Here's the next chapter. Things obviously aren't going to go over very well between Nicky and Jamie, and she's going to make some enemies in the near future. Thank you to everyone who has read!
Enjoy the chapter!
The sun glistened in the sky and I squinted my eyes, about to grab my sunglasses when the light turned green. My dad sat in the passengers seat, holding up a map and squinting his eyes.
"I didn't think you wanted to go this far out," I said, briefly glancing sideways at him.
"Keep your eyes on the road, Jamie." He sighed, closing his eyes and running his hands down his face. "You need to fill her up with gas. Make sure you keep an eye on that. But not too long, because you don't want to swerve off the road. And don't forget about your mirrors."
"Okay, dad, that's not helping."
"Sorry," he mumbled, a grin creeping over his lips. "I didn't know I was supposed to be helping."
"What? You mean you aren't the adult in this vehicle?" I said, fake gasping as I glanced at him. He gestured to the road and I rolled my eyes, returning my eyes to the road. "Relax, dad. I know what I'm doing. I've been driving for - "
"A couple months now, I'm well aware. That's the problem with kids these days. Think they are hot shots when they're behind the wheel.."
My eyes squinted at the distracting sun. My dad continued to chatter away, but the sun was so fucking distracting. Keeping one hand on the wheel, I dug around the console beside my seat for my sunglasses.
My dad was yelling something. My hand was slipping from the wheel and he reached over my to grab it, but a truck was headed right towards us. My vision went blurry until it faded to utter darkness, but all I remembered was the sun.
Rain dripped off my fingertips, falling onto the muddy grass. My lips were pressed together, but my eyes locked with the ground. The air was moist, dark clouds setting the sky. It was an ironic setting for a funeral.
Empty words filled the silence around me. The eulogy was nothing to brag about - it barely gave my dad any justice. People were wearing black attires and holding red roses, something my dad despised. He hated anything stereotypical.
Ironically enough, he met my mom on a subway. He was running late to work and couldn't hail a taxi in time, so he took the subway. In the midst of his ride, he saw my mom dressed in a business suit drinking coffee. He remembered that moment as thinking my mom was the most beautiful woman he'd ever laid eyes on.
He never took a taxi again after that.
My mom now stood beside me, dabbing her eyes with a tissue. Streaks of gray were showing on her head, and I knew she would run out to the store tonight to fix it. Her normal bright eyes were bleak and filled with tears.
For a moment, I imagined myself reaching out to her, to comfort her. She would pull me in for a hug and rest her chin on my shoulder. We would both remember different memories of my dad, but neither of us would find any solace in them.
Instead, I drifted my gaze away from her. We would never be that perfect family that took family vacations to a lake house in the summer and had our pictures taken for Christmas cards. My dad was the only thing keeping this family together, and with him gone it was only a matter of time before it all fell to shit.
And I could only blame myself for that. An accident I caused leaving me only with a concussion and a broken arm showed him no mercy. How was I to live with the guilt?
It must have been hours before everyone started to leave the funeral. The service was long over and chatters filled the air. My mom left my side, talking to my aunt about how tragic his death was. People all around me were talking about what a shame it was.
"Nicholas will be greatly missed."
"This has to be on Mallory, raising a daughter alone. I can't imagine her unbearable pain right now."
"He was a great man. I hear the truck driver died minutes after the crash. It's a shame."
Life is a bitch, especially when someone else's ends. My dad will always be missed, but half these people don't even know him. Only the idea of him.
Walking up to his headstone, I bent down onto my knees and placed a single tulip down beside the numerous roses. Tears dripped onto the soil and I wiped them away with my forearm.
"I'll never forget the way you would laugh, or the way your eyes would crinkle with each smile," I quietly said, brushing my fingers along the stem of the tulip. "I was your tough little girl, but I don't know how strong I can be right now. I don't know how I'll ever survive without you." I closed my eyes. "I'm so sorry for all this. I.. never meant for any of it to happen."
