Super short chapter, mostly because jail is boring, trust me! Next chapter will have both Letty and Dom's POV, I'll try my best to make it as easy to read as possible.
Lompoc Correctional Facility
Dom sat at a round table in the common area of his prison. His days consisted of endless workouts either outside at the weight bench or in his cell doing push ups over and over. He had stopped feeling sore, there was an ache now that was oddly therapeutic. Prison was meant to be a place for punishment and rehabilitation, or that's what the warden had said that first day. Dom understood the punishment part. It was the rehabilitation part that confused him. Was this meant to be a test? All ready he was unable to apply for probation this year because he had been tested and had to react accordingly or end up someone's bitch. The other prisoner, a hardened convict with a penchant for shooting the women he raped in the head while he came, had been unrecognizable. Dom had ended up with a scar he'd carry on his left flank for life. The result? He was rarely fucked with. He didn't sign onto any gangs or groups, he was solitary and now it was well established. And then a week ago he'd gotten a new cell mate named Leon. The intuition that his father had painstakingly developed in his son told Dom that the man would end up being a friend.
"Who you writing to," Leon asked as he sat across from Dom.
Dom looked up, quiet for a long moment before admitting, "my woman. We write once a month."
"Shit, man, I wish I had someone who would write to me," Leon complained as he lit a Marlboro.
"No family," Dom asked.
Leon shook his head, "no. Just a lot of regrets disguised as people."
"What are you in for," he asked. That had to be the most frequently asked question in prison. It invited friendship, or at least an odd companionship, so Dom rarely asked it.
"Hustling," Leon snorted to himself, "actually more like I was hustling for team A and team B, and neither of them appreciated my entrepreneurial ways."
"Kill or be killed," Dom wondered out loud.
"Got it in one," Leon confirmed, he patted the bandage on the back of his neck, "the bullet grazed me. I bled like a stuffed pig, but before I passed out I got in a lucky shot. The self-defense angle kept me from 25 to life. You?"
"Almost beat a man to death," Dom replied.
"Did he deserve it?"
Dom thought for a long moment, the final moments of his father's life etched in his memory forever crept up, he felt like he was being strangled. Finally he nodded curtly.
Leon rose and crushed out his cigarette, "I'll let you get back to your letter."
Dom focused on the paper and wrote quickly in his usual scribbled writing style. He read what he wrote before rolling his eyes and tossing the paper. He started again, this time slowly.
Leticia Ortiz
175 Clark St
Los Angelos, CA 90022
Dear Letty,
I'm glad to hear that Vince moved in. I didn't like the idea of you and Mia alone in the house. It seems like all I do these days is an endless cycle of push-up. I run a lot too, it's the closest thing to speed you can get here. During my hour outside a day I run until I can almost pretend the breeze is coming through the window of my Mazda. I run until I can imagine shifting gears and looking over to see your pretty ass parked in my passenger seat riding the wave with me.
XOXO
Dom woke up in a cold sweat. He dreamed a lot these days. Sometimes they were nightmares and sometimes they were fantasies. This time it was a mix. He had been with Letty and then suddenly she was being pulled from him by a shadow. He just knew that the shadow was death. The same shadow that had swallowed his father whole. It had been two weeks since Leon had been sent to solitary. Like Dom, he had been tested and passed, no one would be fucking with him again. Unfortunately with any test against another person came a test of mental strength. Solitary confinement was hell the likes of which most people never knew. He hated to admit it, but being alone in his cell for twenty hours a day seemed like a fresh hell without the wise cracking asshole. His nightmares had come so frequently in those two weeks that he had begun to work out even harder, anything to get him tired enough to sleep for a few hours.
He had been in this cell for almost one full year. The milestones of his life passed by in front of his eyes as he stared through the bars. He had become legal here. He had received the letter telling him he would never be able to race on the circuit here. He sometimes wondered if he would remember how to be normal when he left. He sometimes felt like there was no hope for him in this place. But he also knew that once he finally was released that come hell or high water he was not going back. He would die first.
Knowing he wasn't going to be able to sleep without the nightmares crawling over him he got out of bed and began to write.
I dreamed of you naked on the Chevelle the other night. The things I did to your body with mine were ambrosia.
I miss you everyday.
Dom
