’d somehow be able to turn back the clock. Start anew. Wipe the slate clean and simply start over. But, there were no do-overs, no stage rehearsals. Once it was done, it was done. There were no retakes. No taking shit back.
She grabbed her pillow and put it to her face, and then screamed in it.
The monotony of prison life was slowly killing her. Being around a bunch of women all day, every day, was too much. All this estrogen flooding the prison walls was toxic at times. It was breathing in mold. And somewhere, she believed, there had to be studies on the detriment of one’s psyche from being around a bunch of crazy-ass bitches.
She was slowly starting to feel like she was being programmed and someone from behind a hidden control panel was controlling her.
Heaven put her pillow back over her face, and screamed again.
The shit was maddening.
It seemed like as hard as she tried—and Lord knows, she tried—to stay in the present, to not focus on the past, somehow it always found a way to drag her right back to it.
Last night, she’d dreamt of Freedom. It hadn’t been a bad dream. Nor was it a good one, either. He was just there, everywhere in her conscience. His face. His smile. His hands. Stalking her dreams. Hijacking her in her sleep.
Fucking Freedom! He was everywhere he shouldn’t be.
And Heaven knew that the only way she would be able to finally free herself of that part of her life would be by finally confronting him—that part of her past.
She stared over at the privacy curtain covering the bars of her cell, and sighed. There was no escaping this, or the nagging reminder of why she was here—because of herself. And that angered her.
She swung her body around and slid her feet into her shower shoes, before standing. She looked over at Sabina’s bunk. It was empty.
She hadn’t heard her leave, or the door slide open. She’d literally slept through the ruckus.
I must have been exhausted, she thought, lining the toilet with napkins, then sitting.