Memories of us flooded my mind. We were drinking milkshakes in the late hours of night after my first breakup. We would play video games until we finished them together. Have inside jokes only we understood.
I opened my eyes back up, the memories of us fading from my mind. I sadly smiling as I touched his headstone. "Goodbye, daddy. I love you to the moon and back."
My eyes stared blankly at the ceiling. Sleep had not come easy for another long night, and Brook's constant chatters weren't helping. My eyes were heavy, and with each blink I imagined a soft mattress was underneath me.
I glanced up at the sound of the bed creaking, scooting up and tucking my feet under my thighs as Piper climbed up the ladder. She sat down on the edge of my bed beside me, looking over her shoulder at Brook.
"God, she won't shut the fuck up," she murmured, brushing her hand through her hair. "How are you holding up?"
"Why does everyone ask me that?" I said, the tip of my finger smoothing out a crease in my blanket. "I'm in prison, isn't that enough of an answer?"
"Okay," Piper said, shifting to lean against the wall. "What's going through your mind right now?"
"That my past fuck ups are going to be a royal pain in the ass at some point."
"I heard about you and Nicky," she said, my eyes snapping up to meet hers. "I know the feeling. Somehow managing to be sent to the same prison as the last person you ever wanted to see. It's overwhelming, isn't it?"
I blinked, drifting my eyes to my lap. "She's not the last person I want to see."
"But she's not at the top of the list, is she?"
"She's close to it," I said after a moment. "How do you know the feeling?"
"Don't get her started," Rosa said, shifting from her position on her bed. Green eye shadow chuckled, and Brook surprisingly remained quiet on her bunk.
"Someone from my past named me and then fucking left me to rot in hell," Piper said, ignoring everyone when they groaned. "It's the worst, thinking you've already hit rock bottom and then your past suddenly confronts you."
"I didn't even know she got arrested. Do you know why?" I asked, brushing my teeth over my bottom lip. Piper cast me a glance with a dumbstruck expression and I nodded. "Drugs. Not surprising."
"Is that why you two split?"
"It's complicated," I said, glancing down at my hands resting in my lap. Our relationship was lacking trust, and if someone trusts drugs more than their girlfriend, doesn't that tell you something?
Officer O'Neil appeared in the doorway and told us to collect our things. Piper jumped off my bunk and I grabbed my stuff, jumping off after her. Finally, we were getting assigned our bunks.
We followed him through a series of hallways. Brook pestered Piper with more questions - I think she's afraid of me. Maybe the rumor of me being a murder was finally spreading. Maybe it was my demeanor.
He led us into the room containing the shared bunks. "Chapman, in here. Soso, Spencer, follow me."
Piper seemed relieved she wasn't rooming with Soso. My stomach clenched at the thought of sharing a bunk with her, seeing as she was the most annoying person ever, but Officer O'Neil assigned me to the bunk next to Piper's.
"Spencer, you're in here," he said, motioning with his arm. I stepped around the wall into the bunk only to stop dead in my tracks.
"No, this isn't my bunk," I said, glancing back at him. "This can't be my fucking bunk."
"Sorry, someone made a special request," he said, snidely smiling at me. "Looks like you're stuck here. Soso, come with me."
He walked away and I flipped him off behind his back. Brook widened her eyes at me but kept walking, and I turned around to face my new roommate.
"And they said luck was bullshit," Nicky said, smirking as she sat on her bed. I ignored her comment and placed my things down on my new bed. "The silent treatment, huh? Can't last longer than Norma."
My hands gripped the hem of my shirt. I turned around to face her and easily mimicked her smirk. "Go fuck yourself."
She grinned, shrugging her shoulders as she stood up and stretched her arms over her head. I tried not to let my wandering eyes linger. Change has been kind to her, seeing as I haven't seen her in three or so years. But she looked tired, stressed even. Nicky was never the stressed one.
That's what kept us balanced. She pushed me to go on wild adventures and I fucking loved every minute of it. I loved the adrenaline and the rush of it all. She lived in the moment, but clearly I wasn't the only one hanging onto the past.
Or maybe she has let go. My stomach churned at the thought of that. I definitely wasn't ready to let go.
"Why are you in here?" Nicky asked, breaking the silence. I lifted my eyes up to her as she sat down on the edge of her bed. "What the fuck did you do, kid?"
"How is it any of your business what I did?" I said, biting the inside of my cheek. She raised her eyebrows at me and I glanced away. "I just got in some trouble with the police."
"That's bullshit, and we both know it," she said, smiling as she leaned forward. "Want to know how I know? Because your eye twitches every damn time you tell a lie. Just tell me what the fuck you did."
"God. Fuck off, Nichols."
"Next to me, you were the fucking poster child of perfection. How the fuck did you manage to screw that up?"
"It's none of your business what I did," I said. "It hasn't been for three years. Live in the present, Nicky. Isn't that what you're best at? Or is it hanging onto the past?"
"What the fuck is that supposed to mean?" she asked as I stood up to leave the bunk. She grabbed my wrist, pulling me back to her and looking straight at me. My eyes narrowed, but I forgot how she looked up close. She almost looked vulnerable.
"Let me go," I whispered. She loosened her grip on my wrist and I yanked free from her grasp. "You don't want to hold any grudges against me? Fine, but that's not stopping me from holding one against you. You fucking chose drugs over me, over a good life. That wasn't my doing."
I held her gaze for an extra moment. Her equally dark eyes stared right through mine, and I felt small under her gaze. When I blinked, I looked away and turned on my heels to leave the bunk, but her words made me stop in my tracks.
"Maybe you're the one who drove me back to drugs."
I drove her to drugs?
"Bullshit," I said, turning back around. She was no longer looking at me, and her expression was a mixture of anger and guilt. "I was the one who helped you quit cold turkey! Call me your own personal rehab who you got to fuck, until you started fucking around with heroin again. Don't blame me for your actions."
"I didn't just wake up one day and decide to fall back into heroin!" Nicky said as I walked out of the bunk. She was yelling something else, but I raised my hand up and flipped her off, completely ignoring her words.
I was fucking fuming and pissed. The past couldn't be erased, but here I was raging up a storm over it. Maybe because I never got it out of my system - I just buried it and seeing Nicky is bringing it back.
My eyes drifted down to my fingernails. Sometimes I could still feel the way my fingernails felt, scraping down the building's wall. Sometimes I could still feel the dried blood on my fingertips and knuckles.
While walking to the bathrooms, I bumped into a shoulder. Normally I'd keep walking, but the force made me stumble forward and grasp the wall for balance.
"Aren't you watchin' where you're goin'? Damn, girl!"
Cindy Hayes, otherwise known as Black Cindy, stood in front of me with her hands on her hips. She had a shocked expression plastered over her face, and her wide eyes were flickering me up and down.
"I guess I wasn't," I said, snickering to myself. Her eyes stopped to meet mine, and her lips curled into a smile before she chuckled.
"You're that new girl, aren't ya?" she said, suddenly gasping. "Holy shit balls, you're Nichols' old flame?"
"That's none of your fucking business."
"Oh, look who's got a potty mouth!" she said, grinning. "Girl, this is prison. Everyone's business is everyone's business."
I clenched my jaw. The next person who said my business was suddenly theirs might just get punched. "Whatever."
I tried to walk by her, but she grabbed my arm. The simply, unwanted contact sent goosebumps up my arm and shivers down my spine. For a minute, I wasn't in prison. I was back at the bar, being pulled outside against my will.
"Fucking touch me again," I warned, ripping my arm away from her grasp. She looked momentarily surprised at my outburst, but my clenched fists must have sent the message. She backed up and started to leave, but then she leaned in close as if she were telling me a secret.
"Don't go fucking with Vee's girls," she whispered. "Because if you've got beef with me, you've got beef with Vee. And you do not want that crazy bitch on your bad side. Got it, white girl?"
My fork poked at my dinner. At the end of the table across from mine sat Nicky and Piper, and hearing their laughter made me queasy. Fuck Nicky.
She broke my heart. She made me feel worthless - what the fuck did heroin have that I didn't? How did I drive her to drugs?
Last I remembered, I was the reason she wasn't in prison already, or fucking dead. I helped her ease drugs out of her life because I understood where she was coming from. I understood how helpless it makes you feel and how you're dying for an escape, yet you can't seem to break free.
"Well, well, if it isn't Litchfield's newest toy."
I glanced up from my tray. Big Boo was sitting down in front of me, and Lorna sat down beside her.
"Cut it out, Boo," Lorna said, rolling her eyes as she leaned over her tray. "Boo's kind of sexually frustrated, you'll have to pardon her behavior."
My eyes drifted back to Nicky, and she was still talking to Piper and laughing. Boo must have followed my gaze because she started laughing as well.
"Nichols, eh? Does that leave you as already marked territory?"
"What?" I said, tearing my eyes from Nicky to look at Boo. "What are you talking about?"
"Boo, seriously. You do not need to hit on everything with a pulse," Lorna said, looking back at me. "Prison isn't as glamorous as it is on TV, you know?"
"You know.. you two might have a lot to talk about," Boo said, smirking. "Considering Nichols' bagged both of you."
My eyebrows furrowed, my eyes flickering to Lorna. "You two fucking hooked up?"
"Oh, drama," Boo said, her mouth stretching into a grin. "Looks like the cats out of the bag now."
She laughed as she stood up and walked to a different table.
"It was a couple months ago when we stopped," Lorna quickly said. "You see, I can't keep cheating on Christopher. It really isn't fair on him."
"Wait.. so you broke things off? Not her?"
Lorna shook her head. "Oh, there wasn't really anything to break off. It's just.. it felt like she was always trying to climb up my womb, you know? And.."
As she continued on, I glanced to my side at Nicky, only to see she's already staring. She seemed apprehensive about Lorna sitting with me, chatting endlessly.
She had to of known what we were talking about.
My eyes flickered away from Nicky and back to Lorna. She had stopped talking to take a bite of her food, her eyes locked on me.
"It's a different story with you, though?" she asked.
"Nicky is a different story," I said after a moment. "She always was. But regardless of how hard I tried, I was never enough for her."
"Well, I don't know the whole backstory and I'm not going to stick my nose where it doesn't belong, but Nichols kind of lives in her own bubble. She doesn't realize how some things can affect others."
My lips pressed together as Lorna smiled at me, taking another bite of her food.
"Lots of things can pull people together, Spencer," she said, raising her eyebrows. "Attraction, lust, revenge.. history."
My eyes met with Nicky's again. History would never be enough to pull us together. She gave me the best two years of my life, but it wasn't enough. Because it always came down to drugs. That's what pulled us together, and ultimately what pulled me away.
Nicky left the cafeteria minutes before I did. When I returned to my bunk she wasn't there, and I didn't question it.
First my ex sort of causes me to be arrested, then I get reunited with a different ex in prison that I now have to deal with seven days a week. What the hell has my life come to?
It's like a damn soap opera.
I had a decent job, a boyfriend I thought I could depend on - my life was almost sorted out. I thought I finally knew where I belonged in life. But then I lost my job, and my now ex fucked everything up.
Maybe I'm meant to be alone in life. Nicky and I never worked out, and now we have to live together under the same roof. We would have to be civil and put our problems aside.
Whatever would happen between us, I was putting up a wall. I wasn't going to let us get close again. I wouldn't turn back into that vulnerable person she could manipulate. We would be civil, but to that extent.
The past should be left in the past after all. There was no need to relive it.